Ultrawork Mode: Activate All Features with One Command

What You'll Learn

• Activate all advanced features of oh-my-opencode with a single command
• Make multiple AI agents work in parallel like a real team
• Avoid manually configuring multiple agents and background tasks
• Understand the design philosophy and best practices of Ultrawork mode

Your Current Challenges

You may have encountered these situations during development:

• Too many features, don't know how to use them: You have 10 specialized agents, background tasks, LSP tools, but don't know how to quickly activate them
• Manual configuration required: Every complex task requires manually specifying agents, background concurrency, and other settings
• Inefficient agent collaboration: Calling agents in series, wasting time and costs
• Tasks getting stuck midway: Agents don't have enough motivation and constraints to complete tasks

These are all affecting your ability to unleash the true power of oh-my-opencode.

Core Concept

Ultrawork Mode is oh-my-opencode's "one-click activate all" mechanism.

What is Ultrawork Mode?

Ultrawork Mode is a special working mode triggered by a keyword. When your prompt contains ultrawork or its abbreviation ulw, the system automatically activates all advanced features: parallel background tasks, deep exploration, forced completion, multi-agent collaboration, and more.

Design Philosophy

Ultrawork mode is based on the following core principles (from the Ultrawork Manifesto):

Principle	Description
Human intervention is a failure signal	If you need to constantly correct AI output, it means there's a problem with the system design
Indistinguishable code	Code written by AI should be indistinguishable from code written by senior engineers
Minimize cognitive burden	You only need to say "what to do", agents are responsible for "how to do it"
Predictable, consistent, delegatable	Agents should be as stable and reliable as a compiler

Activation Mechanism

When the system detects the ultrawork or ulw keyword:

1. Set maximum precision mode: message.variant = "max"
2. Display Toast notification: "Ultrawork Mode Activated - Maximum precision engaged. All agents at your disposal."
3. Inject complete instructions: Inject 200+ lines of ULTRAWORK instructions to agents, including:
   • Require 100% certainty before starting implementation
   • Require parallel use of background tasks
   • Force use of Category + Skills system
   • Force completion verification (TDD workflow)
   • Prohibit any "I can't do it" excuses

Follow Along

Step 1: Trigger Ultrawork Mode

Enter a prompt containing the ultrawork or ulw keyword in OpenCode:

ultrawork develop a REST API

Or more concisely:

ulw add user authentication

You should see:

• A Toast notification pops up on the interface: "Ultrawork Mode Activated"
• Agent response starts with "ULTRAWORK MODE ENABLED!"

Step 2: Observe Agent Behavior Changes

After activating Ultrawork mode, agents will:

1. Parallel exploration of codebase

   delegate_task(agent="explore", prompt="find existing API patterns", background=true)
   delegate_task(agent="explore", prompt="find test infrastructure", background=true)
   delegate_task(agent="librarian", prompt="find authentication best practices", background=true)

2. Call Plan agent to create work plan

   delegate_task(subagent_type="plan", prompt="create detailed plan based on gathered context")

3. Use Category + Skills to execute tasks

   delegate_task(category="visual-engineering", load_skills=["frontend-ui-ux", "playwright"], ...)

You should see:

• Multiple background tasks running simultaneously
• Agents actively calling specialized agents (Oracle, Librarian, Explore)
• Complete test plans and work breakdown
• Tasks continue executing until 100% complete

Step 3: Verify Task Completion

After agents complete, they will:

1. Show verification evidence: Actual test run output, manual verification descriptions
2. Confirm all TODOs complete: Won't declare completion early
3. Summarize work done: List what was done and why

You should see:

• Clear test results (not "should work")
• All issues resolved
• No unfinished TODO list

Checkpoint ✅

After completing the above steps, confirm:

• [ ] You see a Toast notification after entering ulw
• [ ] Agent response starts with "ULTRAWORK MODE ENABLED!"
• [ ] You observe parallel background tasks running
• [ ] Agents use the Category + Skills system
• [ ] There's verification evidence after task completion

If any item fails, check:

• Is the keyword spelled correctly (ultrawork or ulw)
• Are you in the main session (background tasks won't trigger the mode)
• Is the configuration file enabled with relevant features

When to Use This Technique

Scenario	Use Ultrawork	Normal Mode
Complex new features	✅ Recommended (requires multi-agent collaboration)	❌ May not be efficient enough
Urgent fixes	✅ Recommended (needs quick diagnosis and exploration)	❌ May miss context
Simple modifications	❌ Overkill (wastes resources)	✅ More suitable
Quick idea validation	❌ Overkill	✅ More suitable

Rule of thumb:

• Task involves multiple modules or systems → Use ulw
• Need deep research of codebase → Use ulw
• Need to call multiple specialized agents → Use ulw
• Single file small change → Don't need ulw

Common Pitfalls

Important Notes

1. Don't use ulw in every prompt

Ultrawork mode injects a large amount of instructions, which is overkill for simple tasks. Only use it for complex tasks that truly require multi-agent collaboration, parallel exploration, and deep analysis.

2. Background tasks won't trigger Ultrawork mode

The keyword detector skips background sessions to avoid incorrectly injecting the mode into sub-agents. Ultrawork mode only works in the main session.

3. Ensure Provider configuration is correct

Ultrawork mode relies on multiple AI models working in parallel. If certain Providers are not configured or unavailable, agents may not be able to call specialized agents.

Lesson Summary

Ultrawork mode achieves the design goal of "activate all features with one command" through keyword triggering:

• Easy to use: Just enter ulw to activate
• Automatic collaboration: Agents automatically call other agents and execute background tasks in parallel
• Forced completion: Complete verification mechanism ensures 100% completion
• Zero configuration: No need to manually set agent priorities, concurrency limits, etc.

Remember: Ultrawork mode is designed to make agents work like a real team. You just need to express intent, agents are responsible for execution.

Next Lesson Preview

In the next lesson, we'll learn Provider Configuration.

You'll learn:

• How to configure multiple Providers like Anthropic, OpenAI, Google
• How multi-model strategy automatically degrades and selects optimal models
• How to test Provider connections and quota usage

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Appendix: Source Code Reference

Click to expand source code locations

Last updated: 2026-01-26

Feature	File Path	Line Numbers
Ultrawork design philosophy	docs/ultrawork-manifesto.md	1-198
Keyword detector Hook	src/hooks/keyword-detector/index.ts	12-100
ULTRAWORK instruction template	src/hooks/keyword-detector/constants.ts	54-280
Keyword detection logic	src/hooks/keyword-detector/detector.ts	26-53

Key constants:

• KEYWORD_DETECTORS: Keyword detector configuration, including three modes: ultrawork, search, analyze
• CODE_BLOCK_PATTERN: Code block regex pattern, used to filter keywords in code blocks
• INLINE_CODE_PATTERN: Inline code regex pattern, used to filter keywords in inline code

Key functions:

• createKeywordDetectorHook(): Creates keyword detector Hook, listens for UserPromptSubmit event
• detectKeywordsWithType(): Detects keywords in text and returns type (ultrawork/search/analyze)
• getUltraworkMessage(): Generates complete ULTRAWORK mode instructions (selects Planner or normal mode based on agent type)
• removeCodeBlocks(): Removes code blocks from text to avoid triggering keywords in code blocks

Business rules:

Rule ID	Rule Description	Tag
BR-4.8.4-1	Activate Ultrawork mode when "ultrawork" or "ulw" is detected	[Fact]
BR-4.8.4-2	Ultrawork mode sets message.variant = "max"	[Fact]
BR-4.8.4-3	Ultrawork mode displays Toast notification: "Ultrawork Mode Activated"	[Fact]
BR-4.8.4-4	Background task sessions skip keyword detection to avoid mode injection	[Fact]
BR-4.8.4-5	Non-main sessions only allow ultrawork keyword, blocking other mode injection	[Fact]