In practice, this feature has questionable real-world benefits:
Unnecessary Complexity: Experienced users already know when to change modes based on their workflow needs.
False Assumptions: The AI often lacks sufficient context to accurately determine when a phase is truly “complete” - only the user fully understands their goals.
Interruption Risk: Could become disruptive if the AI frequently suggests mode changes during focused work.
Control Confusion: Creates ambiguity about who’s directing the workflow - the human or the AI.
Premature Transitions: May lead to mode changes before work is actually complete if the AI misunderstands project state.
Solution Looking for Problem: In real usage, explicitly commanding mode changes is simple and gives the user clear control.
STANDBY Mode - What Is It Really?
The STANDBY mode appears problematic:
Redundant Concept: If no RIPER mode is active, there’s no need for a special “non-mode” mode.
Mode Inflation: Unnecessarily adds a 6th mode to a 5-mode system.
Boundary Confusion: Creates ambiguity about when to use STANDBY versus RESEARCH.
Pointless Distinction: If the assistant can answer general questions in STANDBY, this functionality could be incorporated into RESEARCH mode.
Default State Problem: Starting in RESEARCH mode by default is simpler and accomplishes the same goal.
Both features appear to add complexity without substantial practical benefit. The core RIPER system’s strength comes from its clarity and simplicity - these additions may undermine those advantages by making the system more complex and potentially confusing.
Thanks for the input. I’m using it the way I laid out, and it’s working for what I need. I did appreciate your comment, and thanks for taking the time—but I’m gonna stick with my setup for now.
If those other options work better for you, then yeah—I’d say keep using them.
I read about the versions you published, I found them very interesting and complete, but it seems to me that it overloads the flow being used directly in the agent in the cursor.
I made some adjustments to the original database and it is far from what you did, but so far it is being useful.
I believe that moving each mode to a different agent and if possible external to the cursor, would make the process faster and more accurate.
I divided it into parts so it wouldn’t be too big, it greatly improved Claude’s accuracy, but it takes a long time and there’s the problem of 25 executions that lock the process.
I agree that the original CursorRIPER framework is very cognitive heavy on the AI that’s why I made the Sigma and Sigma-lite versions. The links to the GitHub are in this thread. Try them out, they work pretty good and are a very low token count
This is a great solution, but the current idea is to implement it in the Cursor rule. Has anyone come up with a way to implement this idea through the MCP protocol? I’m looking forward to it!
This is a great solution, but the current idea is to implement it in the Cursor rule. Has anyone come up with a way to implement this idea through the MCP protocol? I’m looking forward to it!
hey freemchr, I would recommend checking out @johnpeterman72 work he has been updating various options for various scenarios, checkout his github and there you should find a version that most suits your use case scenario
