Abstract: Low-productivity shale gas wells in the late production stage are prone to both low output and liquid loading. Existing optimization methods for intermittent production systems usually determine shut-in and flowing durations from experience or single production indicators, without considering fluid redistribution in the wellbore influence zone or the coupled energy evolution of the reservoir-wellbore-fracture system during the shut-in-to-flowing transition. As a result, production-system adjustment lacks a quantitative basis. To address this issue, a reservoir-wellbore-fracture-coupled optimization method for intermittent production systems of low-productivity shale gas wells is proposed. Its main innovations are reflected in the following three aspects: (1) an integrated transient coupling model considering the reservoir, wellbore, fractures, and the virtual gas tank effect in the wellbore influence zone is established to characterize near-wellbore supply capacity as well as wellbore energy storage and release; (2) a transient wellbore-flow model for key stages of intermittent production is developed to jointly predict tubing pressure, casing pressure, and instantaneous gas production; and (3) an optimization chart is constructed using the flowing-time ratio and liquid-carrying efficiency as core parameters to quantitatively identify suitable shut-in and flowing systems under different operating conditions. Validation using data from 15 pilot wells in a shale gas field in western China shows that the optimized system increases the average single-well gas production from 8 624 m³/d to 10 662 m³/d, with an average increase of 24% and a maximum increase of 74%, while the prediction error of daily gas production is 6.94%. The proposed method provides a theoretical basis and field guidance for optimizing intermittent production systems of low-productivity shale gas wells.