beads

bd - Beads

Distributed graph issue tracker for AI agents, powered by Dolt.

Platforms: macOS, Linux, Windows, FreeBSD

Beads provides a persistent, structured memory for coding agents. It replaces messy markdown plans with a dependency-aware graph, allowing agents to handle long-horizon tasks without losing context.

⚡ Quick Start

# Install beads CLI (system-wide - don't clone this repo into your project)
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/steveyegge/beads/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

# Initialize in YOUR project
cd your-project
bd init

# Tell your agent
echo "Use 'bd' for task tracking" >> AGENTS.md

Note: Beads is a CLI tool you install once and use everywhere. You don't need to clone this repository into your project.

🛠 Features

• Dolt-Powered: Version-controlled SQL database with cell-level merge, native branching, and built-in sync via Dolt remotes.
• Agent-Optimized: JSON output, dependency tracking, and auto-ready task detection.
• Zero Conflict: Hash-based IDs (bd-a1b2) prevent merge collisions in multi-agent/multi-branch workflows.
• Compaction: Semantic "memory decay" summarizes old closed tasks to save context window.
• Messaging: Message issue type with threading (--thread), ephemeral lifecycle, and mail delegation.
• Graph Links: relates_to, duplicates, supersedes, and replies_to for knowledge graphs.

📖 Essential Commands

Command	Action
bd ready	List tasks with no open blockers.
bd create "Title" -p 0	Create a P0 task.
bd update <id> --claim	Atomically claim a task (sets assignee + in_progress).
bd dep add <child> <parent>	Link tasks (blocks, related, parent-child).
bd show <id>	View task details and audit trail.

🔗 Hierarchy & Workflow

Beads supports hierarchical IDs for epics:

• bd-a3f8 (Epic)
• bd-a3f8.1 (Task)
• bd-a3f8.1.1 (Sub-task)

Stealth Mode: Run bd init --stealth to use Beads locally without committing files to the main repo. Perfect for personal use on shared projects. See Git-Free Usage below.

Contributor vs Maintainer: When working on open-source projects:

• Contributors (forked repos): Run bd init --contributor to route planning issues to a separate repo (e.g., ~/.beads-planning). Keeps experimental work out of PRs.
• Maintainers (write access): Beads auto-detects maintainer role via SSH URLs or HTTPS with credentials. Only need git config beads.role maintainer if using GitHub HTTPS without credentials but you have write access.

📦 Installation

• npm: npm install -g @beads/bd
• Homebrew: brew install beads
• Go: go install github.com/steveyegge/beads/cmd/bd@latest

Requirements: Linux, FreeBSD, macOS, or Windows.

Building from Source

Building from source requires CGO (a C compiler). The embedded Dolt engine links against C libraries.

# Install dependencies
# macOS: xcode-select --install && brew install icu4c
# Ubuntu/Debian: sudo apt install build-essential
# Fedora: sudo dnf install gcc gcc-c++

# Build and install
make install

CGO_ENABLED=1 is set automatically by the Makefile. On macOS, Homebrew's icu4c paths are detected automatically. On Windows, MinGW or MSYS2 provides the C compiler (ICU is not required — a pure-Go fallback is used).

Security And Verification

Before trusting any downloaded binary, verify its checksum against the release checksums.txt.

The install scripts verify release checksums before install. For manual installs, do this verification yourself before first run.

On macOS, scripts/install.sh preserves the downloaded signature by default. Local ad-hoc re-signing is explicit opt-in via BEADS_INSTALL_RESIGN_MACOS=1.

See docs/ANTIVIRUS.md for Windows AV false-positive guidance and verification workflow.

💾 Storage Modes

Beads uses Dolt as its database. Two modes are available:

Embedded Mode (default)

bd init

Dolt runs in-process — no external server needed. Data lives in .beads/embeddeddolt/. Single-writer only (file locking enforced). This is the recommended mode for most users.

Server Mode

bd init --server