Beads Documentation

Beads (bd) is a Dolt-powered issue tracker designed for AI-supervised coding workflows.

Why Beads?

Traditional issue trackers (Jira, GitHub Issues) weren't designed for AI agents. Beads was built from the ground up for:

AI-native workflows - Hash-based IDs prevent collisions when multiple agents work concurrently
Dolt-backed storage - Issues stored in a version-controlled SQL database, enabling collaboration via Dolt-native replication
Dependency-aware execution - bd ready shows only unblocked work
Formula system - Declarative templates for repeatable workflows
Multi-agent coordination - Routing, gates, and molecules for complex workflows

Quick Start

bash

# Install via Homebrew (macOS/Linux)
brew install beads

# Or quick install (macOS/Linux/FreeBSD)
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gastownhall/beads/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

# Initialize in your project
cd your-project
bd init --quiet

# Create your first issue
bd create "Set up database" -p 1 -t task

# See ready work
bd ready

Core Concepts

Concept	Description
Issues	Work items with priorities, types, labels, and dependencies
Dependencies	`blocks`, `parent-child`, `discovered-from`, `related`
Dolt Server	Database server for multi-writer access and performance
Formulas	Declarative workflow templates (TOML or JSON)
Molecules	Work graphs with parent-child relationships
Gates	Async coordination primitives (human, timer, GitHub)

For AI Agents

Beads is optimized for AI coding agents:

bash

# Always use --json for programmatic access
bd list --json
bd show bd-42 --json

# Track discovered work during implementation
bd create "Found bug in auth" --description="Details..." \
  --deps discovered-from:bd-100 --json

# Push changes at end of session
bd dolt push

See the Claude Code integration for detailed agent instructions.

Architecture

Dolt DB (.beads/dolt/, gitignored)
    ↕ dolt commit
Local Dolt history
    ↕ dolt push/pull
Remote Dolt repository (shared across machines)

The magic is automatic synchronization via Dolt's version-controlled database with built-in replication.

Next Steps

Installation - Get bd installed
Quick Start - Create your first issues
CLI Reference - All available commands
Workflows - Formulas, molecules, and gates

Introduction