Messaging in Beads

Beads supports messaging as a first-class issue type, enabling inter-agent and human-agent communication within the same system used for issue tracking.

Architecture

Mail commands (bd mail) delegate to an external mail provider (typically gt mail in an orchestrator). Beads stores messages as issues with type: message, threading via replies_to dependencies, and ephemeral lifecycle via the ephemeral flag.

This design separates concerns:

• Beads = data plane (stores messages as issues)
• Orchestrator = control plane (routing, delivery, notifications)

Setup

Configure the mail delegate (one-time):

# Environment variable (recommended for agents)
export BEADS_MAIL_DELEGATE="gt mail"

# Or per-project config
bd config set mail.delegate "gt mail"

Sending and Receiving

# Send mail (delegates to gt mail)
bd mail send worker/ -s "Review needed" -m "Please review bd-abc"

# Check inbox
bd mail inbox

# Read a message
bd mail read msg-123

# Reply to a thread
bd mail reply msg-123 -m "Reviewed and approved"

Message Issue Type

Messages are issues with type: message:

Threading

Messages form threads via replies_to dependencies. View a full thread:

bd show msg-123 --thread

This traces the replies_to chain to find the root message, then collects all replies via BFS, displaying the conversation with proper indentation.

Thread display shows:

• Sender and recipient
• Timestamp
• Subject and body
• Reply depth (indented)

Ephemeral Messages

Messages marked ephemeral: true are transient - they can be bulk-deleted after a swarm completes:

# Clean up closed ephemeral messages
bd cleanup --ephemeral --force

# Preview what would be deleted
bd cleanup --ephemeral --dry-run

# Only delete ephemeral messages older than 7 days
bd cleanup --ephemeral --older-than 7 --force

Ephemeral messages are:

• Excluded from bd ready by default
• Not synced to remotes (transient)
• Eligible for bulk deletion when closed

Identity

The actor identity (used for sender on messages) is resolved in order:

1. --actor flag on the command
2. BEADS_ACTOR environment variable
3. BD_ACTOR environment variable (deprecated alias)
4. git config user.name
5. $USER environment variable
6. "unknown"

Beads Event Hooks

Scripts in .beads/hooks/ run after certain events:

Hooks receive event data as JSON on stdin. This enables orchestrator integration (e.g., notifying services of new messages) without beads knowing about the orchestrator.

Creates with initial labels preserve the legacy hook sequence: on_create receives the issue snapshot before labels, followed by one or more on_update events with cumulative label snapshots. The labels are already persisted before those hooks run, so hook scripts that need the create-time sequence should rely on the JSON payload instead of re-reading the issue from the store during the hook.

Batch creates with initial dependencies emit on_update for each persisted dependency after the create-time hooks. Each payload carries a cumulative dependency snapshot in request order, matching the event shape produced by explicit post-create dependency additions; dependencies skipped because their target was not persisted do not produce hooks.

See Also

• Graph Links - relates_to, duplicates, supersedes, replies_to
• CLI Reference - All commands