Bd To Br Migration

bd → br Migration

Premise: A migrated AGENTS.md is read by agents who then run the commands in it. So the migration must produce docs that match the real br binary and warn about the gotchas agents hit at runtime. Mechanical find-replace is not enough.

TL;DR — Single File

# 1. Discover
./scripts/find-bd-refs.sh /path/to/dir

# 2. Apply the 7-step transform (see below) using your editor

# 3. Verify (must exit 0)
./scripts/verify-migration.sh /path/to/file.md

If verifier exits 2 or prints any BANNED line, the file is not done — re-edit and re-run.

Real Command Surface (br v0.2+)

Verified by running br --help against the installed binary. Use only these in migrated docs.

Querying/triage is delegated to bv (sidecar). In migrated docs, prefer bv --robot-triage / bv --robot-next for what to work on; use br for mutations and single-issue detail.

Banned Commands — DO NOT propagate (they don't exist)

The migration target docs frequently contain phantoms inherited from drafts or old versions of beads. Strip them. The verifier fails on any of these:

Why these slipped in: the original AGENTS.md template across this user's projects propagated br prime, br compact, br doctor --fix, and br update --add-note from an aspirational design doc. CASS sessions show agents repeatedly hitting "unrecognized command" errors on these in production. Treat them as real bugs to fix during migration, not as commands to translate.

The 7-Step Transform

Apply in order (later steps depend on earlier ones).

1. Section headers       "bd (beads)" → "br (beads_rust)"
2. Non-invasive note     Insert immediately under the beads section header (see template)
3. Command renames       bd ready/list/show/create/update/close/dep/stats → br <same>
4. Sync transform        bd sync → br sync --flush-only  + git add .beads/ + git commit
5. Issue IDs             bd-NNNN → br-NNNN  (thread_ids, subjects, reasons, commit msgs)
6. Strip phantoms        br prime / br compact / br doctor --fix / --add-note / --description-file
7. Add runtime gotchas   skip-worktree, lint-staged, br edit, bare bv, worktree+DB (see §4)

Step 2 — The non-invasive note (required template)

Paste verbatim under the migrated section header:

**Note:** `br` is non-invasive — it never executes git commands. After every `br sync --flush-only` (or any mutation, since auto-flush is on by default), you must manually:

```bash
git add .beads/
git commit -m "sync beads"

If git status shows no .beads/ changes after a mutation, see §4 (skip-worktree gotcha).

### Step 4 — Sync transform (the high-stakes one)

bd sync br sync --flush-only → git add .beads/ git commit -m "sync beads"

Two reasons agents lose work here:
- They translate `bd sync` to `br sync` (missing `--flush-only`) — verifier catches this.
- They translate `bd sync` to `br sync --flush-only` but forget the `git add` lines — verifier catches this when sync count > 0 and `git add .beads/` count == 0.

### Step 6 — Strip phantoms (mechanical)

```bash
# In the migrated file, delete any line matching:
sed -i '/br prime/d;          /br compact/d' file.md
sed -i 's/br doctor --fix/br doctor --repair/g' file.md
# --add-note and --description-file: rewrite in editor (see §4 for replacement patterns)

Step 7 — Add the runtime gotchas section

If the file is an AGENTS.md (vs. a one-off doc), append the §4 block below to the beads section. Skip for short reference snippets.

§4 — Runtime Gotchas To Encode in Migrated Docs

These are the mistakes agents made in CASS sessions when running migrated docs. Migrated AGENTS.md files should include this material verbatim.

4.1 .beads/issues.jsonl invisible after sync (skip-worktree)

Symptom: br sync --flush-only succeeds; git status shows no .beads/ changes; commit fails or is empty.

Cause: .beads/issues.jsonl has the skip-worktree bit set (or is in .git/info/exclude), so git ignores modifications.

Diagnose & fix:

git ls-files -v .beads/ | grep -i '^[sS]'   # 'S' = skip-worktree set
git update-index --no-skip-worktree .beads/issues.jsonl
git add -f .beads/issues.jsonl              # -f bypasses excludes

4.2 lint-staged / Husky drops .beads/ from the commit

Symptom: Commit reports "no changes added"; or .beads/issues.jsonl is staged but absent from the resulting commit.

Cause: lint-staged stashes-and-restores worktree state around hooks; .beads/ files outside its glob get dropped. Husky may also re-stage and clobber.

Workaround: stage and commit .beads/ in a separate commit with hooks disabled:

git add .beads/
HUSKY=0 git commit -m "sync beads" --no-verify -- .beads/

Then make the code commit separately. Don't bypass hooks for code commits.

4.3 br create -d "…" shell-escaping breaks JSONL

Symptom: br create "succeeds" but later commands fail with invalid JSON at line N in .beads/issues.jsonl.

Cause: Backticks in -d trigger shell command substitution; literal newlines / unescaped <, >, ! in the description corrupt the JSONL row written by br.

Safe patterns (in order of preference):

# A. Bulk import from a markdown file — best for any non-trivial description
cat > /tmp/issue.md <<'EOF'
# Title here

## Description
Full multi-line text with `backticks`, "quotes", and $shell-like content.
EOF
br create -f /tmp/issue.md

# B. Heredoc → command substitution (single issue, inline)
DESC="$(cat <<'EOF'
Multi-line text with `backticks` and special chars.
EOF
)"
br create -t task -p 2 -d "$DESC" "Title"

# C. Last resort: -d "…" for a one-line ASCII description with no special chars
br create -t task -p 2 -d "Simple description" "Title"

Always single-quote the heredoc terminator (<<'EOF') to disable interpolation.

If a prior bad call corrupted the JSONL, run br doctor --repair (rebuilds DB from a clean JSONL) or git checkout -- .beads/issues.jsonl and re-run.

4.4 br update --notes REPLACES — there is no append

Symptom: Agent uses --add-note (from old docs); br errors with "unexpected argument". Or agent uses --notes and overwrites earlier session notes.

Append pattern:

existing=$(br show <id> --json | jq -r '.notes // ""')
br update <id> --notes "$(printf '%s\n\n%s' "$existing" "New note")"

4.5 br edit hangs Claude Code / Codex

br edit opens $EDITOR interactively — non-TTY agent sessions hang forever. Never use it. Use br update <id> --title/--description/--design/--acceptance-criteria/--notes … instead.

4.6 Bare bv launches a blocking TUI

Always use bv --robot-* flags. Bare bv opens a curses UI and the session deadlocks. Common entry points:

bv --robot-triage     # Prioritized work + recommendations
bv --robot-next       # Single top pick + claim command
bv --robot-plan       # Parallel-execution tracks

4.7 Git worktrees + .beads/*.db

The SQLite DB lives in the main repo's .beads/ directory. Running br create from a worktree often hits a partial / empty DB and fails.

Rule: all br mutations happen in the main repo. Then git pull (or copy .beads/issues.jsonl) into the worktree before committing there.

4.8 Auto-flush is on by default

br auto-flushes JSONL after every mutation (--no-auto-flush to disable). The explicit br sync --flush-only is a belt-and-suspenders barrier before commit — keep it in migrated docs even though many writes already flushed.

Validation

./scripts/verify-migration.sh path/to/AGENTS.md

Exit codes:

• 0 — clean
• 1 — argument / file error
• 2 — migration incomplete: bd refs left, banned commands present, or required pattern missing

The verifier checks for: leftover `bd `, leftover bd sync, bd-NNNN IDs, banned commands (br prime, br compact, br doctor --fix, --add-note, --description-file), the non-invasive note, and git add .beads/ paired with each br sync --flush-only.

Don't trust "PASS with warnings". If you see warnings, read each one and decide — they often indicate genuine misses (e.g., file has br sync --flush-only but no git add .beads/ because it's in a separate code block).

Bulk Mode (10+ files)

./scripts/find-bd-refs.sh /data/projects   # discovers + recommends batch size

For 10+ files, dispatch the batch-migrator subagent at ~10 files per batch. Run the verifier between batches; do not start batch N+1 until batch N is clean.

See BULK.md for the subagent prompt and commit strategy.

References

What this skill does NOT do

• It does not install or update br itself (use br upgrade).
• It does not migrate existing bd-NNNN issue IDs in the live DB — those are stable identifiers and the JSONL stays valid.
• It does not fix code references to bd outside docs (search separately if your codebase has them).