Beads

Beads

Use Beads as the private durable task system for authorized Lotti maintainers. Public bugs, feature requests, and contributor coordination stay in GitHub Issues. Local plans remain useful for the current turn.

First Step

First confirm that the private tracker is available:

bd --readonly list --json

If no database exists and the current user is an authorized maintainer, run:

chmod 700 .beads
git config beads.role maintainer
bd bootstrap

If access is denied, do not initialize a competing database. Use GitHub Issues and PR discussion instead.

Run bd prime manually when workflow context is needed. Do not install Git, Codex, or Claude hooks for Beads in this repository.

Core CLI Workflow

1. Pull and find work:

bd dolt pull
bd ready
bd list --status=open
bd list --status=in_progress

2. Inspect before editing:

bd show <id>

3. Claim work atomically:

bd update <id> --claim

4. Create durable follow-up work when implementation reveals new tasks:

bd create "Short title" --description="Why this exists and what needs to be done" --type=task --priority=2

5. Close completed work:

bd close <id> --reason="Completed"

6. With explicit authority, publish durable changes:

bd dolt push

What Belongs In Beads

Maintainers use Beads for:

• shared project tasks
• blockers and dependencies
• discovered follow-up work
• work that must survive thread reset, compaction, or handoff
• status that another person or agent should be able to resume

Public-facing context must still be copied into GitHub issues, PR descriptions, or review discussion so contributors never need private tracker access.

Rules

• Do not use bd edit; it opens an interactive editor. Use bd update flags instead.
• Prefer --json when parsing bd output programmatically.
• Do not auto-close or mutate tasks unless the work is actually complete.
• Do not store credentials, private user data, or other secrets in Beads.
• Do not commit, push Git, or sync Dolt without explicit authority.