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bd swarm

Generated from bd help --doc swarm

bd swarm​

Swarm management commands for coordinating parallel work on epics.

A swarm is a structured body of work defined by an epic and its children, with dependencies forming a DAG (directed acyclic graph) of work.

bd swarm

bd swarm create​

Create a swarm molecule to orchestrate parallel work on an epic.

The swarm molecule:

  • Links to the epic it orchestrates
  • Has mol_type=swarm for discovery
  • Specifies a coordinator (optional)
  • Can be picked up by any coordinator agent

If given a single issue (not an epic), it will be auto-wrapped:

  • Creates an epic with that issue as its only child
  • Then creates the swarm molecule for that epic

Examples: bd swarm create bd-epic-123 # Create swarm for epic bd swarm create bd-epic-123 --coordinator=observer/ # With specific coordinator bd swarm create bd-task-456 # Auto-wrap single issue

bd swarm create [epic-id] [flags]

Flags:

      --coordinator string   Coordinator address (e.g., my-project/witness)
      --force                Create new swarm even if one already exists

bd swarm list​

List all swarm molecules with their status.

Shows each swarm molecule with:

  • Progress (completed/total issues)
  • Active workers
  • Epic ID and title

Examples: bd swarm list # List all swarms bd swarm list --json # Machine-readable output

bd swarm list

bd swarm status​

Show the current status of a swarm, computed from beads.

Accepts either:

  • An epic ID (shows status for that epic's children)
  • A swarm molecule ID (follows the link to find the epic)

Displays issues grouped by state:

  • Completed: Closed issues
  • Active: Issues currently in_progress (with assignee)
  • Ready: Open issues with all dependencies satisfied
  • Blocked: Open issues waiting on dependencies

The status is COMPUTED from beads, not stored separately. If beads changes, status changes.

Examples: bd swarm status gt-epic-123 # Show swarm status by epic bd swarm status gt-swarm-456 # Show status via swarm molecule bd swarm status gt-epic-123 --json # Machine-readable output

bd swarm status [epic-or-swarm-id]

bd swarm validate​

Validate an epic's structure to ensure it's ready for swarm execution.

Checks for:

  • Correct dependency direction (requirement-based, not temporal)
  • Orphaned issues (roots with no dependents)
  • Missing dependencies (leaves that should depend on something)
  • Cycles (impossible to resolve)
  • Disconnected subgraphs

Reports:

  • Ready fronts (waves of parallel work)
  • Estimated worker-sessions
  • Maximum parallelism
  • Warnings for potential issues

Examples: bd swarm validate gt-epic-123 # Validate epic structure bd swarm validate gt-epic-123 --verbose # Include detailed issue graph

bd swarm validate [epic-id] [flags]

Flags:

      --verbose   Include detailed issue graph in output