Beads Quick Start

Get up and running with Beads in a few minutes.

Why Beads?

Flat issue trackers (GitHub Issues, Jira, etc.) show you a list of open items. You pick one. But if that item depends on something else that isn't done yet, you've wasted time. Multiply this across a team of AI agents and humans, and you get thrashing.

Beads tracks dependencies between issues and computes a ready queue — only items with no active blockers appear. Here's the difference:

Flat tracker (GitHub Issues):

Open issues: Set up database, Create API, Add authentication
→ An agent picks "Add authentication" and gets stuck immediately

Beads:

$ bd ready
1. [P1] [task] bd-1: Set up database

$ bd ready --explain --json | jq '.blocked[0]'
{
  "id": "bd-3",
  "title": "Add authentication",
  "blocked_by": [{"id": "bd-2", "title": "Create API", "status": "open"}]
}

The agent picks the right task every time. No wasted cycles.

Installation

Install bd using the full installation guide (Homebrew, install script, npm, or go install).

Developing in a clone of this repository: use make install so the binary gets correct build metadata and a consistent install path. Avoid ad-hoc go build / go install without the Makefile unless you know what you are doing — see the repository README and AGENTS.md.

bd --help

Initialize

First time in a repository:

# Basic setup (prompts for contributor mode)
bd init

# For AI agents (non-interactive)
bd init --quiet

# OSS contributor (fork workflow with separate planning repo)
bd init --contributor

# Team member (branch workflow for collaboration)
bd init --team

# Protected main branch (GitHub/GitLab)
# Note: Dolt stores data under refs/dolt/data, separate from
# Git refs, so no --branch flag is needed.

The wizard will:

• Create .beads/ directory and embedded Dolt database
• Prompt for your role (maintainer or contributor) unless a flag is provided
• Import existing issues from git (if any)
• Prompt to install git hooks (recommended)
• Prompt to configure git merge driver (recommended)

Notes:

• Dolt is the default (and only) storage backend. Data is stored in .beads/embeddeddolt/.
• By default, Dolt runs in embedded mode (in-process, no server needed).
• For multi-writer setups, use bd init --server to connect to a dolt sql-server instead.
• To import issues from an older installation, run bd init --from-jsonl.

Role configuration

During bd init, you'll be asked: "Contributing to someone else's repo? [y/N]"

• Answer Y if you're contributing to a fork (runs contributor wizard)
• Answer N if you're the maintainer or have push access

This sets git config beads.role which determines how beads routes issues:

Role	Use case	Issue storage
maintainer	Repo owner, team with push access	In-repo .beads/
contributor	Fork contributor, OSS contributor	Separate planning repo

You can also configure manually:

# Set as contributor
git config beads.role contributor

# Set as maintainer
git config beads.role maintainer

# Check current role
git config --get beads.role

Note: If beads.role is not configured, beads falls back to URL-based detection (deprecated). Run bd doctor to check configuration status.

Your first issues

# Create a few issues
bd create "Set up database" -p 1 -t task
bd create "Create API" -p 2 -t feature
bd create "Add authentication" -p 2 -t feature

# List them
bd list

Note: Issue IDs are hash-based (e.g., bd-a1b2, bd-f14c) to prevent collisions when multiple agents/branches work concurrently.

Hierarchical issues (epics)

For large features, use hierarchical IDs to organize work:

# Create epic (generates parent hash ID)
bd create "Auth System" -t epic -p 1
# Returns: bd-a3f8e9

# Create child tasks (use --parent to attach to the epic)
bd create "Design login UI" -p 1 --parent bd-a3f8e9       # bd-a3f8e9.1
bd create "Backend validation" -p 1 --parent bd-a3f8e9    # bd-a3f8e9.2
bd create "Integration tests" -p 1 --parent bd-a3f8e9     # bd-a3f8e9.3

# View hierarchy
bd dep tree bd-a3f8e9

Output:

Dependency tree for bd-a3f8e9:

> bd-a3f8e9: Auth System [epic] [P1] (open)
  > bd-a3f8e9.1: Design login UI [P1] (open)
  > bd-a3f8e9.2: Backend validation [P1] (open)
  > bd-a3f8e9.3: Integration tests [P1] (open)

Add dependencies

# API depends on database
bd dep add bd-2 bd-1

# Auth depends on API
bd dep add bd-3 bd-2

# View the tree
bd dep tree bd-3

Output:

Dependency tree for bd-3:

> bd-3: Add authentication [P2] (open)
  > bd-2: Create API [P2] (open)
    > bd-1: Set up database [P1] (open)

Dependency visibility: bd list shows blocking dependencies inline:

○ bd-a1b2 [P1] [task] - Set up database
○ bd-f14c [P2] [feature] - Create API (blocked by: bd-a1b2)
○ bd-g25d [P2] [feature] - Add authentication (blocked by: bd-f14c)

Find ready work

bd ready

Output:

Ready work (1 issues with no blockers):

1. [P1] bd-1: Set up database

Only bd-1 is ready because bd-2 and bd-3 are blocked.

Understanding why: Use --explain to see the full graph reasoning:

bd ready --explain

Output:

Ready Work Explanation

● Ready (1 issues):

  bd-1 [P1] Set up database
    Reason: no blocking dependencies
    Unblocks: 1 issue(s)

● Blocked (2 issues):

  bd-2 [P2] Create API
    ← blocked by bd-1: Set up database [open]

  bd-3 [P2] Add authentication
    ← blocked by bd-2: Create API [open]

─ Summary: 1 ready, 2 blocked

Note: bd ready is not the same as bd list --status open. The list command shows all open issues regardless of blockers. The ready command computes the dependency graph and only shows truly unblocked work.

Work the queue

# Start working on bd-1
bd update bd-1 --claim

# Complete it
bd close bd-1 --reason "Database setup complete"

# Check ready work again
bd ready

Now bd-2 is ready.

Track progress

# See blocked issues
bd blocked

# View statistics
bd stats

Team sync

Share issues with your team using Dolt remotes. Dolt stores data under refs/dolt/data on the same Git remote, separate from standard Git refs. In repos with origin, bd init configures that Dolt remote automatically.

# Verify the remote, or add one if the repo had no origin during init
bd dolt remote list
bd dolt remote add origin git+ssh://git@github.com/org/repo.git  # if needed

# Push your issues
bd dolt push

# Pull teammates' changes
bd dolt pull

When a teammate clones the repo, bd bootstrap auto-detects the existing database on refs/dolt/data, clones it, and wires origin for future bd dolt push / bd dolt pull.

See bd dolt for CLI details. For remote configuration and federation, see the repository docs DOLT.md and FEDERATION-SETUP.md.

Optional: Notion sync

If you keep project issues in Notion, save an integration token first:

bd config set notion.token <your-token>

Then either create a new Beads database under a parent page or connect to an existing target:

bd notion init --parent <page-id>
# or
bd notion connect --url <notion-database-or-data-source-url>

The same auth value can also come from NOTION_TOKEN. Directly setting notion.data_source_id remains available as an escape hatch for advanced setups.

Check which auth source is active and whether the target schema is ready:

bd notion status
bd notion status --json

Preview or run sync:

bd notion sync --dry-run
bd notion sync
bd notion sync --pull
bd notion sync --push

Database location

By default (embedded mode), data is stored in .beads/embeddeddolt/ within your repository. In server mode, data is managed by the external dolt sql-server.

Migrating databases

After upgrading bd, use bd migrate to check for and migrate old database files:

# Inspect migration plan (AI agents)
bd migrate --inspect --json

# Check schema and config
bd info --schema --json

# Preview migration changes
bd migrate --dry-run

# Migrate old databases to beads.db
bd migrate

# Migrate and clean up old files
bd migrate --cleanup --yes

AI agents: Use --inspect to analyze migration safety before running. The system verifies required config keys and data integrity invariants.

Database maintenance

As your project accumulates closed issues, the database grows. Manage size with these commands:

# View compaction statistics
bd admin compact --stats

# Preview compaction candidates (30+ days closed)
bd admin compact --analyze --json

# Apply agent-generated summary
bd admin compact --apply --id bd-42 --summary summary.txt

# Immediately delete closed issues (CAUTION: permanent!)
bd admin cleanup --force

When to compact:

• Database file > 10MB with many old closed issues
• After major project milestones when old issues are no longer relevant
• Before archiving a project phase

Note: Compaction is permanent graceful decay. Original content is discarded but viewable via bd restore <id> from git history.

Next steps

• Add labels: bd create "Task" -l "backend,urgent"
• Filter ready work: bd ready --priority 1
• Explain the graph: bd ready --explain
• Check graph integrity: bd graph check
• Search issues: bd list --status open
• Detect cycles: bd dep cycles
• Gates for PR/CI sync: bd gate
• More sync scenarios: bd dolt
• Full command list: CLI Reference

See the repository README for an overview and links to deeper docs.