Beads

Beads, invoked as bd on the command line, is an issue tracker built for AI coding agents. Work items are stored in Dolt, a version controlled SQL database, so an agent can record tasks, dependencies and discoveries as it works and pick up exactly where it left off after its context window is cleared. The documentation covers the 1.3.0 release. It is designed for developers who supervise one or several coding agents on the same codebase. Hash based issue IDs prevent collisions when multiple agents create work at once, and the bd ready command shows only work that is not blocked by an open dependency. Dependencies can be marked as blocks, parent and child, discovered from, or related, so an agent can file a bug it finds mid task and link it to the issue it came from. Formulas are declarative workflow templates in TOML or JSON that instantiate into work graphs called molecules, while gates provide asynchronous coordination points for human approval, timers or GitHub events. Every command supports JSON output for programmatic use, and there is a dedicated integration guide for Claude Code. Advanced tools rename issues and prefixes while preserving references, detect and merge duplicates, and compact history. Beads is free to use and no paid plan is published. It installs through Homebrew on macOS and Linux or through an install script on macOS, Linux and FreeBSD, and it requires no server: issues sync through Dolt push and pull over the project's existing git remote. Upgrading from version 1.2.2 or earlier involves a schema migration, and the documentation asks users to read the upgrade guide first.