workflow

workflow is a command for coding agents from gastownhall/beads. It costs 8 tokens per session (561 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A guide to using Beads, an issue tracker for coding work supervised by AI agents. It explains how to find unblocked tasks, claim them, record related work, and close completed issues.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to find ready issues, claim tasks, create follow-up issues, link discovered work, update progress, close completed tasks, and check newly unblocked work.
Why use it?
It provides a repeatable process for keeping coding tasks, dependencies, discoveries, and progress organised. This helps developers and AI agents know what work is ready and what became available next.

Command

Part of the beads plugin — 29 commands, 1 agent, 4 hooks shipped together

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add commands/gastownhall/beads/workflow
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/gastownhall/beads

Or install beads, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 29 commands, 1 agent, 4 hooks.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for workflow

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/gastownhall/beads/workflow.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/commands/gastownhall/beads/workflow)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/commands/gastownhall/beads/workflow"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/gastownhall/beads/workflow.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 8 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 561 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00008 $0.00561
Opus 5 $0.00004 $0.00280
Sonnet 5 $0.00002 $0.00112
Haiku 4.5 $0.00001 $0.00056

Measured 4d ago against content hash 23ce9fbfe8ac, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

workflow scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 4d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

plugins/beads/skills/beads/commands/workflow.md · 59 lines

What it actually says

Display the beads workflow for AI agents and developers.

Beads Workflow

Beads is an issue tracker designed for AI-supervised coding workflows. Here's how to use it effectively:

1. Find Ready Work

Use /beads:ready or the ready MCP tool to see tasks with no blockers.

2. Claim Your Task

Claim the issue atomically (assignee + in_progress in one step):

  • Via command: /beads:update <id> --claim
  • Via MCP tool: claim with issue_id: "<id>"

3. Work on It

Implement, test, and document the feature or fix.

4. Discover New Work

As you work, you'll often find bugs, TODOs, or related work:

  • Create issues: /beads:create or create MCP tool
  • Link them: Use dep MCP tool with type: "discovered-from"
  • This maintains context and work history

5. Complete the Task

Close the issue when done:

  • Via command: /beads:close <id> "Completed: <summary>"
  • Via MCP tool: close with reason

6. Check What's Unblocked

After closing, check if other work became ready:

  • Use /beads:ready to see newly unblocked tasks
  • Start the cycle again

Tips

  • Priority levels: 0=critical, 1=high, 2=medium, 3=low, 4=backlog
  • Issue types: bug, feature, task, epic, chore
  • Dependencies: Use blocks for hard dependencies, related for soft links
  • Auto-sync: Changes are stored in Dolt and synced via bd dolt push / bd dolt pull

Available Commands

  • /beads:ready - Find unblocked work
  • /beads:create - Create new issue
  • /beads:show - Show issue details
  • /beads:update - Update issue
  • /beads:close - Close issue
  • /beads:workflow - Show this guide (you are here!)

MCP Tools Available

Use these via the beads MCP server:

  • ready, list, show, create, claim, update, close
  • dep (manage dependencies), blocked, stats
  • init (initialize bd in a project)

For more details, see the beads README at: https://github.com/gastownhall/beads

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 4d ago First seen · 59 lines · 8 tokens per session scan A 23ce9fbfe8ac

Subscribe to this mod's changes

workflow is a command published in the GitHub repository gastownhall/beads (26,797 stars, last pushed 2d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 8 tokens to every session and 561 once invoked, about $0.0000 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.