beads

A task tracker designed for coding agents, storing issues and their dependencies in a Dolt-backed system. Dependencies record relationships such as one task blocking another, and the tracker can sync with services such as Linear, Jira, GitLab, and GitHub.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to create and update issues, inspect task history, find unblocked work, manage dependent tasks, and coordinate work across agents or branches.
Why use it?
It preserves task memory between agent sessions and makes it clear which work is ready, blocked, or already in progress.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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 skills/itechmeat/llm-code/beads
Any agent
npx skills add itechmeat/llm-code --skill beads
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/itechmeat/llm-code

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 75 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,701 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 $0.00075 $0.02701
Opus 5 $0.00037 $0.01350
Sonnet 5 $0.00015 $0.00540
Haiku 4.5 $0.00007 $0.00270

Measured 2d ago against content hash 46510f4c4a36, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

beads 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 2d ago.

The scan reads SKILL.md. This mod also ships 1 executable file (scripts/bd_generate_markdown_plan.py), listed below but not scanned — reading those needs a real analyzer, not pattern matching.

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.

skills/beads/SKILL.md · 268 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 268 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Beads (bd)

Distributed, Dolt-backed (Git-like) graph issue tracker for AI coding agents. Persistent memory with dependency-aware task tracking.

Quick Start

Install: brew install beads or use the install scripts/binaries from the GitHub repo.

# Initialize in repo (humans run once)
bd init

# Tell your agent
echo "Use 'bd' for task tracking" >> AGENTS.md

When to Use

  • AI agent needs persistent task memory across sessions
  • Tracking dependencies between tasks (blocks:, depends_on:)
  • Multi-agent/multi-branch workflows (hash-based IDs prevent conflicts)
  • Incremental delivery with molecules/gates
  • Sync issues with GitLab, Linear, Jira, GitHub

Essential Commands

Command Action
bd ready List tasks with no open blockers
bd ready --explain Explain why tasks are or are not ready
bd ready --gated Tasks waiting at gate checkpoints
bd ready --exclude-type=X Exclude specific issue types
bd create "Title" -p 0 Create P0 task
bd show <id> View task details and audit trail
bd update <id> --status=X Update status (open/in_progress/done)
bd close <id> Close task
bd close <id> --claim-next Close current task and claim next
bd dep add <child> <parent> Link tasks (blocks, related, parent)
bd list List issues (default: 50, non-closed)
bd list --format json JSON output (alias for --json)
bd show --current Show active issue (no ID needed)
bd update <id> --claim Atomically claim issue for work
bd note <id> "text" Append note (shorthand)
bd import -i <file> Import JSONL incrementally
bd sync Sync database state
bd dolt pull Pull latest DB changes (advanced)
bd dolt push Push DB changes (advanced)
bd bootstrap Repair/bootstrap workspace identity
bd context Show current workspace/task context
bd kv set <key> <value> Store key-value pair
bd kv get <key> Retrieve stored value
bd dolt show Show Dolt connection/remote settings
bd config set-many Apply multiple config changes in one step
bd ado sync Sync with Azure DevOps work items
bd ado status Check Azure DevOps sync status
bd ado projects List Azure DevOps projects
bd gitlab sync Sync with GitLab
bd github sync Sync with GitHub Issues
bd remember Write persistent agent memory
bd recall Read persistent agent memory
bd purge Delete closed ephemeral beads (wisps)

Read the full file on GitHub · 268 lines

Files

What ships with it

5 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

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. 2d ago First seen · 268 lines · 75 tokens per session scan A 46510f4c4a36

Subscribe to this mod's changes

beads is a skill published in the GitHub repository itechmeat/llm-code (22 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 75 tokens to every session and 2,701 once invoked, about $0.0004 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.

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