Beads

Overview

Beads is an open-source project maintained by Steve Yegge, tracked as one of three monitored repositories in the AI Digest. The project demonstrates rapid iteration and active development cycles, with six minor versions released across a three-week period in March 2026.

Timeline

• 2026-05-03-AI-Digest — No new release; v1.0.3 from April 24 still current, now nine days old. Post-1.x settle window continues.

• 2026-05-02-AI-Digest — No new release this week; v1.0.3 from April 24 remains latest, now eight days old. Post-1.x settle window continues; release cadence unremarkable.

• 2026-03-08-AI-Digest - Beads v0.59.0 released

• 2026-03-12-AI-Digest - Beads v0.60.0 released

• 2026-03-17-AI-Digest - Beads v0.61.0 released

• 2026-03-22-AI-Digest - Beads v0.62.0 released

• 2026-03-31-AI-Digest - Beads v0.63.3 released (final tracked version)

• 2026-04-05-AI-Digest — Beads hits v1.0.0 milestone: pre-compiled binaries across 6 platforms, —non-interactive flag for CI/cloud agents, SlotSet/SlotGet/SlotClear storage, batch config ops, first-class spike/story/milestone issue types.

• 2026-04-06-AI-Digest — v1.0.0 remains latest release; no new release since Thursday.

• 2026-04-07-AI-Digest — No new release; v1.0.0 stable with Azure DevOps integration and embedded Dolt support

• 2026-04-07-AI-Digest — No new release; v1.0.0 stable milestone from April 3 remains latest.

• 2026-04-08-AI-Digest — No new release; v1.0.0 remains latest. Recent commit activity continues hardening: GitLab sync deduplication and epic-to-milestone mapping, ADO push filter fixes, and concurrent embedded Dolt access protected by exclusive file locks.

• 2026-04-26-AI-Digest — Beads v1.0.3 (April 24) ships three load-bearing features: bd gate create for external dependency blocking, bd prune for cleanup of closed beads, and BD_JSON_ENVELOPE=1 for uniform JSON wire format with published schema and structured error codes. The gate primitive enables modeling “blocked on vendor” or “waiting on security review” without synthetic dependency placeholders.

• 2026-04-30-AI-Digest — No new release this week; v1.0.3 (April 24) remains latest after six days of quiet in the release cadence.

• 2026-05-28-AI-Digest — No new release this week; still on v1.0.4 (2026-05-09, now 19 days old). The one new signal: the repo now resolves to gastownhall/beads, with the old steveyegge/beads path redirecting after a transfer/rename (the GitHub API follows it cleanly). Cadence-watch — the next tag is the read on whether the post-1.0 pace settles into a monthly rhythm.

• 2026-05-29-AI-Digest — Beads is current on v1.0.5 (dated 2026-05-28) — storage and schema hardening rather than a headline feature: foreign keys with cascade across the issue and wisp tables, a forward schema-skew guard, large content columns widened to LONGTEXT (lifting the ~64 KB/field ceiling), and dependencies.depends_on_id promoted to a STORED generated column. The repo’s gastownhall/beads move is confirmed. Note for the v1.0.x line: the shift making JSONL auto-export opt-in (with a shrink-guard) actually landed back in v1.0.3; v1.0.5 inherits it.

• 2026-06-02-AI-Digest — No new release this week. Stable remains v1.0.4 (2026-05-09); the v1.0.5 tag (2026-05-29) is still a gated pre-release marked “do not upgrade” pending the multi-machine bd dolt sync regression first flagged in 2026-05-29-AI-Digest and held flat through 2026-05-30-AI-Digest, 2026-05-31-AI-Digest, and 2026-06-01-AI-Digest. The repo now lives at gastownhall/beads; steveyegge/beads redirects. v1.0.6 is still the reported fix-forward.

• 2026-06-05-AI-Digest — Unchanged. Stable remains v1.0.4 (2026-05-09); the v1.0.5 pre-release still sits on GitHub flagged “do not upgrade” and Homebrew is still reverted to v1.0.4; v1.0.6 has not shipped despite being the announced fix-forward for the multi-machine bd dolt sync corruption. Already-reported pattern continued from 2026-06-04-AI-Digest — now several weeks since the last stable tag, and the next tag remains the only signal worth watching.

• 2026-06-06-AI-Digest — No new release. v1.0.5 (2026-05-29, pre-release) remains the stuck tag flagged in 2026-06-05-AI-Digest — eight days out, no movement on the ”🚨 do not upgrade” gate (migration 0043 can silently break multi-machine bd dolt sync after both clones upgrade, issue #4259). Homebrew is still reverted to v1.0.4 (stable, 2026-05-09) and the announced fix-forward v1.0.6 has not shipped. Side-note worth pinning: the repo now lives at gastownhall/beads — the steveyegge/beads URL 301-redirects there. The next tag remains the only signal worth watching.

• 2026-06-07-AI-Digest — No new release. v1.0.5 (2026-05-29, pre-release) remains the stuck tag — nine days out, with the ”🚨 do not upgrade” gate still in place because migration 0043 can silently and unrecoverably break multi-machine bd dolt sync once both clones upgrade (issue #4259). Homebrew remains reverted to v1.0.4; the announced fix-forward v1.0.6 has still not shipped. Status unchanged from 2026-06-06-AI-Digest — the next tag is still the only signal worth watching.

• 2026-06-15-AI-Digest — No new release. Beads v1.0.5 (2026-05-29, pre-release) is now seventeen days out. Homebrew remains pinned to v1.0.4 (2026-05-09); v1.0.6 fix-forward still in development and unshipped. The migration 0043 gate that can silently and unrecoverably break multi-machine bd dolt sync is unchanged — operators should continue to avoid cross-machine bd dolt push / pull until v1.0.6 lands. The story is unchanged from 2026-06-14-AI-Digest and the thirteen digests before it; the next tag is still the only signal worth watching.

• 2026-06-17-AI-Digest — No new release this week. v1.0.5 is still the gated/broken pre-release (May 29 — Homebrew has reverted to v1.0.4 and a v1.0.6 fix is in flight); v1.0.4 (May 9) remains the stable channel head, now 39 days stale. The migration-0043 cross-machine sync hazard flagged in prior digests is unresolved. Nothing new to add today.

• 2026-06-28-AI-Digest — v1.1.0-rc.1 ships June 26 — first new Beads tag since v1.0.4 on May 9, breaking the 49-day silence the corpus has been tracking. The headline structural fact: this is a release candidate, not the new stable — the “Latest” badge on the steveyegge/beads page is still pinned to v1.0.4, and rc.1 ships under the pre-release flag, so production users should not migrate yet. Headline changes surfaced from the 48-day backlog: a new --include-infra flag on bd count so cardinality matches bd list; bd doctor detects and repairs rekey-backfill remnants in dependency keys (the cleanup path for vaults that survived the v1.0.x rekey work); a new --allow-stale flag on bd import for restoring snapshots beyond the stale guard; and a bd metrics subcommand with a friendly first-run consent notice for usage tracking. The rc tag is the signal that Yegge is staging the next stable rather than tagging-as-shipped — matches the pattern from the v1.0.0 RC cycle in April. The 14-day test is whether v1.1.0 stable lands inside the standard -rc.1 → stable window.

• 2026-06-29-AI-Digest — v1.1.0-rc.1 (June 26) is still the latest tag with the “Latest” badge on the steveyegge/beads page still pinned to v1.0.4 — day three of the 14-day rc.1 → stable test set up in 2026-06-28-AI-Digest. No further pre-release iterations yet, no v1.1.0 stable. The fact pattern that matters: a 48-day batch shipped as an RC, not a feature drop, means the next signal worth waiting for is whether Yegge cuts v1.1.0 stable inside the standard window or whether rc.2 lands first.

• 2026-06-30-AI-Digest — v1.1.0-rc.1 (June 26) is still the latest tag with the stable “Latest” badge still pinned to v1.0.4 from May 9 — day four of the 14-day rc.1 → stable window opened in 2026-06-28-AI-Digest. No rc.2 iteration, no v1.1.0 stable cut. Carry the gap until the test resolves; the next signal is whether Beads cuts stable inside the standard window or whether an rc.2 iteration lands first. already-reported: 2026-06-28-AI-Digest

• 2026-07-05-AI-Digest — v1.1.0 stable shipped 2026-07-04 06:07 UTC — first stable cut of the v1.1.0 line, promoting out of rc.2 after roughly 48 hours and closing the 14-day rc.1 → stable window opened in 2026-06-28-AI-Digest on day eight. The narrow read: the resilience-and-migration primitives that landed in rc.2 on 2026-07-02 promoted to stable inside 48 hours — a disciplined turnaround on a narrow migration fix, not blanket velocity. Load-bearing features in the release: smart remote-migrate gate default-on (state-aware gate from rc.2 now the default surface, not a flag), embedded working-set reconcile commands open past the dirty-table migration guard (unblocking a previously-blocked operation class for schema-drifted worktrees), auto-export JSONL in SQL-server mode via working-set state hash, schema v53 wisp dependency drift repair closing the v53-upgrade drift thread the corpus has been tracking since rc.1, and a secondary reminder when AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md diverge. The rc.2 → stable window (~48 hours) is short enough that the smart-remote-migrate gate has had limited soak time before shipping as the default — worth calibrating against the standard 14-day expectation before treating this as a template for future minor lines.

• 2026-07-10-AI-Digest — v1.1.0 stable (2026-07-04 06:07 UTC) remains latest — day six since ship, still no v1.1.1 patch. Already reported in 2026-07-05-AI-Digest. The fastest-stable-of-2026 window continues to hold cleanly, and no maintainer-side signal has surfaced. already-reported: 2026-07-05-AI-Digest

• 2026-07-14-AI-Digest — v1.1.0 stable (2026-07-04) remains latest — day ten since ship with no v1.1.1 patch. The longest quiet stretch since the pre-1.0 silence 2026-06-28-AI-Digest tracked. No user-thread patch pressure has surfaced on GitHub either — treat as intentional post-stable soak, not a stall. (Verification note: WebSearch surfaced a v1.0.2 npm tag alongside the 1.1.0 GitHub tag — the two live in parallel packaging streams and the 1.1.0 stable status carries from the prior digest citation rather than a fresh confirm today.) already-reported: 2026-07-05-AI-Digest

• 2026-07-15-AI-Digest — v1.1.0 stable (2026-07-04 06:07 UTC) remains latest — day eleven since ship, still no v1.1.1 patch. Extends the post-stable-soak read carried in 2026-07-14-AI-Digest by one more calendar day. No user-thread patch pressure surfaced on GitHub. already-reported: 2026-07-14-AI-Digest

• 2026-07-17-AI-Digest — v1.1.0 remains latest (2026-07-04), same as 2026-07-16-AI-Digest — day thirteen on the stable tag with no v1.1.1 patch. Digest framing: the release-cadence read is still “content-hash drift detection and compaction-archives-before-discarding shipped clean, and the maintainer isn’t chasing hotfixes.” Noted for cadence, not concern. already-reported: 2026-07-05-AI-Digest

• 2026-07-11-AI-Digest — v1.1.0 stable (2026-07-04 06:07 UTC) remains latest — day seven since ship, still no v1.1.1 patch. Already reported in 2026-07-05-AI-Digest and re-flagged in 2026-07-10-AI-Digest. The fastest-stable-of-2026 window continues to hold cleanly through a full calendar week — no maintainer-side signal, no patch pressure surfaced from user threads, no schema-migration reports. v1.1.0 is behaving like the intended stable resting point. already-reported: 2026-07-05-AI-Digest

• 2026-08-02-AI-Digest — No new tag since v1.1.2 (2026-07-26 18:09 UTC) — 7 days, and the same v1.1.1 → v1.1.2 MCP-lock-refresh hotfix that closed the earlier 22-day silent stretch. already-reported: 2026-08-01-AI-Digest. Cadence framing: the 7-day gap sits well inside the historical post-1.1.x quiet envelope; the digest logs the toolchain-wide silence today (Claude Code day 8, OpenSpec day 4) as the simultaneity being the note-worthy signal, not the individual repo cadences. 7-day watch: whether v1.1.3 lands with any material addition beyond the MCP-lock hotfix line.

• 2026-08-12-AI-Digest — v1.2.1 shipped 2026-08-11 — first release on the v1.2.x line, jumping past the v1.1.2 maintenance tag and ending the 16-day stale gap flagged in 2026-08-11-AI-Digest. Load-bearing changes: FreeBSD compilation restored via platform stubs for procid and the unverified-process module; version-bump tooling now properly owns the tracked .githooks markers instead of leaving them stale on release; pre-compiled binaries expanded to Android / Termux and FreeBSD alongside the existing Linux / macOS / Windows set. Cadence framing this note carries: the minor-line jump (v1.1.2 → v1.2.1) reads as version-bump housekeeping catching up on the release-tooling audit rather than a headline-feature drop, and the platform-support widening (Android / Termux + FreeBSD) is the material shape change — Beads’ portable-binary distribution surface just widened to two new OS classes.

• 2026-09-04-AI-Digest — Beads v1.3.0-rc.1 (2026-08-31) still at head — no rc.2 or GA cut in the four days since Sep 1. already-reported: 2026-09-01-AI-Digest, 2026-09-02-AI-Digest, 2026-09-03-AI-Digest. The HTTP API server (41 OpenAPI operations), work-leases for multi-agent coordination, compare-and-set updates, and bd sync federation from Sep 1 remain the active substrate frame. Watch clause: an rc.2 cut or an independent smoke-test writeup is still the next signal.

• 2026-09-03-AI-Digest — v1.3.0-rc.1 still at head — no new cut this week; already-reported: 2026-09-01-AI-Digest and 2026-09-02-AI-Digest. RC is now 3 days old with no rc.2 or GA tag; the HTTP API + work-leases + bd sync federation story from Sep 1 remains the active substrate frame. Watch clause: an rc.2 cut or an independent smoke-test writeup is the next signal worth surfacing.

• 2026-09-01-AI-Digest — v1.3.0-rc.1 (2026-08-31 08:06 UTC, pre-release, cut from release/1.3.0 @ b3ef65c8) — the first tested release off main since v1.1.2 after the v1.2.1 schema-migration incident and the v1.2.2 rollback-to-v1.1.2 recovery, 1,342 commits landing in one upgrade. Load-bearing surface: an HTTP API server with 41 OpenAPI operations across 35 paths (ready / list / get / query / count / related, stats, dependencies) with RFC 9457 application/problem+json error responses; multi-agent coordination via work leases with heartbeat / reclaim recovery and compare-and-set updates (exit code 13 on guard mismatch); a bd sync federation loop; and bearer-token auth via file with live revocation. Structural read the digest carries: this is the first version that treats Beads as a multi-agent substrate rather than a single-process tracker — the API + leases + sync stack is what an outside coordinator would need to drive it. Cadence: RC tag under pre-release flag, so production users should not migrate yet — matches the pattern from the v1.0.0 RC cycle in April and the v1.1.0-rc.1 cycle in June. Log against MOC - Agentic Coding and MOC - Developer Tools.

3. v1.2.1 — First v1.2.x Line Cut Ends 16-Day Stale Gap; Pre-Compiled Binaries Expand to Android/Termux + FreeBSD; Version-Bump Tooling Owns .githooks Markers (August 11, 2026): v1.2.1 (2026-08-11) is the first cut on the v1.2.x line, jumping past the v1.1.2 maintenance tag and closing the 16-day stale gap. Load-bearing new datum: pre-compiled binaries now span Linux / macOS / Windows / Android (Termux) / FreeBSD — the portable-binary distribution surface has widened to two new OS classes, and the FreeBSD compilation-restore work (platform stubs for procid and the unverified-process module) is what unlocked the OS jump. Version-bump tooling change (owning tracked .githooks markers cleanly on release) is the release-hygiene cleanup that made the minor-line jump defensible rather than a hotfix chain. Not a feature drop; a portability-and-release-tooling maturity beat. Covered in 2026-08-12-AI-Digest.

• 2026-09-11-AI-Digest — Beads v1.3.0-rc.2 (2026-09-10) — first RC-2 cut after the ten-day-un-promoted v1.3.0-rc.1 the prior three digests carried; still explicitly a validation prerelease, stable channels remain on v1.2.2 (2026-08-15). Substantive delta is server-mode workspace hygiene: (1) metadata-less server-mode workspaces no longer open phantom embedded databases (bug that had operators seeing ghost SQLite files appear alongside the real workspace); (2) workspaces defined in config.yaml are now recognised as non-legacy (silent misclassification that had cost operators the newer coordination features); (3) env-pointed servers are treated as shared, not owned (closing an unintended bypass where an env override could silently take ownership of another agent’s workspace). CI: macOS runners now get the same 30-minute timeout as Linux; topology-parameterised testing expanded across history and remote-proxy scenarios. Pre-compiled binaries for Linux, macOS (Intel + Apple Silicon), Windows (AMD64 + ARM64), Android/Termux (ARM64), FreeBSD. Reframe worth carrying: the ten-day pause resolved into an RC-2, not a GA promotion — three server-mode bugs surfaced in external testing, matching the watch clause the last three digests carried.

• 2026-09-16-AI-Digest — v1.3.0 (2026-09-15) — first tested GA off main since the 1.1 line, promoting the rc.2 codebase to stable. Ships an HTTP API server with 41 OpenAPI-specified operations across 35 paths for work management, multi-agent coordination via claim leases with heartbeat and reclaim, compare-and-set updates (exit code 13 on guard mismatch via --if-assignee / --if-status) for safe concurrent writes, and a new federation sync loop (bd sync) with conflict detection driven by merge capture rather than exit status. already-reported: 2026-09-11-AI-Digest covered v1.3.0-rc.2; the GA cut itself is fresh. Watch clause: whether the HTTP API and CAS primitives get picked up by third-party agent stacks now that the interface has a real contract. Log against MOC - Developer Tools and MOC - Agentic Coding.

• 2026-10-01-AI-Digest — v1.3.1 (2026-09-30, stable) — promotes the v1.3.1-rc.2 tracked through the September corpus to stable; no schema migration, binary swap from v1.3.0/-rc.1/-rc.2. The RC-drift watch item flagged over the past three digests resolves cleanly. Carries forward from the RC window: proxied auto-backup on managed-local with serialized sync (first shipped in -rc.2), live-dependent purge protection, and hour-precision filtering. New in the GA cut vs -rc.2: proxied-server auto-commit support, watch capabilities over the proxied path, database-migration fixes, and dependency-blocking resolution. Breaking-change note: several command exit codes and output behaviors changed — upgrade note explicitly flags that scripts depending on prior exit semantics need review. Validated via downstream consumer testing — the superpowers, compound-engineering, and bmad suites “passed first try” per the release notes. Log against MOC - Developer Tools and MOC - Agentic Coding.

4. v1.3.1 Stable Promotes v1.3.1-rc.2 With Proxied-Server Auto-Commit, Watch-Over-Proxied-Path, DB Migration Fixes, Dependency-Blocking Resolution — Breaking Change on Several Exit Codes (September 30, 2026): v1.3.1 (2026-09-30) is the GA promotion of the v1.3.1-rc.2 RC the September corpus had been tracking; no schema migration, binary swap from v1.3.0/-rc.1/-rc.2. Carries forward from -rc.2: proxied auto-backup on managed-local with serialized sync, live-dependent purge protection, hour-precision filtering. New in GA vs -rc.2: proxied-server auto-commit support, watch capabilities over the proxied path, database-migration fixes, dependency-blocking resolution. Breaking-change note: several command exit codes and output behaviors changed — scripts depending on prior exit semantics need review. Downstream validation via the superpowers, compound-engineering, and bmad consumer-testing suites — all “passed first try” per the release notes. Load-bearing framing to carry: this is the RC-drift resolution, not a feature drop — the breaking change on exit semantics is the real upgrade note. Covered in 2026-10-01-AI-Digest.

• 2026-10-06-AI-Digest — v1.3.2-rc.1 (2026-10-05) ships as a validation-only release candidate; stable tip remains v1.3.1 (2026-09-30). The RC fixes anchor watermark before snapshot in backup and preserve transitive live dependents in purge; schema unchanged from v1.3.1. Manual download or pinned Go install path for testers only — not promoted to Homebrew. No new stable release in ~6 days. Framing worth carrying: the v1.3.2-rc.1 cut extends the validation-RC pattern that v1.3.0-rc.* and v1.3.1-rc.* established — Yegge is staging stable promotions through RC cycles rather than tagging-as-shipped, so the GA promotion is the signal to watch for, not the RC tag itself. Log against MOC - Developer Tools and MOC - Agentic Coding.

• 2026-10-23-AI-Digest — v1.3.2-rc.3 (2026-10-23, pre-release) breaks the twelve-day quiet stretch the Oct 22 digest called out. Built with Go 1.26.10 and uv 0.13.4 to pick up the eMudhra CA distrust (#7732). Dep bumps: grpc 1.83.2, thrift 0.24.0; x/net and x/crypto raised past fixable advisories. Skips a no-op Dolt checkout on fresh connections (#7322); purge / prune reject negative --older-than overflow and bulk reads batched (#6444, #7540). Distribution caveat worth flagging: v1.3.2-rc.* is not installed by Homebrew, npm, PyPI, or the install scripts — manual download or a pinned go install only. Log against MOC - Developer Tools and MOC - Agentic Coding.

• 2026-10-24-AI-Digest — v1.3.2-rc.3 promoted to stable v1.3.2 (2026-10-24) — a binary-swap patch, no schema migration. The twelve-day quiet the Oct 22 digest flagged is now a two-day RC-to-stable cadence (rc.3 Oct 23 → stable Oct 24). Fix set: bd purge no longer deletes a closed root that still has live work beneath it (#7041); auto-backup no longer records a commit watermark absent from the snapshot (#7044); post-commit blocked-state recheck no longer reverts concurrent writes (#7146); bd export --all no longer stalls on workspaces with many wisps (#7603); least-privilege Dolt user can write again (#7786). Rebuilt with Go 1.26.10 plus grpc 1.83.2, thrift 0.24.0, and raised x/net / x/crypto. Upgrade note worth flagging: workspaces that upgraded from bd ≤1.3.0 must run bd recompute-blocked once, or some unblocked beads stay hidden from bd ready. One-time per workspace; miss it and bd ready under-reports. Log against MOC - Developer Tools and MOC - Agentic Coding.

Key Developments

1. v1.1.0-rc.1 Breaks the 49-Day Silence (June 26, 2026): First new tag since v1.0.4 on May 9, shipped as a release candidate (pre-release flag set; “Latest” badge still pinned to v1.0.4). Bundles 48 days of fix-and-feature backlog: bd count --include-infra (cardinality parity with bd list), bd doctor rekey-backfill remnant repair, bd import --allow-stale, and a new bd metrics subcommand with a first-run consent notice for usage tracking. The rc tag is the signal Yegge is staging the next stable rather than tagging-as-shipped — same pattern as the v1.0.0 RC cycle in April. The 14-day test is whether stable v1.1.0 lands inside the standard -rc.1 → stable window.

2. v1.1.0 Stable — Tight-Loop rc.2 → Stable in ~48 Hours (July 4, 2026): First stable cut of the v1.1.0 line, promoting out of rc.2 after roughly 48 hours and closing the 14-day rc.1 → stable window on day eight — well inside the standard envelope. Load-bearing features: smart remote-migrate gate default-on (was a flag in rc.2), embedded working-set reconcile commands now open past the dirty-table migration guard, auto-export JSONL in SQL-server mode via working-set state hash, schema v53 wisp dependency drift repair closing the v53-upgrade drift thread the corpus has been tracking since rc.1, plus a secondary AGENTS.md/CLAUDE.md divergence reminder. Structural read: disciplined turnaround on a narrow migration fix, not blanket velocity — the smart-remote-migrate gate has had only ~48 hours of rc.2 soak time before shipping as the default. Worth calibrating against the standard 14-day expectation before treating this as a template for future minor lines.

Version History

Version	Release Date	Change Type
v0.59.0	March 8, 2026	Initial tracking
v0.60.0	March 12, 2026	Minor update
v0.61.0	March 17, 2026	Minor update
v0.62.0	March 22, 2026	Minor update
v0.63.3	March 31, 2026	Patch release

Development Pattern

The rapid release cadence (6 versions in 24 days) suggests:

• Active bug fixing and iteration
• Responsive development to community feedback
• Feature development and incremental improvements
• Possible pre-release or beta testing phase

Project Status

As of March 31, 2026, Beads v0.63.3 represents the latest tracked version. The project continues as one of three primary repositories monitored for significant developments in the AI/developer tools ecosystem.

Repository Status

Beads is maintained as an open-source project with public development tracking through the AI Digest monitoring system.