SHELFCRITTER AI Digest

DEVELOPER-TOOL

Beads

developer-tooltopic-notesteve-yegge

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.

Version History

VersionRelease DateChange Type
v0.59.0March 8, 2026Initial tracking
v0.60.0March 12, 2026Minor update
v0.61.0March 17, 2026Minor update
v0.62.0March 22, 2026Minor update
v0.63.3March 31, 2026Patch 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.