beads

name	beads
description	This skill should be used when the user asks to "track issues", "create beads issue", "show blockers", "what's ready to work on", "beads routing", "prefix routing", "cross-rig beads", "BEADS_DIR", "two-level beads", "town vs rig beads", "slingable beads", or needs guidance on git-based issue tracking with the bd CLI.

Beads - Persistent Task Memory for AI Agents

Graph-based issue tracker that survives conversation compaction.

Overview

bd (beads) replaces markdown task lists with a dependency-aware graph stored in git.

Key Distinction:

• bd: Multi-session work, dependencies, survives compaction, git-backed
• TodoWrite: Single-session tasks, linear execution, conversation-scoped

Decision Rule: If resuming in 2 weeks would be hard without bd, use bd.

Prerequisites

• bd CLI: Version 0.34.0+ installed and in PATH
• Git Repository: Current directory must be a git repo
• Initialization: bd init run once (humans do this, not agents)