Sync Concepts

Beads issue data lives in Dolt. The local Dolt database is the source of truth for bd list, bd show, bd ready, and every write command.

The Wire Format

Cross-machine sync uses Dolt remotes:

bd dolt push
bd dolt pull

For normal git-hosted projects, the Dolt remote can be the same origin URL used for source code. Dolt stores issue history under refs/dolt/data, separate from source branches such as refs/heads/main.

On new projects, bd init auto-detects git remote get-url origin and configures a Dolt remote named origin. The first bd dolt push publishes refs/dolt/data. Fresh clones should run bd bootstrap to clone that Dolt history. When bootstrap finds refs/dolt/data on git origin, it also wires that origin as the Dolt remote for future bd dolt push and bd dolt pull.

What JSONL Is For

.beads/issues.jsonl is an export. It exists for viewers, interchange, migration, and backup. It is not the canonical cross-machine sync channel.

Do not use routine bd import .beads/issues.jsonl as a replacement for bd dolt pull. JSONL import is upsert-only; it cannot infer that records absent from an export were deleted, pruned, or simply never exported.

Hooks

The pre-commit hook refreshes .beads/issues.jsonl when export.auto=true. That keeps the export current for tools, but it does not push Dolt history.

The post-merge and post-checkout hooks skip JSONL import when sync.remote is configured. For old projects with no Dolt remote, they may import JSONL as a compatibility fallback and print a warning that this is not durable sync.

Repair

For projects initialized before automatic git-origin remote wiring, pick the machine with the authoritative local Dolt database first. Then run:

bd dolt remote list
bd export -o .beads/issues.pre-remote.jsonl   # optional issue audit export
bd dolt remote add origin <git-origin-url>
bd dolt push

Use the Dolt-compatible git URL form when needed. For example, git+ssh://git@github.com/org/repo.git or git+https://github.com/org/repo.git. bd dolt remote add origin ... persists sync.remote into .beads/config.yaml; commit and push that config change so fresh clones can run bd bootstrap.

Other machines should then run:

bd dolt pull
# or, if the local database is stale or missing:
bd bootstrap