deciduous 1.0.5

Decision graph tooling for AI-assisted development. Track every goal, decision, and outcome. Survive context loss. Query your reasoning.
Documentation

Deciduous

Decision graph tooling for AI-assisted development. Track every goal, decision, and outcome. Survive context loss. Query your reasoning.

Crates.io License: Apache-2.0

See It In Action

Browse the Live Decision Graph — 1,100+ decisions from building deciduous itself

Interactive Tutorial — Learn the workflow in 15 minutes

Watch the Demo — Full session walkthrough

The Problem

You're building software with AI assistance. The LLM generates complex code fast. But then:

  • Sessions end. Context compacts. The LLM loses memory of what was tried.
  • Decisions evaporate. Six months later, no one remembers why you chose approach A over B.
  • PRs become incomprehensible. A 50-file diff tells you what changed, not why.
  • Onboarding is archaeology. New teammates reverse-engineer decisions from code.

The code tells you what. But decisions tell you why.

The Solution

Deciduous creates a persistent, queryable graph of every decision made during development. Log decisions in real-time—as they happen—and they survive session boundaries, context compaction, and human memory.

1,174 nodes • 1,024 edges • Real development history from building this tool

Both you and your AI assistant can:

  • Query past reasoning before making new decisions
  • See what was tried and what was rejected
  • Trace any outcome back to the goal that spawned it
  • Recover context after sessions end or memory compacts

This isn't documentation written after the fact. It's a real-time record of how software gets built.

Several Agents, One Graph

Ten Claude Code sessions, started at the same second in ten git worktrees of one repository, each building a Tetris from nothing, all logging to one shared deciduous workspace and told to read each other's code and reasoning. Twenty-six minutes later: ten playable games, 386 graph nodes, 170 borrowed ideas with provenance. One finding (some SRS kicks lift a piece two rows, so two hidden rows refuse a legal rotation at the ceiling) reached eight of the nine other branches in eighteen minutes (agent-1 started with a forty-row board and never needed it), and two of the agents that took it used it to find the same silent bug in their own merge().

The arena write-up · the repository · how it works

What made it work is one server, reachable over MCP from every directory, with the branch as the unit of coordination:

  • Locks. Every write claims an advisory lock on (workspace, branch) with a ten second lease. Ten agents on ten branches never wait for each other; two on one branch are told who is there. check_activity reports the holders and the last node on each of the twenty most recent branches.
  • Events. Postgres triggers push every write over a WebSocket the moment it lands. deciduous remote watch prints one quoted line per write; Claude Code's Monitor tool can sit on the same URL.
  • Provenance. A took_from edge records a borrow across branches, and log_observation writes the observation and the edge in one call. In the arena the borrows lived in observation titles and had to be recovered with a regular expression; that is the wrong place for them.

Set it up with deciduous remote init <url> once the server is running (deciduous_mcp/DEPLOY.md).

First-time setup

Every project writes to a shared graph server, and deciduous init does not finish until the project points at one that answers.

1. Install the binary (1.0.5 or newer), and Docker:

brew install notactuallytreyanastasio/tap/deciduous   # Homebrew, macOS or Linux
# or
cargo install deciduous --locked                      # needs a Rust toolchain

deciduous --version
which -a deciduous    # with both installed, the first one on PATH runs

Docker Desktop (or Docker Engine with Compose) must be installed and running, unless you only use a server someone else runs (step 2b).

2a. Set up a project on this machine's server:

cd your-project
deciduous init            # Claude Code; --opencode, --windsurf or --both for others

init writes the slash commands, skills and a CLAUDE.md section, then sets up the server. The first time on a machine, it downloads the server bundle for its own version and checks it against the release's checksums. It then starts PostgreSQL 17 and the server on 127.0.0.1:4000 with Docker (a few minutes for the first build). It stores the token in ~/.config/deciduous/credentials (mode 0600), and registers the server with Claude Code. Every later project on the machine finds the running server in about a second. Commit the project files (by path, not git add -A) so every clone gets them.

To choose interactively instead, run deciduous remote setup. It asks whether the graph lives on this machine or on a server someone else runs, then does the rest (--local or --url <url> answer the question in a script).

2b. Or point the project at a team's server before running init:

deciduous remote login --url https://your-server.example/deciduous-mcp   # token on stdin, once per machine
cd your-project
deciduous remote init https://your-server.example/deciduous-mcp
deciduous init            # finds the remote, checks it, installs nothing
claude mcp add --scope user --transport http deciduous \
  https://your-server.example/deciduous-mcp/mcp \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $DECIDUOUS_MCP_TOKEN"

3. Restart Claude Code. When it connects, the server sends the logging instructions (when to write, and how to write one step in one call). There is no hook to install. Agents write through the MCP tools. deciduous add from the CLI writes to the local database until you run deciduous remote push.

If anything is missing (no Docker, a server that does not answer, no token), init and update stop with exit 1 and say how to fix it. Upgrading later is brew upgrade deciduous or the same cargo install line, then deciduous update in each project (deciduous update --all ~/code for many).

4. See several agents work together (macOS, in iTerm2 or Ghostty):

deciduous demo-swarm --preview   # the walkthrough, in this terminal; nothing is started
deciduous demo-swarm --dry-run   # builds the arena and the window, starts no agents
deciduous demo-swarm             # one Opus lead and four Sonnet workers on one graph

--ask keeps Claude Code's permission prompts in every pane. After deciduous update, Claude Code also has it as /demo-swarm.

Written for the agent doing the setup rather than for you: deciduous.dev/agents/ and deciduous.dev/llms.txt.

Installation

Homebrew (Recommended)

brew tap notactuallytreyanastasio/tap
brew install deciduous

Pre-built Binaries

Download the latest release for your platform from GitHub Releases:

Platform Binary
Linux (x86_64) deciduous-linux-amd64
Linux (ARM64) deciduous-linux-arm64
macOS (Intel) deciduous-darwin-amd64
macOS (Apple Silicon) deciduous-darwin-arm64
Windows deciduous-windows-amd64.exe 
# Example: Linux/macOS
curl -LO https://github.com/notactuallytreyanastasio/deciduous/releases/latest/download/deciduous-darwin-arm64
chmod +x deciduous-darwin-arm64
sudo mv deciduous-darwin-arm64 /usr/local/bin/deciduous

Self-host the shared graph server

Download and extract deciduous-mcp-docker.tar.gz from GitHub Releases, then run:

cd deciduous-mcp-docker
./scripts/setup.sh

Docker with Compose is the only runtime prerequisite. Setup creates private credentials, starts PostgreSQL with persistent storage, applies migrations, and waits until the server can query the database. Your MCP endpoint is http://127.0.0.1:4000/mcp; its bearer token is in .env. Running setup again keeps the same credentials and database.

Already have a Deciduous PostgreSQL database? The same setup can connect to it and apply pending migrations. See the deployment guide for that path, client configuration, backups, and upgrades. From a repository checkout, run ./deciduous_mcp/scripts/setup.sh.

Releases also include Burrito-built deciduous-mcp-* native executables with Erlang/OTP and Elixir included. The deployment guide covers their one-time STRUCTURE.sql bootstrap, which requires PostgreSQL 17+ and psql 17+.

Via Cargo

cargo install deciduous --locked

From Source

git clone https://github.com/notactuallytreyanastasio/deciduous.git
cd deciduous
cargo build --release
# Binary at target/release/deciduous

Quick Start

# Initialize in your project
cd your-project
deciduous init

# Start logging decisions
deciduous add goal "Add user authentication" -c 90
deciduous add option "JWT tokens" -c 80
deciduous add option "Session cookies" -c 75
deciduous link 1 2 -r "Possible approach"
deciduous link 1 3 -r "Possible approach"
deciduous add decision "Use JWT for API, sessions for web" -c 85
deciduous link 2 4 -r "Chosen approach"
deciduous link 3 4 -r "Also incorporated"

# View the graph
deciduous serve    # Web viewer at localhost:3000

That's it. Your first decision graph is live.

The Canonical Flow

Every decision follows this path through the graph:

goal → options → decision → actions → outcomes
  • Goals lead to options (possible approaches to explore)
  • Options lead to a decision (choosing which option to pursue)
  • Decisions lead to actions (implementing the chosen approach)
  • Actions lead to outcomes (results of the implementation)
  • Observations attach anywhere relevant
  • Revisits connect old approaches to new ones when you pivot

Multi-Assistant Support

Deciduous integrates with multiple AI coding assistants:

# Claude Code (default)
deciduous init

# OpenCode
deciduous init --opencode

# Windsurf (Codeium)
deciduous init --windsurf

# Multiple assistants
deciduous init --both              # Claude Code + OpenCode
deciduous init --windsurf          # + Windsurf (auto-creates .windsurf/)
deciduous init --both --windsurf   # All three
Assistant Flag Integration Files
Claude Code --claude (default) .claude/, CLAUDE.md
OpenCode --opencode .opencode/, AGENTS.md
Windsurf --windsurf .windsurf/hooks/, .windsurf/rules/

Auto-detection: deciduous update auto-detects which assistants are installed (.claude/, .opencode/, .windsurf/) and updates them all. Windsurf is also auto-detected during init if .windsurf/ already exists.

MCP Server

Deciduous includes a built-in MCP server that works with Claude Code, Claude Desktop, and any MCP-compatible client. Instead of shelling out to the CLI, the AI gets direct access to 32 tools for managing and querying the decision graph. The shared graph server is a second endpoint, over HTTP, with 18 tools of its own and the multi-agent ones (check_activity, branch on every write, took_from) live there.

Claude Cowork: Coming soon. Cowork agents can't yet load custom MCP servers — track progress on anthropics/claude-code#48909.

Claude Code (this project's local database, over stdio):

claude mcp add deciduous -- deciduous mcp

Claude Code reads MCP servers from claude mcp add (or a project .mcp.json), not from .claude/settings.local.json. For the shared server, see step 4 of First-time setup.

Claude Desktop:

Add to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS) or %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json (Windows):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "deciduous": {
      "command": "/Users/you/.cargo/bin/deciduous",
      "args": ["mcp"],
      "env": {
        "DECIDUOUS_DB_PATH": "/path/to/your/project/.deciduous/deciduous.db"
      }
    }
  }
}

Use the absolute path to the deciduous binary (run which deciduous to find it) — Claude Desktop doesn't inherit your shell PATH. Point DECIDUOUS_DB_PATH at the SQLite database in your project's .deciduous/ directory, then restart Claude Desktop.

Claude Code (user-level):

Add --scope user to the claude mcp add line to make the server available in every project.

Once configured, the AI gets tools for:

Category Tools What they do
Graph CRUD add_node, link_nodes, delete_node, ... Create and manage decision nodes and edges
Querying list_nodes, search_nodes, show_node, ... Find and filter nodes across the graph
Analysis trace_chain, get_node_context, get_pulse, ... Traverse chains, get neighborhood context, find orphans
Sessions start_session, end_session, resume_session, ... Each conversation gets its own decision tree
Export export_dot, generate_writeup DOT visualization and PR writeups

Sessions persist to disk and auto-resume across server restarts, so long-running conversations keep their decision trees intact.

Full MCP documentation and tutorial

The Workflow

BEFORE you do something → Log what you're ABOUT to do
AFTER it succeeds/fails → Log the outcome
CONNECT immediately → Link every node to its parent

Example Session

# Starting a new feature
deciduous add goal "Add rate limiting" -c 90 -p "User asked: add rate limiting to the API"

# Considering options
deciduous add option "Redis-based distributed" -c 80
deciduous add option "In-memory sliding window" -c 70
deciduous link 1 2 -r "Possible approach"
deciduous link 1 3 -r "Possible approach"

# Attach the design spec to the goal
deciduous doc attach 1 docs/rate-limiting-spec.pdf -d "Rate limiting design spec"

# Making a choice
deciduous add decision "Use Redis rate limiter" -c 85
deciduous link 2 4 --edge-type chosen -r "Scales across instances"
deciduous link 3 4 --edge-type rejected -r "Doesn't scale horizontally"

# Implementing the chosen approach
deciduous add action "Implementing Redis rate limiter" -c 85
deciduous link 4 5 -r "Implementation"

# Attach the architecture diagram to the action
deciduous doc attach 5 docs/redis-arch.png --ai-describe

# Recording the outcome
deciduous add outcome "Rate limiting working in prod" -c 95
deciduous link 5 6 -r "Implementation complete"

# Share it: .deciduous/graph.json is written as you go;
# sync imports teammates' records into the local database
deciduous sync

Document Attachments

Attach files to any decision node — architecture diagrams, specs, screenshots, PDFs.

# Attach a diagram to a goal
deciduous doc attach 1 docs/architecture.png -d "System architecture diagram"

# AI-generate a description
deciduous doc attach 1 screenshot.png --ai-describe

# List what's attached
deciduous doc list 1

# Open a document
deciduous doc open 3

# Soft-delete (recoverable)
deciduous doc detach 3

# Clean up orphaned files
deciduous doc gc

Documents are stored in .deciduous/documents/ with content-hash naming for deduplication. The web viewer displays attached documents in the node detail panel. Soft-delete with doc detach; garbage-collect orphaned files with doc gc --dry-run to preview.

Session Recovery

When context compacts or you start a new session:

deciduous nodes           # What decisions exist?
deciduous edges           # How are they connected?
deciduous commands        # What happened recently?

Or open the web viewer and ask a question in plain English:

"What was I working on before the session ended?" "What approach did we take for rate limiting and why?"

The graph remembers what you don't. The Q&A interface lets you ask it.

Skills: Archaeology, Decision-Graph, and Narratives

Deciduous ships with skills that give your AI assistant structured ways to understand and work with a codebase's decision history.

/decision-graph — Visiting and documenting the past

The /decision-graph skill builds a full decision graph from your repository's commit history — perfect for bootstrapping a graph on an existing project that wasn't using deciduous from the start. It works in four layers:

  1. Commit analysis — Groups commits into logical narratives
  2. Code structure — Identifies architectural decisions from the codebase
  3. Narrative construction — Builds evolution stories with pivots and connections
  4. PR context — Uses gh CLI to mine PR descriptions and review threads for decision rationale, alternatives considered, and trade-offs discussed

/archaeology — Revisit, correct, execute

Archaeology is for revisiting past decisions in the graph—finding what went wrong, correcting the record, and executing on a new direction. When you discover a past decision was flawed, archaeology gives you the workflow to trace it back, mark it superseded, and connect the new approach.

# Find the old decision and mark it
deciduous nodes --status active --type decision
deciduous add observation "Mobile Safari 4KB cookie limit breaking JWT auth"
deciduous link 1 2 -r "Discovered in production"

# Revisit: pivot from old approach to new
deciduous add revisit "Reconsidering auth token strategy"
deciduous link 2 3 -r "Cookie limits forced rethink"
deciduous status 1 superseded

# Execute the new direction
deciduous add decision "Hybrid: JWT for API, sessions for web"
deciduous link 3 4 -r "New approach"
deciduous add action "Implementing hybrid auth" -c 85
deciduous link 4 5 -r "Implementation"

After archaeology, you can query: "What did we try before?" (--status superseded), "What led to this decision?" (edges --to <id>), "What are the pivot points?" (--type revisit).

/narratives — Understand how the system evolved

Narratives are the conceptual stories—how a subsystem evolved over time, what pivots happened, and how different parts of the system connect.

## Authentication
> How users prove identity.

**Current state:** JWT for API, sessions for web.

**Evolution:**
1. Started with JWT everywhere
2. **PIVOT:** Mobile hit 4KB cookie limits
3. Added sessions for web, kept JWT for API

**Connects to:** "Rate Limiting"

Output: .deciduous/narratives.md with evolution stories that archaeology can transform into graph structure.

/pulse — Map the current design

Pulse maps the current architecture as a decision tree — the design choices that make the system work today. Your agent reads the code, identifies the design questions that had to be answered, and logs them as nodes. Useful for understanding what decisions you might affect before making changes.

Deep Q&A Interface

The web viewer includes a built-in Q&A interface where you can ask questions about your decision graph and get answers grounded in your actual development history.

POST /api/ask
{
  "question": "Why did we switch from JWT to sessions for web auth?",
  "context": {
    "selected_node_id": 42,
    "branch": "main"
  }
}

The Q&A system:

  • Sends your question + graph context to Claude — it sees the relevant nodes, edges, and narrative context
  • Archaeology-aware — when asking from the archaeology view, the agent gets full narrative context including pivots, superseded approaches, and GitHub links
  • Stores every interaction — questions and answers are saved with full-text search (FTS5), so you can search past Q&A sessions
  • Searchable history — GET /api/qa/search?q=auth finds past conversations about authentication decisions

This turns the graph into a conversational interface. Instead of manually traversing nodes, ask: "What was tried before the current approach?" or "What connects the auth system to rate limiting?"

# Browse Q&A history
GET /api/qa?offset=0&limit=20

# Search past questions
GET /api/qa/search?q=rate+limiting&limit=10

# Get a specific interaction
GET /api/qa/42

Viewing the Graph

Web Viewer

deciduous serve --port 3000

Five views:

View Purpose
Chains Decision chains by session—see the story of a feature
Timeline Chronological view merged with git commits
Graph Force-directed interactive visualization
DAG Hierarchical goal→decision→outcome flow
Archaeology Narrative-driven exploration with Q&A

Features: branch filtering, full-text search with type filters, resizable panels, deep linking, click-to-expand details, keyboard navigation (j/k/g/G/Space), Q&A panel, and auto-refresh.

Node Types

Type Purpose Example
goal High-level objective "Add user authentication"
option Approach considered "Use JWT tokens"
decision Choice point "Choose auth method"
action Implementation step "Added JWT middleware"
outcome Result "Auth working in prod"
observation Discovery or insight "JWT tokens too large for mobile"
revisit Pivot point—connects old approach to new "Reconsidering token strategy"

Node Status

Status Meaning
active Current truth—how things work today
superseded Replaced by a newer approach
abandoned Tried and rejected—dead end 
deciduous status <node_id> superseded
deciduous nodes --status active    # Now mode
deciduous nodes --status superseded # What was tried

Edge Types

Type Meaning
leads_to Natural progression
chosen Selected this option
rejected Did not select (with reason)
requires Dependency
blocks Preventing progress
enables Makes possible
supersedes New approach replaces old (via revisit)

Graph Maintenance

Made a mistake? Fix it:

# Remove an edge
deciduous unlink 5 12

# Delete a node (cascades to connected edges)
deciduous delete 42

# Preview before deleting
deciduous delete 42 --dry-run

Keeping AI Integration Updated

When deciduous releases new features, your existing projects can get the latest integration files:

# Check if an update is needed
deciduous check-update

# Update integration files (auto-detects installed assistants)
deciduous update

The update command auto-detects which assistants are installed and updates them:

Claude Code (.claude/)

Files What's Updated
.claude/commands/*.md Slash commands (/decision, /recover, /work, /document, /build-test, /serve-ui, /decision-graph, /sync)
.claude/skills/*.md Skills (/pulse, /narratives, /archaeology)
.claude/hooks/version-check.sh Once-a-day update check (the logging hooks earlier versions installed are removed)
.claude/agents.toml Subagent configurations
CLAUDE.md Decision Graph Workflow section (preserves custom content)

OpenCode (.opencode/)

Files What's Updated
.opencode/plugins/version-check.ts Once-a-day update check
.opencode/commands/*.md Command templates
.opencode/skills/*/SKILL.md Skill definitions
.opencode/agents/*.md Custom deciduous agent
.opencode/tools/*.ts Custom deciduous tool
.opencode/opencode.json Plugin configuration
AGENTS.md Decision Graph Workflow section

Windsurf (.windsurf/)

Files What's Updated
.windsurf/hooks.json, .windsurf/hooks/version-check.sh Once-a-day update check
.windsurf/rules/deciduous.md Always-on rules for Cascade

Kept: anything deciduous did not write. A file you changed is left alone (Markdown gets the new text appended in a marked block), everything update changes is backed up to .deciduous/update-backups/<time>/ first, and .claude/settings.json only loses the deciduous log-loop entries. .deciduous/config.toml and docs/ are not touched.

Automatic Version Checking

Deciduous always checks crates.io for new versions once per 24 hours via a lightweight hook. The notification varies by severity:

  • Patch updates (e.g., 0.13.10 → 0.13.11): quiet one-line notification
  • Minor/major updates (e.g., 0.13.x → 0.14.0): prominent banner encouraging upgrade

You can also check manually at any time:

$ deciduous check-update
Update available: Integration files are v0.9.4, binary is v0.9.5. Run 'deciduous update'.

The check is rate-limited (once per 24h), has a 3-second timeout, and never blocks your workflow. Results are cached in .deciduous/.latest_version.

Why there are no logging hooks

Up to 1.0.2, deciduous installed a hook that denied an agent's next tool call until it wrote to the graph. It could leave a session unable to do anything: a graph write sent beside the next action did not count, a session whose settings changed underneath it could not reset the count, and an environment variable typed into the session never reached the hook. 1.0.3 removes it, and deciduous update takes it out of projects that have it. The only hook left is the once-a-day version check, which never blocks.

Logging is encouraged by what the agent reads anyway: the CLAUDE.md section, and the MCP tools' own descriptions and replies.

The Premises

  1. Decisions are the unit of institutional knowledge. Code tells you what, but decisions tell you why. Six months from now, you won't remember why you chose Redis over Postgres for that cache. The graph will.

  2. Structured thinking produces better outcomes. The act of logging a decision—naming it, assigning confidence, connecting it to goals—forces you to think it through.

  3. Real-time logging beats retroactive documentation. Capture reasoning in the moment. By the time you write post-hoc docs, you've forgotten the options you rejected.

  4. Graphs beat documents. Goals spawn decisions, decisions spawn actions, actions produce outcomes. A graph captures these relationships. You can trace any outcome to its origin.

  5. Complex PRs tell a story. A 50-file diff is incomprehensible. A decision graph shows the goal, the key decisions, the rejected approaches, and how each change connects to purpose.

  6. Context loss is inevitable. Sessions end. Memory compacts. The graph survives.

  7. The graph is a shared workspace. Decisions flow between sessions, between humans and AI, between teammates. The graph doesn't care who's typing—it preserves the reasoning.

Commands Reference

# Initialize
deciduous init               # Initialize with Claude Code (default)
deciduous init --opencode    # Initialize with OpenCode
deciduous init --windsurf    # Initialize with Windsurf
deciduous init --both        # Initialize with Claude Code + OpenCode
deciduous init --both --windsurf  # All three assistants
deciduous update             # Update tooling (auto-detects installed assistants)
deciduous check-update       # Check if update is needed

# Add nodes
deciduous add goal "Title" -c 90
deciduous add decision "Title" -c 75
deciduous add action "Title" -c 85 --commit HEAD  # Link to git commit

# Node options
-c, --confidence <0-100>     # Confidence level
-p, --prompt "..."           # User prompt that triggered this
--prompt-stdin               # Read prompt from stdin (multi-line)
-f, --files "a.rs,b.rs"      # Associated files
--commit <hash|HEAD>         # Link to git commit
--date "YYYY-MM-DD"          # Backdate node (for archaeology)

# Connect and disconnect
deciduous link <from> <to> -r "reason"
deciduous unlink <from> <to>

# Delete nodes
deciduous delete <id>
deciduous delete <id> --dry-run

# Query
deciduous nodes              # List all nodes
deciduous nodes -b main      # Filter by branch
deciduous nodes --status active
deciduous nodes --type goal
deciduous edges              # List connections
deciduous edges --to <id>    # Edges pointing to a node
deciduous edges --from <id>  # Edges from a node
deciduous graph              # Full graph as JSON
deciduous commands           # Recent command log

# Visualize
deciduous serve              # Web viewer
deciduous dot --png          # Generate PNG (requires graphviz)

# Sync + export
deciduous sync               # Reconcile .deciduous/graph.json with the DB, export to docs/
deciduous sync --check       # Anything pending? (exit 1 if so)
deciduous writeup -t "Title" # Generate PR writeup
deciduous backup             # Create database backup

# Document attachments
deciduous doc attach <node_id> <file>          # Attach file to node
deciduous doc attach <node_id> <file> -d "..." # With description
deciduous doc attach <node_id> <file> --ai-describe  # AI description
deciduous doc list                             # List all documents
deciduous doc list <node_id>                   # Documents for a node
deciduous doc show <id>                        # Document details
deciduous doc describe <id> "text"             # Set description
deciduous doc describe <id> --ai               # AI-generate description
deciduous doc open <id>                        # Open in default app
deciduous doc detach <id>                      # Soft-delete
deciduous doc gc                               # Clean orphaned files
deciduous doc gc --dry-run                     # Preview cleanup

# Shell completion
deciduous completion zsh     # Add: source <(deciduous completion zsh)
deciduous completion bash
deciduous completion fish

Who Uses Deciduous

You, the developer:

  • Think through decisions by structuring them
  • Remember why you made choices months later
  • Review PRs by understanding the decision flow
  • Onboard to codebases by reading decision history
  • Ask questions about your own project's history and get grounded answers

Your AI assistant:

  • Recover context after compaction or session boundaries
  • Build on previous reasoning instead of starting fresh
  • Leave a queryable trail for future sessions
  • Use /archaeology to revisit and correct past decisions
  • Use /decision-graph to build decision graphs from commit history
  • Use /document to generate comprehensive docs with test examples
  • Ask deep questions via the Q&A interface grounded in actual graph data
  • Attach relevant documents (diagrams, screenshots, specs) to decision nodes

Your team:

  • Share decision context through .deciduous/graph.json, one git-tracked file; concurrent edits merge record by record
  • Review PRs with full visibility into reasoning
  • Build institutional knowledge that survives turnover
  • Search past Q&A interactions to find answers that were already given

Why "deciduous"?

It almost has the word "decision" in it, and they're trees.

Tutorial · Live Demo · GitHub