Tincan

Tincan keeps important development memory in repository-local Markdown. It helps developers and agents preserve context across sessions without recording every action.

• Journal: meaningful progress, open questions, and next steps.
• Decision: an accepted choice that should guide future work.
• Learning: an evidence-supported conclusion worth reusing.

Install

Tincan requires Git and Rust 1.85 or newer.

cargo install tincan-cli
tincan skill install

The skill installer detects supported user-wide agent harnesses and asks where to install the bundled skill. Use --path <skills-directory> for another location and --force to update an existing installation.

From a source checkout, use cargo install --path ..

Quick start

tincan init C:\path\to\project
cd C:\path\to\project

tincan journal `
  --done "Implemented the compact gallery read model" `
  --question "Should adjacent details be preloaded?" `
  --next "Add the stale-response regression test"

tincan decide "Load full media details on demand" --file app/page.tsx
tincan learn "Paging did not reduce rendering work" `
  --file app/page.tsx `
  --evidence "Release-build trace"

tincan resume
tincan search "gallery"
tincan show 019c4ea8-7e42-7b31-a211-8df9357d747c
tincan summary
tincan check

Commands use the current directory by default. Pass -d <path> or --directory <path> to target another directory.

Storage

.tincan/
├── config.toml
├── decisions/
├── learnings/
├── journal/
└── AGENT_GUIDE.md

Tincan keeps .tincan/ out of normal Git tracking through the repository's local exclude file. Markdown is canonical. decide and learn create UUID-named files with validated frontmatter; developers and agents can add detail directly to their Markdown bodies.

See the user guide or run tincan --help for command details.