bears 🐻

A file-based task tracker for developers and AI agents.

Heavily inspired by Steve Yegge's Beads that didn't really fit my workflow.

Tasks live as Markdown files with YAML frontmatter in a .bears/ directory — plain text, git-friendly, no database. Run bea from the terminal or expose the same functionality as an MCP server for AI coding agents.

Install

From crates.io

cargo install bea-rs

Homebrew

brew install lhelge/tap/bears

Pre-built binary

Download the latest release for your platform:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LHelge/bea-rs/main/install.sh | sh

This detects your OS and architecture, downloads the right binary from GitHub Releases, and installs it to /usr/local/bin. Set BEA_INSTALL_DIR to change the install location. Falls back to cargo install if no pre-built binary is available.

From source

git clone https://github.com/LHelge/bea-rs.git
cd bea-rs
cargo install --path .

The binary is named bea.

Quick start

bea init
bea create "Design the API" --priority P1 --tag backend
bea create "Implement endpoints" --priority P1 --tag backend --depends-on <id>
bea list
bea ready           # what can I work on right now?
bea start <id>
bea done <id>

Task format

Each task is stored as .bears/{id}-{slug}.md:

---
id: a1b2
title: Implement OAuth flow
status: open
priority: P1
type: task
created: 2026-03-15T10:30:00Z
updated: 2026-03-15T10:30:00Z
tags: [backend, auth]
depends_on: [f4c9]
parent: x9k2
---

Any Markdown body goes here.

Statuses: open · in_progress · done · blocked · cancelled

Types: task (default) · epic (high-level objective grouping child tasks)

Priorities: P0 (critical) · P1 · P2 · P3 (low) — sorted P0 first everywhere. A task inherits the highest priority of any task that depends on it, so a P3 task blocking a P0 task is effectively treated as P0.

Commands

bea init

Create the .bears/ directory and .bears.yml config in the current directory.

bea init

Optionally scaffold coding-agent integration files with one or more harness flags:

bea init --claude    # CLAUDE.md + .mcp.json + .claude/skills/ + .claude/agents/
bea init --copilot   # .github/copilot-instructions.md + .github/mcp.json + .github/skills/ + .github/agents/
bea init --codex     # AGENTS.md
bea init --claude --copilot   # combine flags

Flags are idempotent: re-running them on an already-initialized directory is safe and refreshes the files. When merging .mcp.json / .github/mcp.json, any pre-existing unrelated server entries are preserved. The generated MCP server entry always uses bea mcp (not cargo run).

bea create

bea create "Title" [--priority P0-P3] [--tag tag1,tag2] [--depends-on id1,id2] [--body "..."] [--epic]

Use --epic to create an epic instead of a regular task. Epics are high-level objectives that group child tasks via the --parent flag.

bea list

Hides done and cancelled tasks by default. Use --all / -a to show everything.

bea list
bea list --status open
bea list --priority P0
bea list --tag backend
bea list --epic <epic-id>
bea list --all

bea ready

Show tasks that are open and have all dependencies completed. Epics are excluded — only actionable tasks appear. This is the key command for agent workflows — always start here.

bea ready
bea ready --tag backend --limit 5
bea ready --epic <epic-id>

bea show

bea show <id>

bea update

bea update <id> --status blocked
bea update <id> --priority P0 --tag urgent,backend
bea update <id> --title "New title" --body "Updated description"
bea update <id> --parent <epic-id>    # reparent under an epic (use "" to detach)

bea epics

List all epics with progress (done/total children).

bea epics

bea start / bea done / bea cancel

Shortcuts for the most common status transitions:

bea start <id>    # → in_progress
bea done <id>     # → done
bea cancel <id>   # → cancelled

When all children of an epic are completed, the epic is automatically marked as done.

bea dep

bea dep add <id> <depends-on-id>    # add dependency (cycle-safe)
bea dep remove <id> <depends-on-id>
bea dep tree <id>                   # show dependency tree

Adding a dependency that would create a cycle is rejected with an error.

bea delete

Permanently delete a task file.

bea delete <id>

bea prune

Permanently delete cancelled tasks. Use --done to also delete completed tasks. For recoverable cleanup, prefer bea archive.

bea prune
bea prune --done

bea archive / bea restore / bea log

Move settled work out of the active set into .bears/archive/, keeping list/ready/search/graph/epics focused on active tasks. Unlike prune, archiving is reversible.

bea archive            # sweep: archive every archivable task
bea archive <id>       # archive one task (and its settled epic children)
bea restore <id>       # bring an archived task (and its deps + parent epic) back
bea list --archived    # list archived tasks
bea log [--limit N]    # archived tasks, most recently archived first

A task is archivable only when it is done/cancelled and no active task still depends on it (otherwise archiving is refused, naming the blockers). Archived tasks are hidden from all normal listings; bea show <id> still finds them (labelled as archived), but mutating an archived task is refused until you restore it.

bea graph

Show the dependency graph as a tree. Hides done and cancelled tasks by default; use --all / -a to include them.

bea graph
bea graph --all

bea search

Matches against title, body, tags, and ID. Hides done and cancelled tasks by default.

bea search "oauth"
bea search "oauth" --all

bea edit

Open a task's .md file in your $EDITOR for direct editing. Falls back to $VISUAL, then vi. After the editor exits, the file is re-parsed and validated.

bea edit <id>

bea completions

Generate shell completions for bash, zsh, or fish.

bea completions bash
bea completions zsh
bea completions fish

Add to your shell config to enable completions:

# zsh — add to .zshrc
eval "$(bea completions zsh)"

# bash — add to .bashrc
eval "$(bea completions bash)"

# fish — add to ~/.config/fish/config.fish
bea completions fish | source

Interactive TUI

bea tui

A full-screen terminal UI for browsing and managing tasks, with live refresh when .bears/ changes on disk (e.g. while an AI agent edits tasks in the background). Press m to cycle the list view — Open, Ready, Epics, Completed (done/cancelled still in the active set), Archive (loaded from .bears/archive/), All — / to filter by text, and edit the selected task in your $EDITOR. The detail pane shows a task's direct dependencies, and for epics the full subtask tree.

JSON output

Every command accepts --json for machine-readable output:

bea --json list
bea --json ready --limit 3
bea --json create "New task" --priority P1

MCP server

bears can run as an MCP server, exposing all task operations as tools for AI coding agents.

bea mcp   # starts MCP server over stdio

Available MCP tools

Register with Claude Code

Add to your Claude Code MCP config (claude mcp add):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "bears": {
      "command": "bea",
      "args": ["mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Development

cargo build
cargo test
cargo clippy
cargo fmt

All three of fmt, clippy, and test must pass cleanly before committing.

Project layout

src/
  main.rs        Entry point — dispatch to CLI, MCP server, or TUI
  cli/
    mod.rs       CLI module root and dispatch
    args.rs      clap command and argument definitions
    cmd.rs       Command handlers (list, show, create, edit, graph, etc.)
  mcp/
    mod.rs       MCP module root and server setup
    params.rs    Tool parameter structs (serde + JSON Schema)
    tools.rs     MCP tool implementations and tests
  tui/           Interactive ratatui terminal UI (widgets, watcher, input)
  service.rs     Business logic (create, update, reparent, epic auto-close, archive)
  store.rs       Read/write .bears/ directory, incl. the archive layer
  task.rs        Task struct, frontmatter parse/render, ID & slug
  graph.rs       Dependency graph, ready computation, cycle detection
  scaffold.rs    `bea init` harness scaffolding (Claude/Copilot/Codex)
  config.rs      .bears.yml configuration
  editor.rs      $EDITOR integration for `bea edit`
  error.rs       Error types
templates/       Embedded harness templates for init scaffolding
.bears/          Task files (created by `bea init`)
  archive/       Archived task files