https://docs.rs/deciduous

Deciduous

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

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See It In Action

Browse the Live Decision Graph — 970+ decisions from building deciduous itself

Interactive Tutorial — Learn the workflow in 15 minutes

Watch the Demo — Full session walkthrough

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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.

979 nodes • 838 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.

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Installation

Pre-built Binaries (Recommended)

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

Via Cargo

cargo install deciduous

From Source

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

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Quick Start

# Initialize in your project
cd your-project
deciduous init

# Start logging decisions
deciduous add goal "Add user authentication" -c 90
deciduous add decision "Choose auth method" -c 75
deciduous link 1 2 -r "Deciding implementation approach"

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

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

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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"

# Making a choice
deciduous add decision "Choose rate limiter approach" -c 75
deciduous link 1 2 -r "Deciding implementation"

# Considering options
deciduous add option "Redis-based distributed" -c 80
deciduous add option "In-memory sliding window" -c 70
deciduous link 2 3 -r "Option A"
deciduous link 2 4 -r "Option B"

# Implementing the chosen approach
deciduous add action "Implementing Redis rate limiter" -c 85
deciduous link 3 5 --edge-type chosen -r "Scales across instances"

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

# Sync for GitHub Pages
deciduous sync

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?

The graph remembers what you don't.

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Two Modes: Now & History

Every system has two stories:

Mode	Question	Skill
Now	"How does this work?"	/pulse
History	"How did we get here?"	/narratives

/pulse - Map Current Design

Take the pulse of a system - what decisions define how it works TODAY.

deciduous add goal "Suspense fallback behavior" -c 90
deciduous add decision "How should timeout work?" -c 85
deciduous link 1 2 -r "leads_to"
deciduous add decision "What happens on failure?" -c 85
deciduous link 1 3 -r "leads_to"

Output: Decision tree of the current model. No history, just the design.

/narratives - Understand Evolution

Understand how the system evolved. Narratives are conceptual, not tied to commits.

## 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 and pivots.

The Revisit Node

When a design approach is abandoned and replaced:

deciduous add observation "JWT too large for mobile"
deciduous add revisit "Reconsidering token strategy"
deciduous link <observation> <revisit> -r "forced rethinking"
deciduous status <old_decision> superseded

Revisit nodes connect old approaches to new ones, capturing WHY things changed.

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Viewing the Graph

Web Viewer

deciduous serve --port 3000

Four visualization modes:

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

Features: branch filtering, node search, click-to-expand details, auto-refresh.

Terminal UI

deciduous tui

Vim-style navigation with syntax-highlighted file previews:

Key	Action
j/k, gg/G	Navigate
Enter	Toggle detail panel
/	Search
f	Filter by type
b	Filter by branch
o	Open file in editor
O	View linked commit diff
s	Show goal story tree

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Node Types

Type	Purpose	Example
goal	High-level objective	"Add user authentication"
decision	Choice point	"Choose auth method"
option	Approach considered	"Use JWT tokens"
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)

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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

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Multi-User Sync

Share decisions across teammates. Each node has a globally unique change_id (UUID):

# Export your branch's decisions
deciduous diff export --branch feature-x -o .deciduous/patches/my-feature.json

# Apply patches from teammates (idempotent)
deciduous diff apply .deciduous/patches/*.json

# Preview before applying
deciduous diff apply --dry-run .deciduous/patches/teammate.json

PR Workflow

1. Create nodes while working
2. Export: deciduous diff export -o .deciduous/patches/my-feature.json
3. Commit the patch file (not the database)
4. PR includes the patch; teammates apply after merge

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GitHub Pages Deployment

deciduous init creates workflows that deploy your graph viewer automatically:

deciduous sync    # Export to docs/graph-data.json
git add docs/
git push

Enable Pages: Settings > Pages > Source > gh-pages branch

Your graph is live at https://<user>.github.io/<repo>/

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Keeping Claude 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
deciduous update

The update command overwrites the following files:

Files	What's Updated
.claude/commands/*.md	Slash commands (/decision, /recover, /work)
.claude/skills/*.md	Skills (/pulse, /narratives, /archaeology`)
.claude/hooks/*.sh	Enforcement hooks
.claude/agents.toml	Subagent configurations
CLAUDE.md	Decision Graph Workflow section (preserves custom content)

Not touched: .claude/settings.json, .deciduous/config.toml, docs/ - your configs stay intact.

Automatic Version Checking

The check-update command compares .deciduous/.version with the binary version:

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

Add this to your session start routine to catch updates automatically.

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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.

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Commands Reference

# Initialize
deciduous init               # Initialize with Claude Code integration
deciduous update             # Update tooling to latest version
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 edges              # List connections
deciduous graph              # Full graph as JSON

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

# Export
deciduous sync               # Export to docs/
deciduous writeup -t "Title" # Generate PR writeup
deciduous backup             # Create database backup

# Multi-user sync
deciduous diff export -o patch.json
deciduous diff apply patches/*.json
deciduous migrate            # Add change_id columns for sync

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

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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

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

Your team:

• Share decision context via patch files
• Review PRs with full visibility into reasoning
• Build institutional knowledge that survives turnover

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Why "deciduous"?

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

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Tutorial · Live Demo · GitHub