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Set Up Beads

This guide enables Beads issue tracking for a single project. Beads is CLI-first and project-scoped: drwn checks the bd CLI and .beads/ presence, records semantic project config, and optionally runs Beads setup recipes.

Install bd First​

Pick one of the upstream install paths:

brew install beads
npm install -g @beads/bd
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/steveyegge/beads/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

drwn does not install bd. drwn extensions status beads reports CLI availability and whether the current project has .beads/.

Preview Setup​

From the project root:

drwn extensions setup beads --dry-run

Run Setup​

drwn extensions setup beads

This records extensions.beads in <project>/.agents/drwn/config.json and may run bd init and bd setup for the project.

Useful Flags​

  • --target=codex,claude,cursor selects which Beads setup recipes to run
  • --stealth passes Beads stealth mode through to bd
  • --skip-bd-init skips bd init
  • --skip-bd-setup skips bd setup
  • --include-skill sets extensions.beads.includeSkill: true so drwn write derives beads-task-tracking for the project

Example with skill derivation:

drwn extensions setup beads --target=codex,claude --include-skill
drwn write --dry-run
drwn write

Safety​

drwn never runs bd init --force and never runs bd doctor --fix. The Beads MCP remains optional and is not enabled by drwn extensions setup beads. Dry runs do not mutate any project files.

Verify​

drwn extensions status beads
drwn extensions doctor beads

See Also​