Everything in Gas City is a bead — tasks, messages, molecules, convoys.
The gc bd CLI is the primary interface for bead CRUD.
Rig-scoped beads
Each rig has its own .beads/ database with its own ID prefix (e.g.
fe- for frontend, be- for beads). A bead must live in the
same database as the agent that will work on it. When you sling a bead
to a rig-scoped agent, sling operates on the agent's rig database — so
the bead must already exist there. The bead ID prefix tells you which
rig it belongs to.
Use gc rig list to see rig names, paths, and prefixes.
Creating work
Use --rig to create beads in the right database. If the work will
be dispatched to a rig-scoped agent, create the bead in that agent's rig:
gc bd create "title" --rig frontend # Create in frontend's db (fe- prefix)
gc bd create "title" --rig beads # Create in beads db (be- prefix)
gc bd create "title" # Create in current directory's .beads/
gc bd create "title" -t bug # Create with type
gc bd create "title" --label priority=high # Create with labels
Finding work
gc bd list # List beads in current .beads/
gc bd list --rig <rigname> # List beads in a specific rig
gc bd ready # List beads available for claiming
gc bd ready --label role:worker # Filter by label
gc bd show <id> # Show bead details
gc ready # Same frontier, federated over every store the city uses
On a city that serves a coordination class from its own [storage] binding,
gc bd ready (and gc bd list --ready) is refused with exit 1: it reads one
ledger and the city's ready set spans more than one. Use gc ready there. It
takes --assignee, --unassigned, --metadata-field, --exclude-type,
--exclude-label, --sort, --limit, --include-ephemeral, --status and
--json — not the label, parent, type or priority selectors gc bd ready
forwards.
Claiming and updating
gc bd update <id> --claim # Claim a bead (sets assignee + in_progress) — races in a multi-agent city; prefer `gc hook --claim` there
gc bd update <id> --status in_progress # Update status
gc bd update <id> --add-label <key>=<value> # Add/update labels
gc bd update <id> --append-notes "progress..." # Append a note (does not replace existing notes)
Closing work
gc bd close <id> # Close a completed bead
gc bd close <id> --reason "done" # Close with reason
Hooks
gc hook [agent] # Show routed work for an agent (defaults to $GC_AGENT)
gc hook --claim # Atomically claim one routed work item onto this agent's hook