Getting started
The real CLI loop for making decisions without leaving your editor, and how it flows outward to your whole team.
What is decide?
Decide is an IDE for the decisions behind your software. It lives in your repo as a set of plain-text decision files — markdown that describes what you chose, why, and what code it governs. Every team member can read every decision. The CLI integrates into the loop you already run: plan, check, build, capture, and review.
No hosted dependency. Decisions stay in your repo alongside your
code. The web surfaces at decide.golbi.ai are
documentation and tooling — your store is yours.
Install
The CLI is a single binary with no runtime dependencies. Run the install script or grab a binary from /install.
On Windows, use the PowerShell installer. Both scripts verify the
binary checksum and place decide on your
PATH.
The inner loop
This is the tight loop you run as you build. It takes seconds, not meetings — you check the store, log your reasoning, and capture the call without leaving your editor.
1. Seed the store
Every repo that uses decide starts with a decision store — a
.decide/ directory that holds your config and decision
files. Run decide init to create it. On an existing
repo, decide onboard seeds the store and walks you
through capturing the decisions already embedded in your codebase.
2. Check before you work
Before you start a non-trivial task, run decide check.
It searches the store for decisions relevant to what you are about to
build, flags conflicts with what is already settled, and surfaces
gaps — areas with no coverage where you are about to make an
implicit choice.
Each result links back to the decision file in your repo. Relevant decisions are context you build on. Conflicts are calls that need reconciling before you proceed. Gaps are new ground — worth recording.
3. Log your reasoning
As you work, use decide log to record the choices you
make. Each entry is plain text — a note about what you decided and
why. These entries feed into decide capture later, so
nothing gets lost between the moment of decision and the moment of
writing it down.
You can call decide log as many times as you need
during a work session. Entries are collected until you run capture.
4. Capture the call
When your work is done, run decide capture to
reconcile your session with the store. It analyzes your code diffs
and log entries, creates new decision files, and updates existing
ones where your work edits, supersedes, or deletes prior decisions.
decide status at any
point to see whether you have pending checks or logs that have not
been captured yet. It is a quick pulse check before you commit.
The DDD loop: decisions flow outward
The inner loop is personal — it is how you decide as you build. The outer loop is how those decisions flow to your team and to CI. Design Driven Development means decisions are part of the codebase, governed and validated like everything else.
PR review with decide
Open a pull request and decide review checks your
changes against the store. It reports which decisions are honored,
where conflicts exist, and what new ground your diff is quietly
deciding. The analysis links each finding back to the decision file
and the affected code, so reviewers see the blast radius before
they merge.
Use decide review in CI to flag unreviewed decisions
before they merge. It is an automated gate that keeps the store
honest.
Validate the store
decide dr checks every decision file for structural
integrity — required fields, valid status values, consistent
filenames, and dangling references. Run it as a pre-commit hook
and in CI.
Agent tooling: MCP
decide mcp runs a
Model Context Protocol
server that exposes decide tools to AI coding agents — Claude,
Cursor, Copilot, and any MCP-compatible client. Agents can check
decisions before generating code, log reasoning as they work, and
capture decisions at the end of a session. It turns your decision
store into shared context the agent reasons from.
Add it to your agent’s MCP config and every code generation session starts with a check against the store. Decisions become a constraint boundary the agent respects.
Next steps
- Install the CLI — /install walks through platform-specific setup, shell completion, and verification.
-
Read the decisions — The
decide repo
is governed by its own store. Browse the
decisions/directory to see real decision files in action. - Try the web app — hub.golbi.ai is the hosted surface for browsing, reviewing, and collaborating on decisions. Free during early access.
- Follow the changelog — /changelog tracks CLI releases and breaking changes.