{"slug": "beans", "name": "beans", "category": "productivity", "category_name": "Productivity", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 3, "warners": 0, "score": 2.583, "rising": -0.98, "first": "2026-01-20", "latest": "2026-06-04", "why": "switched to beans and my agents seem to be able to make use of it much better", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 0, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "switched to beans and my agents seem to be able to make use of it much better", "kind": "", "icon": false, "domain": null, "github_repo": "github.com/hmans/beans", "official_url": "https://github.com/hmans/beans", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["beans", "Beans"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 774359040, "item_id": 48397440, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48397440", "by": "moeffju", "date": "2026-06-04", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I vastly prefer Beans", "excerpt": "I vastly prefer Beans, https://github.com/hmans/beans, for much simpler code and use.", "context": "", "use_case": "Agent issue tracking", "switched_from": "", "story": "Claude Code and Codex Can Have Real-Time Conversation via Git"}, {"id": 760347920, "item_id": 47521745, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47521745", "by": "moeffju", "date": "2026-03-25", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Try https://github.com/hmans/beans - I find it a refreshingly pragmatic take that works great with my agents use.", "excerpt": "Try https://github.com/hmans/beans - I find it a refreshingly pragmatic take that works great with my agents use.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Thoughts on Slowing the Fuck Down"}, {"id": 747860129, "item_id": 46741258, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46741258", "by": "cap11235", "date": "2026-01-23", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I cannot guarantee the project at all, but at least its better than beads.", "excerpt": "Anyone using beads should switch to something else that isn't insane. If you like beads, https://github.com/hmans/beans works the same (not my project), just that its serdes is markdown files with front matter, in a dot folder. Like every sane solution. No daemons, no sync branches. I cannot guarantee the project at all, but at least its better than beads. Or make your own; this is one example of one such project.", "context": "", "use_case": "markdown-based todo tracker", "switched_from": "", "story": "Gas Town's Agent Patterns, Design Bottlenecks, and Vibecoding at Scale"}, {"id": 747083697, "item_id": 46692731, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46692731", "by": "CjHuber", "date": "2026-01-20", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "switched to beans and my agents seem to be able to make use of it much better", "excerpt": "I still don't get what beads needs a daemon for, or a db. After a while of using 'bd --no-daemon --no-db' I was sick of it and switched to beans and my agents seem to be able to make use of it much better, on the one hand its directly editable by them as its just markdown, on the other hand the CLI still gives them structure and makes the thing queryable", "context": "", "use_case": "Agent task tracking", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Do you have any evidence that agentic coding works?"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["agent issue tracking", "markdown-based todo tracker", "agent task tracking"], "compared": [{"slug": "beads", "name": "Beads", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "claude-code", "name": "Claude Code", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [{"id": 758760097, "item_id": 47422506, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47422506", "by": "wyre", "date": "2026-03-18", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I developed my own task tracker (github.com/kfcafe/beans)", "excerpt": "Ya, openclaw is overkill for rewriting a codebase, especially when you're paying API costs. I developed my own task tracker (github.com/kfcafe/beans), i'm not sure how portable it is; it's been a while since i've used it in claude code. I've been using pi-coding-agent the past few months, highly recommend, it's what's openclaw is built on top of. Anthropic hasn't shut down Oauth, they just say that it's banned outsid", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Get Shit Done: A Meta-Prompting, Context Engineering and Spec-Driven Dev System"}, {"id": 744166880, "item_id": 46510430, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46510430", "by": "czottmann", "date": "2026-01-06", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "There's also Beans, doing MD-based ticketing in your project. It's really good.", "excerpt": "There's also Beans, doing MD-based ticketing in your project. It's really good. (Disclaimer: I've contributed a few of the agent rules.) https://github.com/hmans/beans > Beans is an issue tracker for you, your team, and your coding agents. Instead of tracking tasks in a separate application, Beans stores them right alongside your code. You can use the beans CLI to interact with your tasks, but more importantly, so ca", "context": "", "use_case": "Markdown issue tracker for agents", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: I replaced beads with a faster, simpler Markdown-based task tracker"}], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48345837", "title": "Claude Code and Codex Can Have Real-Time Conversation via Git", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47517539", "title": "Thoughts on Slowing the Fuck Down", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47417804", "title": "Get Shit Done: A Meta-Prompting, Context Engineering and Spec-Driven Dev System", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46734302", "title": "Gas Town's Agent Patterns, Design Bottlenecks, and Vibecoding at Scale", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46691243", "title": "Ask HN: Do you have any evidence that agentic coding works?", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46487580", "title": "Show HN: I replaced beads with a faster, simpler Markdown-based task tracker", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "family_ref": null, "runs_on": null, "lines": [], "quotes": [{"id": 774359040, "item_id": 48397440, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48397440", "by": "moeffju", "date": "2026-06-04", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I vastly prefer Beans", "excerpt": "I vastly prefer Beans, https://github.com/hmans/beans, for much simpler code and use.", "context": "", "use_case": "Agent issue tracking", "switched_from": "", "story": "Claude Code and Codex Can Have Real-Time Conversation via Git"}, {"id": 760347920, "item_id": 47521745, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47521745", "by": "moeffju", "date": "2026-03-25", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Try https://github.com/hmans/beans - I find it a refreshingly pragmatic take that works great with my agents use.", "excerpt": "Try https://github.com/hmans/beans - I find it a refreshingly pragmatic take that works great with my agents use.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Thoughts on Slowing the Fuck Down"}, {"id": 747860129, "item_id": 46741258, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46741258", "by": "cap11235", "date": "2026-01-23", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I cannot guarantee the project at all, but at least its better than beads.", "excerpt": "Anyone using beads should switch to something else that isn't insane. If you like beads, https://github.com/hmans/beans works the same (not my project), just that its serdes is markdown files with front matter, in a dot folder. Like every sane solution. No daemons, no sync branches. I cannot guarantee the project at all, but at least its better than beads. Or make your own; this is one example of one such project.", "context": "", "use_case": "markdown-based todo tracker", "switched_from": "", "story": "Gas Town's Agent Patterns, Design Bottlenecks, and Vibecoding at Scale"}, {"id": 747083697, "item_id": 46692731, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46692731", "by": "CjHuber", "date": "2026-01-20", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "switched to beans and my agents seem to be able to make use of it much better", "excerpt": "I still don't get what beads needs a daemon for, or a db. After a while of using 'bd --no-daemon --no-db' I was sick of it and switched to beans and my agents seem to be able to make use of it much better, on the one hand its directly editable by them as its just markdown, on the other hand the CLI still gives them structure and makes the thing queryable", "context": "", "use_case": "Agent task tracking", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Do you have any evidence that agentic coding works?"}]}