spool

Spool

Spool is a local, content-addressed version-control system for graph data. It keeps immutable snapshots of nodes and edges, lets you stage and commit graph mutations, and provides local branching, history, and snapshot comparison through the spl command-line interface.

It is designed for machine integration: successful commands emit JSON to standard output, while failures are structured JSON logs on standard error.

Install

Prebuilt binaries

Download the latest prebuilt archive for your platform from GitHub Releases:

Extract the archive and place the spl binary (or spl.exe on Windows) into a directory on your PATH. You can verify downloads with the accompanying checksums.txt file.

Package managers (Upcoming)

Distribution through package managers is planned for upcoming releases:

• Homebrew (macOS / Linux): Coming soon
• WinGet (Windows): Coming soon

Go install

If you have Go 1.26.1 or later installed:

go install github.com/autonomous-bits/spool/cmd/spl@latest

Build from source

To build from a local clone of the repository:

git clone https://github.com/autonomous-bits/spool.git
cd spool
go build -o dist/spl ./cmd/spl
# or: make build

Quick start

Create a detached workspace and attach the checkout that will use it:

spl workspace init my-project
spl workspace attach --workspace my-project .

spl workspace init creates the workspace's graph state and default main branch in detached storage immediately, not in the checkout, so the workspace is usable as soon as a checkout is attached. Every path attached to that workspace uses the same state; attach additional checkouts directly:

spl workspace attach --workspace my-project ~/repos/my-project-docs

Confirm which workspace owns the current directory with:

spl workspace current

To create a local, non-workspace graph repository instead, run spl init from the desired directory. It creates .spl in the nearest directory at or above the current directory that already contains .spl or go.work, or in the current directory if neither is found.

Storage and integrity

Spool stores immutable nodes, edges, graph snapshots, schemas, and fixed-fanout sorted tree indexes as canonical CBOR loose objects under the selected state directory's objects/loose. For local repositories, the state directory is .spl; for attached workspaces, it is detached storage outside the checkout. Object IDs are BLAKE3 hashes of the typed canonical bytes. Mutable control state is separate: config.toml, HEAD, branch refs, staging files, reflogs, and merge transactions.

spl gc retains reachable and reflog-referenced objects, packs retained objects into verified zstd pack/index generations, and removes unreachable loose objects only after a 14-day grace period. Pack publication is atomic, so packing does not change object IDs or make a committed object unavailable.

Commit and merge transitions write immutable objects before atomically replacing the affected ref. If a process stops during a transition, an unreachable object or stale staging file may remain, but a ref never intentionally points to a partially written object. Do not edit files in the selected Spool state directory manually.

Use fsck after an interrupted process, storage failure, or suspected corruption:

spl fsck
spl gc

It writes a JSON integrity report on standard output even when corruption is found, exits non-zero for corruption, and does not repair or delete data.

Stage a JSON mutation batch and commit it:

spl add --branch main --batch mutations.json
spl status --branch main
spl commit --branch main --author alice --message "Add graph data"

Author a schema in TOML and stage its migration with the graph changes needed to satisfy it:

# people.toml
version = 2

[[node]]
label = "Person"
[[node.property]]
key = "name"
required = true
types = ["string"]

spl schema migrate --branch main --schema people.toml --batch people-mutations.json
spl commit --branch main --author alice --message "Migrate people schema"
spl validate --branch main

schema migrate reads the TOML schema and the complete JSON mutation batch, validates their resulting graph together, and atomically replaces the branch's staged set. The schema and graph changes take effect together only when that staged set is committed. validate emits a JSON report for one immutable branch snapshot; use --commit <commit-id> to validate a reachable historical commit instead of the branch head.

Create and use a branch:

spl branch create feature --from-branch main
spl switch feature
spl branch list

Remove temporary planning data before merging a feature branch:

# Inspect the affected nodes, incident edges, and durable nodes left disconnected.
spl prune --branch feature --dry-run

# Remove nodes labeled Ephemeral and commit the resulting graph snapshot.
spl prune --branch feature --author alice --message "Prune transient plan"

prune emits a JSON summary containing the removed node and cascading-edge counts, node IDs, and any durable nodes left without connected edges. It refuses to run when the branch has staged changes; commit or clear them first. The default branch is protected from pruning unless --force is explicitly supplied.

Query, retrieve, and compare graph snapshots:

spl resolve --branch main --node 11111111-1111-4111-8111-111111111111
spl diff --base-branch main --target-branch feature
spl history --branch main --entity-id 11111111-1111-4111-8111-111111111111
spl branches-containing --entity-id 11111111-1111-4111-8111-111111111111

# Lexical retrieval and schema-indexed metadata filters use the current
# branch-head SQLite projection.
spl search --branch main --query incident
spl filter --branch main --label Task --property-text status=open

# Build a bounded evidence context from lexical results or typed filters.
spl context --branch main --query incident --direction both --edge-type RELATES_TO
spl search-expand --branch main --label Task --property-min priority=3 --direction out

search, filter, search-expand, and context return the selected snapshot and projection provenance with budget and completion metadata. Filtered properties must be scalar properties enabled with indexed = true in the selected schema. Retrieval is currently limited to the branch-head projection; selecting a historical commit is rejected. Use --max-rows, --max-response-bytes, --timeout, --max-visited, and --max-depth to narrow the configured query limits.

Export a branch's complete immutable graph snapshot as JSON for visualization or offline inspection:

spl graph --branch main

Run spl <command> --help for all commands, flags, response-budget controls, and examples.

Preview a merge before moving a branch, then apply the exact clean preview:

spl merge preview --source feature --target main
spl merge apply --source feature --target main --transaction merge-42 --preview <preview-id> \
  --author alice --message "Merge feature"

The preview combines independent node/edge fields and property keys, and reports structural, schema, and schema-derived semantic conflicts with stable conflict IDs and affected paths. Applying a conflicted exact preview creates a durable, target-branch lease rather than moving the branch. Inspect it with spl merge conflicts --target main --transaction merge-42, resolve every conflict from a JSON selection array, then finalize or abort:

spl merge resolve --target main --transaction merge-42 --preview <preview-id> \
  --selections selections.json [--overrides mutations.json]
spl merge finalize --target main --transaction merge-42
# or: spl merge abort --target main --transaction merge-42

Each selection is {"conflictId":"...","choice":"source"} or {"conflictId":"...","choice":"target"}. Overrides use the same mutation-array format as spl add and can repair a schema-derived semantic conflict. Resolution and finalization reject stale previews, require transaction ownership, and keep the target lease until finalization or abort.

Multi-repo workspaces

A detached workspace maps one or more checked-out paths to the same Spool graph state. Create the workspace and attach a path; the workspace's state is initialized immediately:

spl workspace init ecommerce-platform
spl workspace attach --workspace ecommerce-platform ~/repos/order-service
spl workspace attach --workspace ecommerce-platform ~/repos/inventory-service
spl workspace list
spl workspace current
spl workspace detach ~/repos/inventory-service

A repository path can be attached to only one workspace at a time. spl workspace current resolves the registered workspace that owns the current working directory by longest matching attached path. Workspace registry and state data live under the platform-appropriate XDG data location (or %LOCALAPPDATA% on Windows), outside the attached checkouts. Persist or clear a preferred active workspace for future sessions with:

spl workspace use ecommerce-platform
spl workspace unset

unset always succeeds, including when no preference is set, so it also recovers from a stale preference pointing at a workspace no longer in the registry.

Learn more

• CONTRIBUTING.md explains how to build, test, and contribute to Spool.
• docs/architecture.md describes the high-level system architecture.
• CHANGELOG.md explains how release notes are generated.