Most agent frameworks pour everything into the reasoning engine and treat state as an afterthought. Trellis inverts that. It is the system of record for decisions: a persistent, queryable, auditable memory where every thought, tool call, and file change is an immutable operation in a causal graph. It runs fully offline — servers may relay, accelerate, or back up, but never own your state.

• Durable memory — every op is content-addressed and never rewritten or deleted.
• Explainable by default — decision traces record not just what happened, but why.
• Safe to explore — branch state to try multiple paths, then merge or discard.
• Realtime — one write updates current state, durable history, and every live subscriber.

Install

npm install -g trellis

Quick start

mkdir my-project && cd my-project
trellis init      # guided or one-shot setup
trellis ui        # live graph explorer
trellis studio    # full Studio UI in the browser, bridged to this repo
trellis code      # start an agent coding session
trellis wire      # pairwise Iroh peer sync (ADR 0060)

Track work as graph-native entities instead of text commits:

trellis issue create -t "Bootstrap viz"
trellis issue start TRL-1          # branch + lane; worktree when lanes.worktreeBind
trellis protocol send --parent TRL-1 --from executor --to reviewer \
  --re TRL-1 --status HANDOFF      # graph-backed handoff (3.2.3+)
trellis whereami                   # re-entry orientation
trellis milestone create -m "Initial release"
trellis garden                          # discover & revive abandoned work
trellis query 'find ?e where type = "Task"'

Run the operator surface when you need the derived picture rather than raw ops:

trellis note add "try lazy eviction for the chunk cache"   # commitment-free capture
trellis wip                 # active / queue / shipped / next / cycles / notes
trellis cycle create sept-sprint --target 2026-09-30
trellis cadence             # due-check: overdue cycles, note debt, stale mirrors
trellis mirror --write      # deterministic graph index; --check fails on drift
trellis report              # derived worklog + epic→telos rollup

Build a realtime app

Scaffold a typed, live-graph app — React, Vue, or Svelte — backed by Trellis:

npm create trellis@latest

import { defineType } from 'trellis/schema';
import { z } from 'zod';

export const Task = defineType('Task', {
  title: z.string(),
  done: z.boolean(),
});

<script>
  import { entitiesStore, mutations } from 'trellis/svelte/typed';
  const tasks = entitiesStore(client, Task);  // re-renders live, across every client
  const task = mutations(client, Task);
</script>

A single mutation produces current state, durable history, and a realtime push to every subscriber — the same write path.

API surface

The trellis package exposes focused subpaths.

Runtime & data

| Import | Purpose | | ---------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------- | | trellis | Top-level engine, kernel, scaffold helpers | | trellis/core | TrellisKernel — graph CRUD, no VCS dependency | | trellis/vcs | Ops, branches, milestones, semantic diff | | trellis/sync | Peer sync + bounded op-log readers | | trellis/client | Local + remote client SDK | | trellis/schema | defineType, typed entities, EQL-S queries | | trellis/{react,vue,svelte}/typed | Live, schema-typed reads + mutations | | trellis/realtime | Presence, chat, CRDT text | | trellis/presence | Agent presence ledger + live liveness census | | trellis/operator | Derived operator reads (wip) | | trellis/decisions | Decision traces, query, hook registry | | trellis/reasoning | Argumentation: attack graphs + grounded extensions | | trellis/links | Wiki-link parsing + graph link resolution | | trellis/ai | Embeddings, chunker, vector store | | trellis/cms | Read content collections over HTTP | | trellis/server | HTTP + WebSocket DB server | | trellis/db | Low-level EAV store APIs | | trellis/format | Shared terminal formatters for CLI + shells | | trellis/formula | Frozen formula core + dialect adapters |

UI primitives — each ships /core, /react, /vue, /svelte, and /vanilla entries:

| Import | Purpose | | ------------------ | ------------------------------- | | trellis/forms | Schema-typed, validated forms | | trellis/palette | Command palette | | trellis/dialog | Modal dialogs | | trellis/timeline | Timeline views | | trellis/combobox | Searchable select | | trellis/view | View state: columns, sort, mode | | trellis/headless | Unstyled behavior + registry |

Persistence & plugins

| Import | Purpose | | ----------------------------------- | ------------------------------------- | | trellis/persist/better-sqlite | better-sqlite3 backend | | trellis/persist/sqljs | sql.js (browser) backend | | trellis/persist/factory | Runtime backend selection | | trellis/plugins/cron | Scheduler-fed facts (builtin:clock) | | trellis/plugins/idea-garden | Abandoned-work detection | | trellis/plugins/plan-approval | Plan gate for agent harnesses | | trellis/plugins/agent-memory | Durable agent memory | | trellis/plugins/proactive-watcher | Graph-change reactions |

Status

Actively maintained. Issues are triaged and PRs reviewed; see What's Open, What's Sold for how the ecosystem is positioned.

Documentation

• trellis.computer — full documentation
• What's Open, What's Sold — the open-/closed-source line
• The Story — why Trellis exists
• Architecture · Design spec · Roadmap

Develop

bun install   # requires Bun ≥ 1.0
bun test
bun run build

In this checkout, prefer just trellis … over bare trellis. Global npm may lag (format skew: array-era CLI + JSONL journal can wipe ops.json via trellis repair). Agents are blocked from bare trellis here by the Cursor shell guard; escape hatch: TRELLIS_ALLOW_GLOBAL_CLI=1.

just trellis status              # source CLI (bun src/cli) — default
just trellis-dev status          # dist CLI after just build
just alias-cli install           # adds `trellis-dev` alias; keeps global intact
just link-cli                    # make global `trellis` → this checkout
just unlink-cli                  # restore published trellis@latest

License

AGPL-3.0-or-later © Turtle Labs LLC