CommitCycle CLI Shipped
The gate, the grant and the close, from your terminal
One command carries a task from a sentence to a branch with access attached, and one carries it back out with a record. Everything in between is ordinary work, done by whichever agent you like.
Install
npm i -g commitcycleThe package is commitcycle and the command is cycle. That split is deliberate: on every Unix machine cc is already the system C compiler, so a globalcc would break node-gyp and every Makefile that never overrode$(CC). A governance tool that shadows a compiler is one people uninstall.
The daily loop
cycle start "the thing" \
--goal "…" --non-goals "…" --criteria "…" \
--topics backend,frontend # intake → scope → branch → gate → grant → context
# ... work ...
cycle submit # In Progress → In Review, zones closed
cycle verify --close --evidence <url> # the manifest, the checks, the audit recordThe four fields are not decoration on that first line: the gate refuses a task without them and leaves it in Todo, so a start written without them stops before it opens anything.
cycle start is the only door into In Progress. There is no command that opens a zone on its own, which is the point: the moment a second door exists it becomes the one everybody uses in a hurry.
What it can do
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
init | Set the repository up — propose zones from the code, write the map and the agent context |
start | Intake, scope, branch, gate, grant and context, in one call |
status | What task is active, and exactly what is open to it right now |
sync | Push the zone map and events, pull the grant for this branch |
request-access | Ask a zone's owner to open it — with a reason and an alternative |
approve · deny | Answer someone else's request without leaving the terminal |
submit · pause | Hand the work in, or put it down without giving it up |
verify --close | Check the branch against what the task declared, then write the record |
seed · challenge | Draft playbooks from the codebase, then argue with them |
doctor | Why is CommitCycle behaving like this? |
Around thirty in total. The full list, flag by flag, is inthe CLI reference.
Where it stops
- It does not run your agents. CommitCycle files, gates and records work; what writes the code is whatever you already use.
- It cannot close a task for you.
verify --closechecks and records; if the evidence a quality gate names is missing, it refuses and says which. - Enforcement is not in the CLI. Blocking a write as it happens is the hook's job, and the hook arrives with the editor plugin. The CLI is the workflow; the plugin is the wall.
- discard and promote are not built yet. They are Phase 2, and they say so rather than failing oddly.
The command reference is in the docs, and the model it acts on is the zone map.