Decision authority for coding agents, owned by Git.
Keep constraints, rejected alternatives, and warnings in Git — then deliver
only what is still in force, so an agent is not handed a decision the
repository already reversed.
No hosted memory. The repository owns the record.
Install once. Then initialise each repository where you want it to work.
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MongLong0214/commitlore/v1.2.0/install.sh | sh -s v1.2.0Prefer to read the installer first?
curl -fsSLO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MongLong0214/commitlore/v1.2.0/install.sh
sh install.sh v1.2.0
# Or skip the script: the checkout it makes is one you can make yourself.
git clone --depth 1 --branch v1.2.0 https://github.com/MongLong0214/commitlore
node commitlore/dist/commitlore.mjs --versionIt installs a pinned source checkout and a wrapper that runs
node <checkout>/dist/commitlore.mjs — no compiled download, no build step.
The code survives. The judgment doesn't.
An agent proposes an approach. Your team rejects it because of a non-obvious constraint. The final code preserves the outcome, but usually not why the alternative was rejected. A later agent sees only the code and proposes the same idea again.
CommitLore keeps that judgment beside the code.
| Behavior | Product path | |
|---|---|---|
| Captures | Preserves constraints, rejected alternatives, and warnings that a diff cannot show. Candidates are checked against the session transcript and the staged diff. | commitlore capture |
| Preserves | Stores accepted records in Git trailers or notes instead of a hosted memory database. | commit hooks · refs/notes/commitlore |
| Tracks lifecycle | Keeps active, superseded, and expired decisions distinct. | commitlore stale |
| Scopes | Selects decisions for the path an agent is about to edit. | commitlore context |
| Grades trust | Delivers records as directives, claims, or withheld content. | default / signed mode |
| Delivers | Gives supported agents current context before an edit. | plugin hook · MCP |
Most commits should carry no record. CommitLore is for judgment the code cannot preserve, not for narrating every change.
macOS and Linux:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MongLong0214/commitlore/v1.2.0/install.sh | sh -s v1.2.0Windows:
& ([scriptblock]::Create((irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MongLong0214/commitlore/v1.2.0/install.ps1))) v1.2.0Requires Node.js 22.23.2+ and Git. The script checks both before it writes anything.
Claude Code:
/plugin marketplace add MongLong0214/commitlore
/plugin install commitlore@commitlore
Codex:
commitlore plugin install-codexThe plugin puts no commitlore on PATH, so the commands below need the CLI
install as well. The installers also detect and wire supported MCP hosts where
they can do so safely; the exact matrix is below.
cd your-repository
commitlore init
commitlore context .Start a new agent session after installing or updating a plugin: a running session keeps the runtime it loaded.
Then work and commit normally. On supported skill integrations, CommitLore is considered during ordinary commit requests and stays silent when there is nothing worth preserving. You do not need to name CommitLore on every commit.
Want accepted records to stage without a per-record prompt? The repository can
opt in once with commitlore auto on. That policy is repository-owned and
applies to the team, so it is not silently enabled by this page.
Before editing src/pricing.ts:
commitlore: active records for src/pricing.ts
Limit
[claim] r-price01 calculatePrice owns final checkout pricing only
Ruled-out
[claim] r-price01 Reuse it for admin quotes |
eligibility and rounding semantics differ
[claim] means "weigh this as information." A repository can opt into the
stronger signed-authority mode. Delivery gives the agent context; it does not
block the edit.
The repository should own the judgment behind its code.
CommitLore stores records in ordinary Git trailers and notes, so they branch, merge, clone, review, and survive provider changes with the code they explain.
SQLite is only a rebuildable index. Delete it and Git still holds the record.
A general memory or retrieval system asks:
Which old text looks related?
CommitLore asks:
Which recorded decisions still apply to this path now?
A superseded decision can be highly relevant and still be wrong as current guidance. Relevance and authority are different questions.
- Capture — an agent drafts only decision context the diff cannot show.
- Verify — CommitLore checks the draft against the session and staged diff.
- Preserve — the accepted record lives in Git with identity and lifecycle.
- Deliver — before a later edit, only active records for that path are returned.
Most commits carry no record. The commit hook validates a record when one is present; it does not invent one.
An existing hook is not overwritten. commitlore init honours core.hooksPath,
moves any hook already installed to <hook>.commitlore-chained, and calls it
first; commitlore hooks uninstall puts it back.
| Host | Pre-edit delivery | Verified capture workflow | Deterministic every-commit capture |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Code | Automatic through the plugin | Available through the plugin skill | Not certified |
| Codex | Automatic through the plugin | Available through the plugin skill | Not certified |
| Hermes | Available after commitlore hermes install |
Available after host install | Not certified |
| Gemini CLI, Cursor, Windsurf, opencode | MCP delivery where the host uses the registration | Procedure exposed over MCP | No |
AGENTS.md hosts |
Procedure only | Procedure only | No |
"Available" means the prepare → verify → stage workflow exists. It does not mean every eligible commit is assessed automatically.
Users on supported skill hosts do not need to say "record this in CommitLore" on every commit. The remaining limitation is host initiation, not a required per-record user command.
One run, on an unrelated repository, by someone installing v1.2.0 for the first time. Nothing here was measured and none of it is in the evidence logs. It is on this page because the paragraph above asserts a loop that no table here covers.
They asked an agent to fix a rounding bug, mentioned in passing that a decimal library had already been considered and dropped, and ended with "commit it". CommitLore was never named. Part of what the commit carried:
Ruled-out: adopting a decimal library such as Decimal.js | the backend is a
number contract, so it is meaningless
Warn: do not revert the test file to console.assert: it exits 0 even on
failure, so CI passes silently
Provenance: drafted
The Warn was not dictated to the agent. It hit the trap while working and left
it for whoever came next. Provenance: drafted records that no human read the
record, which grades it claim — delivered as a report to weigh, not an order.
A later session with no shared history was asked to adopt the decimal library
after all. It did not, and named the record as its reason. It also read the
grade: a claim is not an instruction, so it checked the stated reason against
the code before agreeing with it.
| General memory / RAG | CommitLore | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary question | What old text is related? | Which decisions still apply here now? |
| Authority | Memory store or provider | Git |
| Scope | Semantic similarity | Repository paths |
| Lifecycle | Often append-first | Active · superseded · expired |
| Trust | Retrieved text | Directive · claim · blocked |
| Capture | Transcript or note storage | Evidence-checked decision record |
| Portability | Backend-dependent | Ordinary Git |
CommitLore is intentionally narrower. It is not a general user-memory system, conversation archive, or vector database replacement.
| Question | Measured result | Boundary |
|---|---|---|
| Did claim-grade context change re-proposal in the registered study? | 2.8% (16/580) with CommitLore vs 18.8% (109/579) without | one model, one harness, constructed tasks |
| Did lifecycle filtering deliver retired records in the measured active projection? | 0 retired records | superseded records were present; expiry was not |
| Does indexed lookup scale? | 496 ms p50 at 100k commits | the no-index fallback is much slower |
Index build time follows the number of records, not the number of commits: the expensive pass runs once per record, so a long history that has recorded little builds faster than a short one dense with records.
Path scope is what keeps a large history from reaching the model. On the #167 corpus, only 2 of 10,002 records did:
| route | model-visible records | relevant records | model-visible tokens |
|---|---|---|---|
| inject everything | 10,002 | 2/2 | 1,004,554 |
| top-k lexical | 2 | 1/2 | 190 |
| CommitLore path scope | 2 | 2/2 | 335 |
That measures exposure and recall at a fixed two-record budget — not token cost, billed cost, accuracy, or agent behaviour. One corpus, one query, one pinned embedding model.
The agent study does not establish a universal model effect. Delivery is not proof that a model read or followed a record.
Methods, full tables, exclusions, and negative results →
- Capture is assisted, not deterministic. Supported skills consider ordinary commit requests, but no host is certified to assess every eligible commit.
- Default directive mode is not authentication. It matches the commit
author header, and anyone who can write a commit can set that header — so a
[directive]in default mode is policy metadata, not proof of identity. Signature mode additionally requires Git's own verified status and a match in the repository-localcommitlore.trustedSignerallowlist; an absent, empty, or unreadable signer allowlist authorizes nobody, so the mode fails closed. - Guard is an experimental advisory, not a safety net: precision 44.8% (95% Wilson CI 32.7%–57.5%), recall 22.0% on the 417-decision corpus. An empty guard result is not a safety verdict.
- Delivery spends tokens on every matching tool call. The pre-edit hook
fires on
Readas well asEdit,Write,MultiEditandNotebookEdit, so it runs far more often than an editing agent commits. Each fire spends up to the payload budget — 800 tokens by default, changed with--budget. A repository with no records spends nothing, which means this is a cost that arrives with adoption rather than with installation. - An answer may be partial. Coverage is disclosed; absence from a partial result is not proof that no record exists. Repository-wide coverage, symbol anchors, and an interactive record builder remain open: #32, #33.
- Commit trailers travel with a clone; notes do not. Git does not fetch
refs/notes/*by default, so a record inrefs/notes/commitloreis absent from an ordinary clone untilcommitlore initconfigures that mirror. - There is no hosted backend. But once the server or hook returns context, the host handles that context under its own policy; CommitLore does not control that data flow.
Security · Compatibility · Evidence
Security and trust model
Records are untrusted until graded. Default author matching is policy metadata, not authentication. Signed directive mode requires Git verification and a repository-local signer allowlist; an absent or unreadable allowlist authorizes nobody. Injection-shaped payload is withheld from model-readable routes.
Installation, upgrades, and old hook generations
The CLI installer cannot rewrite hooks inside repositories it does not know
about, and running host sessions retain the runtime they loaded. commitlore doctor names both states and their repair, and commitlore upgrade reports
whether a newer release exists.
Protocol and Git storage
Records are ordinary Git trailers or notes. Protocol 2.0 defines lifecycle, trust grades, validation, and compatibility.
Evidence and negative results
The repository publishes the methods, exclusions, unsuccessful measurements, and the cases where the original benchmark or diagnosis was wrong.
Try it on a repository with history.
Tell us where path scope, lifecycle, capture, or installation breaks.
Report a failure case · Read the self-audit
- Install, upgrade, and uninstall
- CLI reference
- Capture workflow
- Record protocol
- Security model
- Evidence and limitations
- Production contract
- Documentation index
CONTRIBUTING.md covers the record protocol this repository holds itself to, the release gate, and how to reproduce the evidence.
MIT — see LICENSE.