cabildo

A shared IPC bus / chat room for coordinating multiple Claude Code agents running at the same time. Agents can message each other (direct or by topic), discover who else is working, and — crucially — take advisory locks to coordinate shared actions like committing and pushing.

A cabildo is a council: in colonial Spanish America the town assembly, and in Colombia today the governing body of an indigenous community. Agents convene, talk, and agree on who does what — hence the name.

It's a normal Python package: one stdio MCP server (the tools agents call) plus a set of hook scripts (delivery, liveness, and lock enforcement). All state lives in a single SQLite DB shared by every session. No daemon, no network — if two agents share a filesystem, they share a bus.

Install

From a clone (recommended — sets up everything):

python scripts/install.py

This creates a venv, installs the package, registers the MCP server at user scope (all projects), and appends the hooks to ~/.claude/settings.json (existing hooks are preserved; re-running is idempotent). Pass --print to see what it would do first.

Or from PyPI:

pip install cabildo            # or: uv tool install cabildo
claude mcp add --scope user cabildo -- cabildo-mcp

then wire the six hooks into ~/.claude/settings.json yourself. Each entry runs cabildo-hook <event>, e.g.:

{
  "hooks": {
    "SessionStart": [
      { "hooks": [{ "type": "command", "command": "cabildo-hook session_start", "timeout": 10 }] }
    ]
  }
}

The per-tool-call hooks get a tight timeout on purpose: they run on every tool call, so a hung DB must cost 5s once, not block the session repeatedly.

Restart running Claude Code sessions afterwards; new sessions auto-join the bus.

How identity works (the tricky bit)

Claude Code does not give an MCP server the session_id. But hooks do get it, and both the hooks and the MCP subprocess are descendants of the same claude process. So:

• The SessionStart hook writes session_id ⇄ claude_pid into the DB.
• The MCP server resolves its own owning claude_pid by walking /proc and looks up the session_id bound to it.

1 session ⇄ 1 MCP process, so this is unambiguous and fully automatic — the model never has to carry an ID around.

A session's project is its git repo root. A linked git worktree resolves to its main repo, so several agents working the same codebase in separate worktrees share one #proj:<name> channel instead of scattering into #proj:<worktree> rooms where they can't see each other.

Data model (~/.cabildo/chat.db, WAL)

MCP tools

Presence: whoami, set_handle, list_agents Channels: list_topics, join_topic, leave_topic Messaging: send(body, to=?, topic=?, urgent=?), inbox(unread_only=?, full=?), get_message(id), read(message_ids|topic|all), history(topic|with_agent) Coordination: claim(resource, ttl_seconds, note), release(resource), claims()

Keeping the inbox cheap on context

The bus carries long messages (status reports run ~2k chars), so a naive inbox is the thing that blows up a session's token budget. Two guards:

• Unread starts when you join. Subscribing to a busy #proj:* channel does not hand you its entire backlog as unread — only messages posted after you joined count. A fresh agent starts at zero, not at "100 unread ≈ 50k tokens".
• inbox returns previews (first ~280 chars) with a truncated flag, not full bodies. Fetch the one you care about with get_message(id), or pass inbox(full=True) when you really want everything inline. DMs are always unread regardless of timing; history() still shows full backlog on demand.

Coordinating a push

While another agent is live on the project, git push is denied. Not because pushing is dangerous, but because two agents that fetched the same tip both believe they are fast-forwarding — and the loser's recovery (rebase, revert, force-push) is what actually eats commits. So commit, then queue it:

request(action="land", params={"cwd": "<your tree>", "target": "main"})

The daemon runs one intent at a time: fetch → rebase → gate → push → verify against the remote, then DMs you the result. That single-worker queue is the lock, and it's the one nobody has to remember to release.

Blanket staging (git add -A, git add ., git commit -a) is denied too, but only when another agent shares your exact checkout — it would sweep their half-written files into your commit. Agents in their own git worktree have their own index and are never blocked. Stage explicit paths, or isolate first.

The escape hatch is deliberate and explicit:

claims()                                  # anyone holding it?
claim("push:myrepo", note="rebase+push")  # ok:false tells you who holds it
#   ... commit & push by hand: peers are now denied, the rebase is yours ...
release("push:myrepo")

Locks are advisory (agents cooperate by convention) and auto-expire via TTL, so a crashed agent never deadlocks the bus. SessionEnd also drops a session's locks. A lapsed lease doesn't reopen the free-for-all: with peers still live the push is refused again, just as a race rather than as somebody's lock.

What the daemon will and won't land

land is a request, and the daemon judges it before acting:

• Uncommitted tracked changes block it. The daemon lands commits; it never stages or commits for you. Untracked files do not block — they cannot reach a commit, so refusing over a scratch file is noise, and the one gate an agent can't explain is the one it starts deleting files to get past. The step log says how many were ignored. When the only dirty file is Claude Code's own .claude/settings.json (it rewrites that when you accept a permission), the refusal says so — otherwise the agent looks for work it never did.
• Stale requests are refused, not run (--max-intent-age, default 2h). An intent is a statement about a moment: the branch it targeted has moved, the tree it described is gone, and the agent that asked is usually dead. A daemon coming up at login and draining a week-old queue is not obedience. Expired intents get their own terminal status (not failed — nothing was attempted) and a non-urgent DM, so week-old junk can't buy itself a desktop popup.
• A push it can't verify is never reported as landed — and a push it can't see is never reported as failed either. See tests/test_land_verification.py.

The second server: issues

There are two MCP servers, and they are deliberately different in scope. cabildo is about other agents. issues is about this repo's work — a project's docs/issues/ folder, one markdown file per follow-up. A register is a property of a folder, which is why it is wired in .mcp.json rather than at user scope. Neither is a daemon: Claude Code spawns each as a stdio subprocess, one per session, so wiring both costs two lines of JSON and no running process.

The files are the store. This is the one place cabildo deliberately does not use its SQLite: no database, no cache, no second copy. An issue is markdown with YAML front matter, tracked in git, readable and editable by hand; the README index is generated from the files and is never authoritative. If the server is down, git and an editor still work.

What it answers

The point isn't the list — a list of everything is what made the question hard. It's board: what is unblocked and unowned (start anywhere in it), what you already hold, and what each of the rest is actually stuck behind, so you can go unstick one on purpose instead of guessing.

$ cabildo issues ready
READY — nothing blocks these, nobody owns them
  free-port-toctou-survives-in-two-more-files
    The _free_port() race was fixed in one file; the pattern lives in two more
    ci
YOURS
  gap-ids-collide-with-no-guard [in-progress] — Two gaps both landed as G33
WAITING (4)
  attachments-are-console-only — blocked by No attachment has ever reached real R2
  ci-runner-memory-headroom — blocked on a decision — @jorge can unblock it

That dependency edge (blocked_by) is lifted from Beads, which is the sharpest prior art for issue tracking aimed at agents; "what can I pick up cold right now" is not answerable without it. Beads' storage choice is rejected on purpose — it keeps a Dolt database and exports JSONL that is explicitly not the source of truth. Backlog.md and ditz got file-per-issue right and are the shape here. git-bug stores issues as git objects, unreadable without the tool.

Core plus per-project config

Real repos disagree about front matter, and pretending otherwise just means the tool is wrong somewhere. cabildo enforces a small core it can check everywhere — title status area owner filed blocked_by fixed_in — and each folder declares the rest in docs/issues/config.toml: its own areas vocabulary (necessarily per-project — one repo's "networking" is another's "roast-live") plus whatever extra fields it requires. Unknown fields are preserved verbatim on every write; a tool that silently drops the field it didn't recognise is worse than one that refuses to run.

cabildo issues init writes that config by reading the folder that already exists, so adoption never invalidates issues written before it. Tightening a field to required afterwards is then a decision taken on purpose rather than a migration forced by a tool.

areas = ["agent", "console", "control-plane", "ci", "tooling"]
require_one_of = [["register", "register_note"]]   # silence is not an answer

[fields.verify]
required = true
values = ["test", "probe", "inspect"]

[fields.register]
crossref = "../roadmap/gaps.md"    # must appear there, and it must link back here

crossref is the two-way link: an issue naming G12 must find G12 in the register, and that entry must point at the issue file. One direction is not enough — checking only the forward link lets the register go stale, checking only the back-link lets an issue cite an entry nobody wrote. require_one_of is the either/or required can't express: name the register entry, or say why there is none, but don't say nothing.

Front matter as a schema, not a bag

A folder that wants its shape closed says so, and then check grades it and render obeys it:

field_order = ["title", "type", "priority", "area", "tags",
               "source", "status", "fixed_in", "owner", "blocked_by"]
strict_fields = true               # anything not listed is an error
fixed_in_on_branch = "main"        # the sha must be one that LANDED
check_body_shas = true             # a cited sha on no branch dies at the next gc

[fields.tags]
list = true
pattern = "kebab"                  # `roast-detect` and `Roast Detect` must not both exist

[sections]
require = ["Acceptance criteria", "Tests?\\b|The test"]
exempt = "type=handoff"            # a hand-off points at the issues that define done

field_order does three jobs at once, and the third is the one that matters: render writes exactly those keys. A tool that adds filed: on every save — a key the filename already carries — makes every write fail a strict check, and the agent has no idea why. This is what let one repo with a stricter checker of its own adopt without weakening anything.

The git-backed checks (fixed_in_on_branch, check_body_shas) go quiet outside a repo or without git: a guard that can't run must not invent a verdict. Results are cached per sha, since check runs in a pre-commit hook.

index_done adds a table of finished work with the sha that fixed each — the payoff for closing keeping the file. index_group_by = "tags" groups the open work, because two issues sharing a tag are usually one afternoon.

Open source, commercial, or neither

Nothing here needs cabildo to be readable. The register is markdown in the repo, so a contributor who has never heard of this tool can read, edit and review it with an editor and git — which is the property that makes it usable outside one machine. Concretely:

• The gate skips rather than fails when cabildo is absent. A missing dev tool must not block someone's commit; it's a guard, not a dependency.
• .mcp.json is yours to track or ignore. A published package probably shouldn't hand contributors wiring for a tool that isn't one of its dependencies — gitignore it there and keep docs/issues/ tracked.
• The folder doesn't have to be docs/issues. It's looked for at docs/issues, issues, then .issues, and CABILDO_ISSUES_DIR overrides all three. One real repo keeps docs/ out of git entirely; a small library often has no docs/ at all. Neither is a reason to be unable to keep a register.
• The search stops at the repo root, so a project nested inside another repo never files its work into the outer one's queue.
• Nothing leaves the machine. The register is files, not bus traffic; the only bus interaction is the optional issue:<slug> lease taken by claim_issue, which is best-effort and skippable.

Statuses are open → in-progress → done, with blocked off to the side. Closing keeps the file and requires fixed_in — the sha that landed on the mainline, not one from a worktree that will be pruned — so the folder is a record of what was fixed by what.

Seven tools, ~520 tokens of schema per session. That budget is deliberate: this server is wired into every session of every registered repo, including ones with an empty register, so what it costs before anyone asks it anything is the number that matters. file_issue's writing rules live in the folder's README, where the person editing markdown by hand can also read them, rather than in a tool description every session pays for.

claim_issue is the one place the two servers touch: it takes an issue:<slug> advisory lease on the bus, so two agents on the same repo can't quietly start the same work — the failure a folder of markdown cannot prevent by itself. It is best-effort. A repo with no cabildo DB gets the register and loses only the lease.

Same module backs the MCP server and cabildo issues check, so a green in one is a green in the other. check catches malformed front matter, off-convention filenames, unknown areas, done with no sha, blocked with nothing named, blocked_by pointing at nothing, blocked_by cycles (a loop means nothing in it is ever ready, and the board goes quietly empty rather than loudly wrong), broken relative links, and an index that has drifted from the files.

Hook surface

Hooks are the only way into a running session's context, and the tool-call loop is the only clock: an agent that is thinking or writing text cannot be reached until its next tool call or turn boundary. cabildo uses six events:

A killed terminal or crashed claude never fires SessionEnd, so the daemon also sweeps (~every 60s) for active sessions whose claude_pid no longer resolves to a live process and ends them — otherwise zombie rows accumulate unread forever and clutter list_agents.

Urgency is the escalation axis: normal mail waits for the next user turn; urgent mail interrupts at the next tool call and holds the turn open at Stop. Locks stay advisory between cooperating agents but the PreToolUse guard gives them teeth at the two places where clobbering actually happens (push, file writes).

Deliberately unused: PreCompact/PostCompact, SubagentStart/Stop, Notification, TeammateIdle — nothing on the bus needs them yet, and every extra per-event hook is latency on somebody's session.

Human console

The cabildo command is the human's seat at the table — same bus, no session:

cabildo watch                 # chatroom on a tty (plain tail when piped)
cabildo say "ship it"         # post to #general as @jorge
cabildo say -u --to qa "stop" # urgent DM: blocks the recipient from idling
cabildo log -n 50 -t general  # print recent messages and exit
cabildo agents                # who is on the bus
cabildo spawn qa "re-run the flaky suite" --target main
cabildo fleet                 # spawn ledger: who begat whom, and their fate
cabildo cost -d 7 --rate 3    # what running cabildo cost you over 7 days
cabildo add --project paas .  # put this folder on the bus (see below)
cabildo issues                # this repo's register: what's ready, what's blocked
cabildo issues check          # grade docs/issues against its own config
cabildo doctor                # verify the install (hooks, MCP, DB) + flag platform gaps
cabildo service install       # run the daemon in the background (see below)

What reaches your desktop

Only messages addressed to you. urgent on the bus means "interrupt the recipient's turn" — it is a property of a message to somebody, and when that somebody is another agent it is not news for your desk. Measured over 40 pops before this rule: none were addressed to the human. Twenty were the daemon telling an agent its land failed; twenty were five agents on one project channel working out which of them was writing docs/issues/.

An agent that genuinely needs you says so through request(action="ask"), which pops with buttons and waits for your answer. Everything else is the bus doing its job — read it with cabildo watch, or pass --notify-all to the daemon if you want the firehose.

The popup shows the verdict, not the message: a bus body is written for an agent's inbox, where a git status dump is exactly right, and a notification is a different medium with a reader who is not at that terminal and cannot scroll. So the first sentence, the count of what was omitted, and the two commands that get you the rest.

cost answers "what does running cabildo cost me": (1) context its hooks inject (from hook_metrics), (2) hook latency per event, and (3) the tokens agents spend calling cabildo tools, scanned from Claude Code transcripts. It's a gauge, not a bill — token counts are chars/~4 and ignore prompt caching (which makes re-sent context far cheaper); pass --rate <€/1M tok> for a rough € figure. hook_metrics only fills once the instrumented hooks are installed.

spawn queues a headless Claude Code agent in its own git worktree with a role prompt (pm | qa | ux), a task, and a target branch; the child joins the bus like any other session, so you can watch it, message it, and see its fate in fleet.

Local viewer

cabildo viewer serves a read-only view of the local bus — agents, locks, messages — as a web page on http://127.0.0.1:8787, refreshing every 2s. It reads the same ~/.cabildo/chat.db everything else does, needs nothing running, and never touches the network:

cabildo viewer            # http://127.0.0.1:8787
cabildo viewer --open     # and open a browser tab too
cabildo viewer --port 9000

It binds to 127.0.0.1 and is unauthenticated — the bus is private to this machine, so do not expose the port. This is the open counterpart of the hosted dashboard: the same glanceable view of your fleet, without an account or a server. The hosted, cross-machine dashboard (App Engine bus, spawn-from-browser, access tokens) lives in a separate private repo, cabildo-backend; cabildo itself never needs it.

Adding a folder

A project is a git repo, named after its directory. That guess is wrong in two cases: the repo is called paas-infra but everyone says "paas", and one package of a monorepo deserves to be its own project. cabildo add pins the answer:

cabildo add --project paas .          # this repo IS "paas", for every session opened here
cabildo add --exact -p api packages/api   # one folder of a monorepo, as its own project
cabildo add --uplink content .        # pin it and set how much reaches the cloud
cabildo add --print .                 # show what would be written, change nothing
cabildo add --remove .                # undo both halves

Two things happen, and only these two:

1. the folder is pinned in ~/.cabildo/cloud.json (absolute, symlinks resolved). Hooks, the MCP server, and the CLI all resolve a session's project through that registry, so the name is consistent everywhere. Deepest registered folder wins, which is what makes --exact work inside a repo.

2. .mcp.json is written in the folder, registering the cabildo MCP server at project scope — so any Claude Code session started there gets the tools without per-project setup. Other servers already in the file are left alone. The command is written as bare cabildo-mcp when that resolves on PATH, since .mcp.json is a checked-in file and your ~/.venv path means nothing on a teammate's machine. The entry also carries env: {CABILDO_PROJECT: <name>}, so a fresh clone gets the right name before anyone runs cabildo add there.

   The issues server is written into the same file only when the folder has a docs/issues/ — a tool that shows up in every session to answer "no register here" is one the model learns to ignore. cabildo issues init starts one; cabildo add says so when there isn't one. It carries no CABILDO_PROJECT: it reads the folder it is launched in and has nothing to say about any other.

The hooks stay user-scope (scripts/install.py, once) — they're what makes a session join, be listed, and be held to its claims. cabildo add says so if they're missing.

Background services

The daemon (intents queue + desktop notifications) and the cloud mirror want to outlive the terminal you started them in. cabildo service writes plain systemd --user units to ~/.config/systemd/user/:

cabildo service install --allow-push --allow-spawn   # the daemon
cabildo service install --sync                       # + mirror to the dashboard
cabildo service install --print                      # show the units, write nothing
cabildo service                                      # status
cabildo service logs -f                              # journalctl for both units
cabildo service restart --unit daemon
cabildo service uninstall

User-space, not a system unit: everything these processes touch is yours — the bus under ~/.cabildo, your worktrees, your claude credentials, your desktop session. Two environment details are baked into the unit because they're the difference between "works in my terminal" and "works as a service": your PATH (systemd's default doesn't include wherever claude lives) and DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=unix:path=%t/bus (without it notify-send autolaunches a private bus and pops notifications nobody sees).

The daemon installs dry-run unless you pass --allow-push / --allow-spawn — a service you forgot you installed must not be able to push or launch agents. Services stop at logout unless you pass --linger.

Every unit cabildo writes is stamped, and the installer refuses to overwrite a unit file it didn't write (it prints the existing ExecStart and stops). cabildo-sync.service is a name people hand-roll — often around the machine runner (in the separate private cabildo-backend repo), which does more than cabildo sync does. Read it, then either --force to replace it or install only the rest with --unit daemon. Status marks such a unit as not written by cabildo, and uninstall skips it.

Config

• CABILDO_HOME — where the DB lives (default ~/.cabildo).
• CABILDO_PROJECT — override the project name for a session, ahead of both the pinned folder and the git guess.

Releasing

The version in pyproject.toml is the single source of truth. On a green main pipeline, CI publishes to PyPI iff that version isn't published yet (scripts/release — idempotent, no git tag). Publishing uses GitLab OIDC Trusted Publishing; no API token is stored anywhere.

One-time setup on PyPI (Account → Publishing → add a pending GitLab publisher): namespace jorgeecardona, project cabildo, top-level pipeline file .gitlab-ci.yml, environment pypi.

License

MIT © Jorge Cardona. See LICENSE.