gotta 0.16.0

Session-rooted CLI for evidence acquisition, operational memory, durable continuity, and linked peer workflows

Gotta

gotta is a session-rooted CLI for evidence acquisition, operational memory, durable continuity, and linked actor workflows.

The point is broader than retrieving one more document. gotta is designed to keep actor work coherent when terminal history, model context windows, or human working memory come under pressure. It pushes enough state, provenance, and materialized evidence into durable external form. This lets an actor rehydrate prior work reliably and continue from grounded context.

The public surface stays small:

gotta <plugin> ...

gotta ... is the canonical operator path. It binds or discovers the right session for the current context, hydrates the runtime environment, and dispatches the requested plugin with that session active. You do not need to cd into the session root first.

Why gotta

The name is a modal verb of necessity. Every subcommand reads as a natural English sentence expressing what needs to happen:

• gotta read — I have to read this
• gotta oops — I have to record this friction
• gotta session analyze — I have to analyze the session
• gotta want — I have to express what I want
• gotta todo append — I have to track this work

That composability is not accidental. Alternative names work for acquisition commands but break down everywhere else. glean read makes sense; glean oops does not. trace jira search reads well; trace want does not. Only a modal verb of necessity composes across the entire surface: evidence acquisition, friction capture, intent declaration, actor coordination, and session synthesis.

The semantics are also exact. The tool's thesis is that evidence must be externalized, context must survive compression, and friction must be recorded. "Gotta" is that necessity made literal.

Continuity Over Context Windows

Actors work in waves. They pull a few strong anchors, expand into adjacent evidence, synthesize the resulting web, and then eventually hit compression pressure. Context windows compact. Terminal history scrolls away. Thin summaries preserve headlines but lose the path that made those headlines trustworthy.

gotta is shaped around that boundary.

It externalizes the parts of the working context that should survive:

• the session itself as a durable working root
• canonical task, log, and friction state
• materialized evidence with native reopen handles
• synthesis surfaces such as manifest, timeline, graph, leads, and analyze

That is why gotta is session-rooted rather than request-rooted. A request is ephemeral. A session can be reopened, inspected, extended, handed off, or compacted and rehydrated without losing the shape of the work.

The choice of medium is equally deliberate: native CLI working surfaces are one of the strongest places for serious actor work. They provide room to inspect, correlate, transform, act on, and resume real evidence. gotta leans into that by treating retrieval, memory, and action as part of the same working surface.

Why It Is Shaped This Way

gotta is deliberately native-first:

• prefer provider-native retrieval and mutation surfaces over ad hoc shell fallbacks
• keep durable truth in session state, not in terminal scrollback
• make every material read reopenable through native locators
• preserve enough provenance that compression leads to rehydration, not loss of working context

The normal working loop expands and compresses repeatedly:

1. retrieve one or two strong anchors through provider-native search or read
2. expand outward into adjacent evidence and materialize it into the session
3. compress that evidence web through session manifest, timeline, graph, leads, and analyze
4. record friction and continuity gaps in oops
5. refine the next retrieval wave from durable state instead of memory

state/oops.jsonl is the canonical friction log, projected into OOPS.md. It captures operator-visible seams: misleading contracts, interrupted continuations, coverage gaps, and workflow friction worth fixing.

Installation

If you do not already have uv, install it first from Astral's official installation guide.

Install with uv:

uv tool install gotta

That installs the gotta entrypoint.

If you want to try the CLI without installing it permanently:

uvx --from gotta gotta --help

gotta supports Python >=3.10.

If you are developing on the repo, sync a local uv-managed environment:

uv sync --python 3.10 --extra dev

Installed entrypoints:

gotta ...

Development And Quality Gate

The core local gate is:

uv run pytest -q
uv run ruff check src tests
uv run python -m py_compile $(find src tests -name '*.py' -print)
uv run python -m vulture src tests --min-confidence 80

Structural pressure tools are part of the maintenance discipline:

uv run python -m radon cc src tests -s
uv run lizard src tests
uv build --python 3.10 --clear
uvx twine check dist/*

pytest, ruff, py_compile, and vulture are the correctness and hygiene gate. radon and lizard are not bug finders; they expose responsibility concentration and complexity hotspots so cleanup removes residue instead of burying it.

Configuration And Durable State

Durable provider config lives in GOTTA_CONFIG_FILE or, by default, under gotta's OS-native config directory:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/gotta/gotta.toml
• Linux: ~/.config/gotta/gotta.toml
• Windows: %AppData%\\gotta\\gotta.toml

Example:

[providers.atlassian.env]
GOTTA_ATLASSIAN_OAUTH_CLIENT_ID = "your-client-id"
GOTTA_ATLASSIAN_OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET = "your-client-secret"
GOTTA_ATLASSIAN_OAUTH_REDIRECT_URI = "http://localhost:8080/callback"
GOTTA_ATLASSIAN_TOOLSETS = "all"
GOTTA_JIRA_BASE_URL = "https://example.atlassian.net"
GOTTA_CONFLUENCE_BASE_URL = "https://example.atlassian.net/wiki"

[providers.google.env]
GOTTA_GOOGLE_OAUTH_CLIENT_ID = "your-client-id"
GOTTA_GOOGLE_OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET = "your-client-secret"
GOTTA_GOOGLE_OAUTH_REDIRECT_URI = "http://localhost:8091/callback"

[providers.slack.env]
GOTTA_SLACK_WORKSPACE = "your-workspace"

[providers.grafana.env]
GOTTA_GRAFANA_BASE_URL = "https://grafana.example.com"
GOTTA_GRAFANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN = "glsa_your_service_account_token"
# Optional when the token must be pinned to one org explicitly.
GOTTA_GRAFANA_ORG_ID = "1"

Durable OAuth state lands under gotta's OS-native state directory:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/gotta/auth/
• Linux: ~/.local/state/gotta/auth/
• Windows: %LocalAppData%\\gotta\\auth\\

Canonical Session Model

The canonical top-level root is a shared session root under gotta's OS-native data directory:

<gotta data dir>/sessions/<session-id>/
  session.json
  content/
  actors/<actor-id>/

Examples:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/gotta/sessions/<session-id>/
• Linux: ~/.local/share/gotta/sessions/<session-id>/

Each shared session owns:

• session.json for shared session membership and actor metadata
• content/ for the shared evidence web and append-only manifest
• actors/<actor-id>/ for actor-local writable surfaces and state

Each actor root then owns its local working surfaces:

actors/<actor-id>/
  WANT.md
  GOAL.md
  TODO.md
  LOGS.md
  OOPS.md
  NOTES.md
  state/
  bin/
  content -> ../../content

Top-level fingerprint bindings live separately:

<gotta data dir>/bindings/<fingerprint> -> ../sessions/<session-id>/actors/<actor-id>

The default private session for an unbound fingerprint is:

sessions/<fingerprint>/actors/<fingerprint>/

Stored artifacts have two native reopen handles:

• artifact:<preferred-name>@<digest12>
• content:<sha256>

Both resolve through gotta read ..., so emitted evidence does not require manual manifest spelunking just to continue.

The content store is first-class:

• the filesystem under $WS/content is the durable evidence graph
• manifest.jsonl is the append-only invocation index
• identical bytes land in the same content object
• repeated fetches create additional timestamped evidence links

This is the continuity boundary in concrete form: the session keeps enough of the working set externalized that later synthesis, follow-up research, or downstream actions can be rebuilt from durable state instead of a lossy memory of prior interactions.

Retrieval And Materialization

Provider-first usage without session scaffolding is a core workflow:

gotta jira status
gotta jira search "retry budget"
gotta github search "service ownership"
gotta github https://github.com/org/repo/commits/HEAD
gotta grafana status
gotta grafana datasources
gotta grafana search --type dash-db
gotta grafana search --type dash-db baseload
gotta grafana search "production overview"
gotta grafana get demo-dashboard-uid
gotta grafana query --dashboard demo-dashboard-uid 'sum(app_up)'
gotta grafana query --dashboard 'https://grafana.example.com/d/demo-dashboard-uid/view?orgId=1&from=now-6h&to=now' 'sum(app_up)'
gotta grafana query --datasource prom-main 'rate(http_requests_total[5m])'
gotta confluence search "queue architecture"
gotta gdocs search "incident response"
gotta granola list --time-range last_30_days --limit 5
gotta granola transcript 11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111 --query latency
gotta granola search-transcript latency --time-range last_30_days
gotta slack workspaces
gotta slack auth
gotta slack search "handoff failure"
gotta read https://github.com/org/repo/blob/main/README.md

Direct provider status, search, and get surfaces operate without session scaffolding unless they intentionally materialize durable evidence.

gotta read is the canonical retrieval entrypoint. It supports:

• local files and directories
• bounded local rereads through --head, --tail, and --section
• provider URLs routed to the correct plugin
• canonical provider locators emitted by session surfaces
• stored content rereads by artifact or digest

This surface is broader than search. It is the acquisition layer for the session's evidence web. Slack threads, GitHub pages, Jira issues, Google docs, Grafana dashboards, Confluence pages, and Granola notes all become reopenable session artifacts rather than transient terminal output.

Granola extends that same model to personal notes and transcripts through the local desktop session and Granola's APIs, so meeting notes and transcripts participate in the same durable evidence graph as repository, ticket, and chat artifacts.

Once that context is grounded, the same native surfaces support follow-on action. The goal is not only to recover information, but also to preserve enough working state that research, planning, and provider-native actions can happen against the same session context.

Session Synthesis Surfaces

gotta session is how the raw evidence web becomes navigable:

• session manifest
• session timeline
• session graph
• session leads
• session analyze

Examples:

gotta session show
gotta session manifest --plugin jira
gotta session timeline --limit 20
gotta session graph --output mermaid
gotta session leads artifact:ticket.md@0123deadbeef
gotta session analyze

These surfaces intentionally compress the evidence web without severing it:

• manifest summarizes what has been materialized
• timeline reconstructs chronology
• graph renders lineage and continuity
• leads extracts explicit next reads from existing artifacts
• analyze rebuilds cached session synthesis outputs from durable state

Empty manifest, graph, leads, and analyze output means the session has not materialized enough evidence yet.

After compaction pressure, these are the surfaces that make rehydration cheap. They preserve the shape of the work so the next pass starts from durable structure rather than a thin summary.

Session Coordination

Bind one shared session explicitly, then rewrite the operator-owned charter surfaces inside the active actor root:

gotta session bind retry-review
gotta actor bind Claude
gotta want --stdin <<'EOF'
Queue retry context review.
EOF
gotta goal --stdin <<'EOF'
Build the execution charter for the current session from live context.
EOF

That yields one shared session plus one actor-local working root:

sessions/retry-review/
  session.json
  content/
  actors/<actor-id>/
    WANT.md
    GOAL.md
    TODO.md
    LOGS.md
    OOPS.md
    NOTES.md
    state/
    bin/
    content -> ../../content

Inside this topology:

• WANT.md and GOAL.md are actor-local intentional rewrites
• state/todo.jsonl is actor-local truth and projects into TODO.md
• state/logs.jsonl is actor-local truth and projects into LOGS.md
• state/oops.jsonl is actor-local truth and projects into OOPS.md
• state/notes.jsonl is actor-local truth and projects into NOTES.md
• sessions/<session-id>/content/ is shared across all actors bound into that session

Read-only session-rooted surfaces such as gotta oops, gotta logs, gotta todo, gotta want, gotta goal, gotta actor status, and gotta session show require either an existing bound session or an explicit --session <session-id>.

This split is deliberate:

• narrative framing stays editable
• operational truth stays append-only and durable
• readable projections refresh from canonical state

Examples:

gotta session init
gotta want --stdin <<'EOF'
Queue retry context review.
EOF
gotta goal --stdin <<'EOF'
Trace retry handling from the first strong source anchor and keep the charter
current as evidence lands.
EOF
gotta todo append <<'EOF'
Inspect duplicate materializations in `gotta session analyze`.
EOF
gotta logs append <<'EOF'
Captured the first GitHub, Jira, and Confluence anchor set.
EOF
gotta oops append <<'EOF'
Direct fetch coverage should preserve the same continuity guarantees as search.
EOF

Shared Sessions

Each shared session owns its evidence web directly and carries nested actor-local session areas beneath it.

• shared session roots live at sessions/<session-id>/
• actor-local session areas live at sessions/<session-id>/actors/<actor-id>/
• the active fingerprint points at one actor-local root through bindings/<fingerprint>
• shared evidence lives under sessions/<session-id>/content/
• actor-local planning and lifecycle state stay local to each actor root
• actor targeting is explicit actor selection inside the current session, not path traversal under actors/

Examples:

gotta session bind retry-review
gotta actor bind Claude
ACTOR=<bound-actor-id>
gotta want --actor "$ACTOR" --stdin <<'EOF'
Trace retry ownership from the first strong source anchor.
EOF
gotta goal --actor "$ACTOR" --stdin <<'EOF'
Materialize the actor-local evidence contract before launch.
EOF
gotta actor launch "$ACTOR"
gotta notes show --actor "$ACTOR"
gotta todo extend --actor "$ACTOR" <<'EOF'
- Compare retry behavior across the relevant design docs.
EOF

Important invariants:

• gotta session bind ... switches the active fingerprint binding to one session-local actor root
• gotta actor bind ... binds sibling actor sessions inside that shared session but does not launch them
• actor-local WANT.md and GOAL.md are seeded placeholders that must be rewritten before launch with gotta want --actor <actor> ... and gotta goal --actor <actor> ...
• actor-local TODO.md is seeded automatically and can be extended
• actor notes are supervisory visibility, not a separate truth store
• actor evidence often lands in the shared manifest, timeline, and graph before notes fully catch up

The important property is continuity under delegation. Actors can branch, gather evidence, and rejoin the shared working set without flattening everything into a single chat transcript.

oops As Canonical Alignment

gotta oops is a first-class operator surface.

Use it to record:

• incomplete or misleading contracts
• native surfaces that should have been followable but were not
• provider coverage limits that materially shaped the working path
• workflow friction that forced avoidable detours

The point is not merely bug tracking. The point is preserving operator-visible misalignment in canonical shared state so the tool can be refined from observed behavior rather than taste or memory.

Key Concepts

These terms appear throughout gotta and its documentation:

• session — a durable working root that survives context loss. Sessions own a content store, actor roots, and synthesis surfaces. They can be reopened, extended, handed off, or compacted and rehydrated.

• actor — a named participant in a session. Each actor has its own charter surfaces (WANT.md, GOAL.md), state logs (TODO.md, LOGS.md, OOPS.md, NOTES.md), and lifecycle. Actors can be human operators, AI agents, or automated workflows.

• fingerprint — the context identity that binds the current terminal, thread, or environment to a session and actor root. Fingerprints are derived from terminal session IDs, Codex thread IDs, or explicit bindings.

• materialization — the act of capturing command output as a durable, content-addressed artifact in the session's content store. Materialized evidence has a SHA-256 digest and can be reopened by locator.

• canonical locator — a provider-normalized reference for a materialized artifact. Examples: github:org/repo/blob/main/README.md, jira:PROJ-123, slack:C01234/p1234567890. Locators are emitted when evidence lands and can be followed with gotta read.

• artifact locator — a session-relative reference to stored content. Format: artifact:<preferred-name>@<digest12>. Resolves through gotta read without requiring manifest spelunking.

• content locator — a digest-based reference to stored bytes. Format: content:<sha256>. Two identical fetches share the same content object.

• evidence web — the accumulated set of materialized artifacts, their metadata, and the relationships between them. The web grows through retrieval waves and can be navigated through synthesis surfaces.

• synthesis surface — a compressed, navigable view over the evidence web. manifest summarizes what has been materialized. timeline reconstructs chronology. graph renders lineage. leads extracts followable references. analyze rebuilds cached session synthesis.

• friction — operator-visible misalignment captured in oops. Not bug tracking. Friction records seams: misleading contracts, continuity gaps, workflow detours. The canonical log is state/oops.jsonl; OOPS.md is the readable projection.

• projection — a readable Markdown file derived from canonical JSONL state. TODO.md, LOGS.md, OOPS.md, and NOTES.md are projections. Append-only JSONL is truth; Markdown is the human surface.

• rehydration — recovering prior working state from durable session artifacts after context has been compressed. The synthesis surfaces make rehydration cheap: they preserve the shape of the work so the next pass starts from structure rather than a thin summary.

Plugin Architecture

gotta uses two entry-point groups:

• gotta.plugins for top-level plugins
• gotta.ask for optional ask-family extensions

Core is a PEP 420 namespace package. Plugins can live in separate distributions and still contribute modules under the shared gotta namespace.

Core ships these top-level plugins:

• ask
• confluence
• gdocs
• gdrive
• grafana
• granola
• github
• gsheets
• jira
• logs
• notes
• oops
• actor
• read
• session
• slack
• todo
• want
• goal

read is the URL-shaped dispatcher. It routes recognized targets through installed provider plugins by asking those plugins whether they own the target.

Ask Extensions

gotta ask is a generic host for separately installed ask-family extensions. Ask surfaces are provided by extensions that register the gotta.ask entry-point group.

An ask extension registers the gotta.ask entry-point group and then becomes available as:

gotta ask <surface> ...

Use gotta ask --help-all to inspect installed ask surfaces recursively.

Contributing And Release Discipline

The project is maintained with a few deliberate rules:

• remove residue instead of layering over it
• prefer tool-observable truth to conversational assumption
• keep friction canonical in oops
• treat complexity as measurable pressure, not just aesthetic discomfort
• preserve session continuity and reopenable evidence paths

If you contribute:

• run the full quality gate before proposing changes
• keep examples and fixtures generic and public
• preserve the native evidence-first workflow
• prefer behavior-level cleanup over compatibility ballast

See CONTRIBUTING.md for the repository baseline.

Release

Build and validate artifacts with uv:

uv build --python 3.10 --clear
uvx twine check dist/*
uv publish --dry-run
uv publish

uv publish needs PyPI credentials in the environment. The simplest local path is UV_PUBLISH_TOKEN.