Arc Lightning (arcl)

A local-first project planning and execution CLI for developers and their agents. Arc Lightning keeps the live tracker in .arcl/arcl.db and can optionally use a Git worktree for repository-native project files.

Quick start

Arc Lightning initializes ordinary directories directly and discovers the nearest project when commands run from any descendant directory. Inside a non-bare Git worktree, initialization uses the worktree root.

# From a new or existing project directory
arcl init

init creates the following structure in your project:

.arcl
├── .gitignore      # ignores sqlite, temp files & conflict artifacts
├── config.toml
└── arcl.db

Daily workflow

Capture a thought, promote it to an owned specification, create a plan, and add work to that plan:

capture=$(arcl --json capture create "Improve import errors" --body "Make failures easier to fix.")
capture_id=$(printf '%s' "$capture" | jq -r '.data.capture.id')
spec=$(arcl --json capture promote "$capture_id" spec --acceptance-criteria "Imports reject invalid records.")
spec_id=$(printf '%s' "$spec" | jq -r '.data.spec.id')
plan=$(arcl --json plan create "Import validation" --spec "$spec_id")
plan_id=$(printf '%s' "$plan" | jq -r '.data.plan.id')
arcl task create "Validate records" --plan "$plan_id" --priority high
arcl ready

Small work can move directly from a capture to a task:

arcl capture promote arcl-c-… task --priority high

Local development

Build and check the CLI from the repository root:

cargo build
cargo test --workspace --all-features

Install the pnpm workspace and run the documentation site:

pnpm install
pnpm dev:website

Documentation content lives in apps/website/src/content/docs/. Verify the site with pnpm --filter @arclightning/website build.