Airforge

Axial by Airforge

Axial

Durable coordination for people and software agents.

Status
Preview
Access
Controlled
Interface
CLI / non-web

A centralized task tracker for work that passes between autonomous agents and the people responsible for it.

The coordination problem

Work does not stay with one actor.

Execution can be fast while coordination remains fragile. Work pauses, changes hands, and resumes in a different context. The system between those moments has to preserve more than a task title.

  1. Race

    Two actors can reach for the same work at once.

  2. Interruption

    Progress has to survive the context that produced it.

  3. Handoff

    The next actor needs explicit state, ownership, and history.

  4. Trust

    A caller needs outcomes it can distinguish and act on.

Current mechanism / 01

Atomic claim

One claim. One owner. An explicit conflict.

One conditional write establishes a single owner. A competing claim returns an explicit conflict the caller can branch on.

$ axial issue claim PLAT-1 --actor codex
claimed PLAT-1 by codex

$ axial issue claim PLAT-1 --actor fable
error[CONFLICT]: PLAT-1 already claimed by codex

The claim is a single conditional update. A competing claim exits with the reserved conflict status, so another system can choose a different task instead of guessing what happened.

Read the current Axial command contract

Architecture

One contract, two deployment modes.

Every command runs behind the same output contract. The backend is selected by the database URL; behavior and output are identical either way.

  1. Local

    Available

    The CLI opens a libSQL database directly. The single local process is the authoritative writer — there is no server to run.

  2. Cloud

    Research

    A planned authenticated service would enforce authorization, tenant isolation, and server-authoritative coordination. It is not yet built; a https:// backend currently returns error[CONFIG].

The storage boundary (core.Repository, ADR-005) and a complete export path (axial export / axial import, ADR-010) are the honest basis for that direction. Cloud is a direction, not an available deployment.

Capability matrix

What ships today, and what is planned.

Every row cites its source in the Axial CLI specification, roadmap, or feature backlog. Available means a delivered, golden-tested command; planned work is labeled In development or Research and is not available yet.

Axial capabilities by delivery status and Axial source
CapabilityStatusAxial source
Available today
Workspace-scoped projects and issues — create, view, list, update, close (with --outcome, --duplicate-of, --evidence)AvailableROADMAP M1 · SPEC §6–§7
Comments on issues — add, listAvailableROADMAP M2 · SPEC §8
Atomic claim with optional leases, heartbeat renewal, and structured release (--done / --remaining / --gotchas)AvailableROADMAP M3/M6/M9 · SPEC §9
Actor-attributed activity log — axial logAvailableROADMAP M3 · SPEC §9
Dependency edges and --unblocked filtering — issue block / unblockAvailableROADMAP M7 · SPEC §13
Race-safe dispatch — axial next selects and claims the best actionable task in one stepAvailableROADMAP M8 · SPEC §14
Context economy — axial changes --since delta re-orientation and axial context onboarding packetAvailableROADMAP M10 · SPEC §15–§16
Per-issue cost telemetry — issue costAvailableROADMAP M11 · SPEC §17
Complete export / import as JSONL, self-orientation (axial conventions), shell completions, doctor, configAvailableROADMAP M5 · SPEC §10–§12
Human terminal UI via axial ui (agent mode is the default, non-interactive path)AvailableSPEC §5
MCP server mode — axial mcp exposes the same operations as MCP tools over stdio, so chat-based agents use the contract without shell accessAvailableROADMAP M12 · SPEC §18
In development / research
Cloud mode — the authenticated multi-tenant service (internal/remote); the boundary is designed but the service client is not builtResearchADR-005/006/009/010 · ROADMAP “Cloud (not scheduled)”
Embedded-replica offline mode, which requires a remote primaryResearchFEATURES #21 · deferred to cloud
Backlog — capability-based routing / actor registry, git-native linking, token-budgeted briefsResearchFEATURES tiers 3–5

Preview boundary

A narrow view of the current contract.

Axial is in controlled-access Preview. Its contract or operation may change. This orientation shows one implemented coordination mechanism; it does not stand in for the complete product proof.

The waitlist will appear only when its email destination is operational.