Reference

The Working with zdev guide introduces areas, tasks, discussion, research, and orchestration before the command details.

Use the tutorial to try the ordinary workflow, or the command guide to choose a request for your agent. These pages explain the underlying commands and records in more detail.

Terminal commands

The CLI reference has a page for each command, with invocation examples and options. The binary manages records and local Git operations. It does not launch an implementation just because you run zdev next. Planning and agent execution belong to the installed harness workflow.

Command	Purpose
`zdev init`	Initialize the work record and choose its storage policy.
`zdev skill`	Install or check a harness integration.
`zdev area`	Create, inspect, bind, close, or reopen an area.
`zdev tasks`	List, review, and import task bundles.
`zdev slice`	Create a short brief for a related increment within an area.
`zdev task`	Inspect or update one task and record completion.
`zdev status`	Inspect an area’s state and branch relationship.
`zdev goal`	Inspect continuation state without starting agent work.
`zdev next`	Select a ready task without implementing it.
`zdev config`	Inspect and change project or worker settings.
`zdev check`	Check the planning record for inconsistencies.
`zdev work-context`	Collect the current task, branch, and working-tree context.
`zdev area rebase`	Start or recover a managed area rebase.
`zdev commit`	Commit staged changes with a stable change ID.
`zdev change`	Inspect or find a logical change by its stable ID.
`zdev research`	Manage local research runs and experiments.
`zdev cleanup squash`	Remove a pull-request planning record before squash merge.

For exact options in your installed version, run:

zdev --help
zdev area --help
zdev tasks --help
zdev config --help

Most inspection commands offer --format json for agent use. The user guide has complete setup and task-import examples.

Tasks and workflow

Workflow explains selection, independent verification, completion, change IDs, and recovery.
Task format defines task fields, dependencies, priority, and completion conditions.
Area lifecycle covers opening and closing objectives.
Goal and loop describes continuation and when work stops.
Derived work explains follow-up tasks and splits discovered during work.

Branches and configuration

Trunk areas explains how several areas can share project trunk.
Configuration lists settings, scopes, precedence, and change commands.
Worker profiles defines model and harness choices for delegated work.
Task complexity explains routine, standard, and advanced task routing.

Harnesses and research

Harness support describes what each integration can do.
Orchestration compares native delegation mechanisms.
Harness goals covers continuation limits and recovery.
T3 Code explains explicitly selected coordination across Codex and Claude Code.
Research and experiments covers measured runs, budgets, and accepted or discarded candidates.
Area reports describes reports of completed work.

Upgrade to 2.0 is for existing installations. Contributor setup and release operations are in the Project section of the sidebar.