Русская версия: README.ru.md.
Binnacle is a local, provider-agnostic AI Engineering Control Plane: persistent project context, workflow and observability across Claude Code, Codex, Gemini, GLM and other coding agents. It keeps project state outside chat sessions, hands fresh agents a compact and current context, collects spend telemetry, and leaves the human in charge of the process.
A binnacle is the stand that holds a ship's compass in front of the helm. It does not steer and it does not pick the course — it keeps the instruments where the helmsman can read them. That is the whole design brief.
The Binnacle site shows the dashboard and a write-up from Binnacle's own usage data, in English and Russian.
Demo
| Overview | Tasks |
|---|
| |
| Usage | Attention |
| |
The problem
Long agent sessions grow expensive, compaction loses detail, and every new agent re-explores the project from scratch. Binnacle moves project state into durable sources — Git, Markdown docs, ADRs, the tracker and a local, rebuildable telemetry store — so a chat is working context, not the project's memory.
Project knowledge and task state belong to the project — not to a particular model, chat or coding harness.
Requirements
- Node.js 24 LTS, on Linux, macOS or Windows.
- A free loopback port: the daemon serves its dashboard on
http://127.0.0.1:7717 by default; with autostart off, binn daemon start takes another port from BINNACLE_PORT.
Docker is not needed for Binnacle itself: it is one local daemon, and a container adds a published port and a second home to look after — use it only when your app already runs in one.
Install
npm i -g @it-bbox/binnacle
binn daemon start
For a one-off run without installing, use npx -p @it-bbox/binnacle binn. binn init offers to start the daemon at login, and, in Claude Code, the optional Binnacle mod: Binnacle's state beside the chat, no by default. To install the mod later, and to turn it off or remove it:
claude plugin install binnacle-mod@binnacle --scope user
claude plugin disable binnacle-mod
claude plugin uninstall binnacle-mod
New project: the short path
git initbinn init — one plan of everything it sets up, confirmed once./binnacle:roadmap — writes the vision and the epics./binnacle:product — the first Product session.
Then each epic goes /grill-with-docs → /to-spec → /to-tickets, and each ticket /binnacle:task run <ticket>, in a session of its own. Details: New project.
Existing project: the short path
binn audit — read-only findings; it writes nothing.binn init — the same one plan./binnacle:roadmap — epics proposed from the code, the history and the docs./binnacle:product — the first Product session.
Nothing is moved or rewritten without your yes. Details: Existing project.
More
Harnesses
Any harness that speaks MCP, or has a shell for binn call, gets the project's memory. Above that, Binnacle reads what each harness leaves on disk:
| Harness | Level |
|---|
| Claude Code (CLI and desktop) | 4 — Live |
| Codex (CLI and desktop) | 4 — Live |
| Gemini CLI | 4 — Live, not verified |
| opencode | 3 — Usage |
| ZCode | 3 — Usage |
| pi | 3 — Usage |
| Antigravity | 2 — Attribution, not verified |
| any other | 1 — Context |
What each level means and how each harness is reached: Working from another harness.
User guides
Further reading
The project's design, in this order: scope, architecture, Project Brain, product workflow, development workflow, MCP and skills, telemetry and dashboard, MVP plan. Architectural decisions are in docs/adr/.
Licence
Apache-2.0. See LICENSE.
