Dobby CLI

Dobby CLI is a Forge-compatible workflow assistant implemented entirely in Rust. It layers focused planning and task management commands on top of the upstream Forge experience, so you can capture implementation intent and still access every Forge feature from a single binary. Launching dobby with no arguments opens a rich terminal dashboard so you can monitor files, plan progress, and context in one place.

Interactive dashboard

When you run dobby with no arguments, the binary launches a first-class terminal interface built with Ratatui:

• Workspace column (left): shows files under the current directory so you can spot relevant artifacts quickly.
• Activity stream (center): summarizes recent reasoning, task/test/doc status, and milestone callouts.
• Context panel (right): displays the active plan, task counts, backlog preview, and timestamps.
• Footer bar: lists common shortcuts such as tab agents, ctrl+p commands, q/esc to quit, r to refresh, and the dobby --forge … escape hatch for the upstream Forge CLI.

Keyboard controls mirror popular TUIs: j/k or arrow keys navigate, r refreshes persisted plan/task data, and q or Esc exits back to your shell. From here you can still run targeted commands like dobby plan show or dobby task list, and dobby --forge provider list jumps straight into Forge when you need the legacy interface.

Quickstart

Install or update the CLI with a single command (mirroring Forge's installer):

• Plan scaffolding – capture a project name, description, and milestones with dobby plan init, then inspect the live blueprint with dobby plan show.
• Task tracking – add work items, filter by status, and update progress via human-friendly IDs or simple list indexes.
• Stateful workflows – plan and task data lives in ~/.dobby-cli/state.json, so every session resumes from the same source of truth until you reset it.
• Forge delegation – any command outside of plan/task is forwarded to the vendored Forge binary, exposing 100% of the upstream CLI (agents, providers, workspaces, conversations, etc.).

Installation

Prefer the single-command installer above? Skip to Quickstart. For manual control, build the CLI directly from this repository.

Prerequisites

• A Rust toolchain via rustup
• Protocol Buffers (brew install protobuf on macOS or download from the official releases page)
• Git submodules initialized (git submodule update --init --recursive)

Install once and reuse

cargo install --path .

This places the dobby binary in ~/.cargo/bin, making it available anywhere on your system.

Run ad-hoc without installing

cargo run -- plan show

The compiled binary lives at target/release/dobby (or target/debug/dobby when using cargo run).

Forge integration

Dobby vendors the entire antinomyhq/forgecode tree under vendor/forgecode and delegates every non-plan/task command to the real Forge binary. To keep the delegation path working:

1. Pull the submodule after cloning: git submodule update --init --recursive
2. Install prerequisites: a Rust toolchain (rustup) and Protocol Buffers (brew install protobuf on macOS, or download from https://github.com/protocolbuffers/protobuf/releases).
3. Compile Forge once with cargo build --release --manifest-path vendor/forgecode/Cargo.toml (or let dobby build it automatically the first time you run a delegated command).
4. Invoke any Forge command through Dobby, e.g. dobby provider list or dobby for the interactive shell. Dobby-native workflows (plan/task) continue to run directly inside this binary.

Usage

Plan commands

Command	Description
dobby plan init -n "Feature" -d "Optional description" -m "First milestone" -m "Second milestone"	Create a new plan (fails if one already exists).
dobby plan show	Display the active plan with milestones and color-coded tasks (IDs are shown for easy cross-reference).
dobby plan reset	Clear the stored plan/tasks so you can start over.

Task commands

Command	Description
dobby task add "Implement auth" --notes "Start with backend"	Append a pending task to the active plan.
dobby task list	List every task. Add --status in_progress (or pending, completed) to filter.
dobby task status 2 completed	Update a task by 1-based index. You can also pass a full ID or a unique ID prefix (e.g., dobby task status a1b2c3 in_progress).

Tip: Run dobby plan show or dobby task list to grab the colored IDs shown next to each task before updating their status.

Delegated Forge commands

Any other invocation is proxied to the Forge binary. For example:

# Launch Forge's interactive shell
dobby

# List configured providers via Forge
dobby provider list

Development workflow

1. Install dependencies: rustup target add (as needed) and cargo fetch
2. Format & lint: cargo fmt && cargo clippy
3. Compile: cargo build
4. Exercise flows locally: cargo run -- plan show or cargo run -- provider list

Testing

Run the standard Rust checks before shipping changes:

cargo fmt --check
cargo clippy -- -D warnings
cargo test

Validate end-to-end behavior by running representative commands (swap cargo run -- with the installed dobby binary if you've already installed it):

cargo run -- plan init -n "Demo" -m "First milestone"
cargo run -- task add "Wire up persistence"
cargo run -- task list

Troubleshooting

• Plan already exists: Reset with dobby plan reset before re-running plan init.
• No task matches identifier errors: Double-check the task ID or use the list index when updating statuses.
• Forge build failures: Confirm Rust (cargo) and Protocol Buffers (protoc) are installed, then rerun git submodule update --init --recursive followed by cargo build --release --manifest-path vendor/forgecode/Cargo.toml.