Prior CLI

The Judgment Layer for Human-AI Work — capture and track engineering decisions made during AI-assisted development.

Installation

``bash
npm install -g getprior
`

Quick Start

`bash


Initialize Prior in your project

prior init

Check status

prior status

Capture a decision interactively

prior capture

Capture from text

prior capture "We decided to use PostgreSQL over MongoDB for ACID compliance"

Detect decisions from stdin (outputs JSON)

echo "conversation transcript..." | prior detect
`

Commands

| Command | Description |
|---------|-------------|
| prior init | Initialize Prior in the current directory |
| prior setup | Configure API keys (Claude, Slack, GitHub) |
| prior status | Show Prior status for this project |
| prior capture [text] | Capture a decision (interactive or from argument) |
| prior detect [text] | Detect decisions in text (outputs JSON) |

What It Does

Prior captures the why behind your technical decisions:

1. Initialize — Run prior init in any git repo to create prior.config.json
2. Capture — Record decisions with rationale, tradeoffs, and impact levels
3. Detect — AI-powered detection of decisions from conversation transcripts
4. Distribute — Publish decisions to Slack and GitHub (requires Prior API)

Configuration

Running prior init creates a prior.config.json:

`json
{
"version": 1,
"project": {
"name": "my-project",
"repo": "owner/my-project"
},
"integrations": {
"slack": { "channel": "decisions" },
"github": { "enabled": true }
},
"api": {
"url": "http://localhost:3000"
}
}
``

Requirements

- Node.js >= 18.0.0
- Git (recommended)
- Prior API running locally for full functionality

Learn More

- GitHub Repository
- Documentation

License

MIT