Open core · for founders and small teams building with AI agents

Write down what your agents may decide.

Mandately keeps your team's rules as files in your repo. Agents work inside them, you decide only what the rules leave open, and every decision lands on one ledger.

Read the install guide
Runs on your machine. The first week only watches and changes nothing.
Sample 
# .mandately/classes.yml
classes:
  C:  # what users see
    start: release
    merge: go
  D:  # internal, reversible
    start: alone
    merge: alone
Your go

This change touches what users see. It merges when you say go.

gohold
If no answer: it waits.

Many agents, one way of working

Mandately gives every agent the same rules and one record, so they can work side by side without getting in each other's way.

The same rules for every agentThe rules are files in your repo, the same for every agent, whichever tool it runs on.

One owner at each stepYour rules say who holds work at each step, and every handover is on the record.

Every move on one recordEach start, merge and word is recorded with who made it and what the rules said.

3 steps, and the rest is on the record

1Write your rules

Who may start work and whose go it needs, per kind of work, as a few files you review by pull request.

people.yml · classes.yml · sensitive.yml
2Agents work inside it

Claude Code, Codex or your own keep working as they do. Mandately reads your board and your repos.

Reads your board and git, writes to the ledger
3You see what needs you

The report shows each decision your rules leave to you, and whether what your team did matched them.

go · hold · release · ship

Start from good practice

The default rules come from how we run Stackable. Change any of them by pull request.

ClassCoversTo startTo merge
AIrreversible or externalreleasego
BMoneyreleasego
CWhat users seereleasego
DInternal and reversibleagents aloneagents alone
EReading and reportingagents aloneagents alone
  • Unsure counts one class higher.A change that might reach users is treated as one that does.
  • Some files always need the owner.CI workflows, infrastructure and the rules themselves wait for your go, whatever the class.
  • A watch week comes first.Nothing is enforced until the record agrees with how your team works.

One ledger, every decision on it

Each piece of work and each change, with what the rules said about it, the rule and its version.

WhenWorkWhat happenedWhoThe rules said
09:12Login page copyStartedagentrelease from the owner at 09:05
10:40Login page copyMergedagentgo from the owner
11:02Test fixturesMergedagentalone internal, reversible
11:30CI workflowWaitingagentask needs the owner's go

Sample rows.

Measured against your own history

On day one Mandately reads your git and board history and sets your baseline. Every weekly report puts your week beside it.

Flow timeFrom release to done, median hours.
VelocityIssues done per week.
Work in progressStarted and not done when the week ends.
Time per stateWhere work waits, median hours in each state.
Review waitFrom opened to the first review by someone else.
Opened to mergedMedian hours for each change.
Owner touchesEach time you step in, per merged change.
What the rules saidAsks that matched what happened, and those that did not.

This is how we run Stackable, our own company

7 of 1,773of the changes merged in 5.8 weeks were the owner's alone
3.2 hfrom release to done, median of 628 issues
1.02owner touches per merged change

Stackable, 23 September to 3 November 2026, from its git history and board. An owner touch is a commit of the owner's own, a comment on the board or a board action.

Start with a watch week

3 commands on your machine. Mandately records, and changes nothing.

mand init

Asks 6 questions and opens a pull request with your rules. You review it and merge.

mand watch

Records what your rules would decide beside what your team did, and changes nothing.

mand report

The week's numbers from the ledger, against your own baseline from your git and board history.

Open core. Runs on your machine.

Runs on your machine

It reads your board and repos there, keeps the ledger on your disk and sends nothing to us.

Your board, your words

It reads your Multica board as your team uses it. Your rules use its words: go, hold, release and ship.

Open core

The core is source available under the Business Source License 1.1, each release Apache-2.0 after 3 years. The adapters are open source. The source is published with the first release.

One ledger

Every decision is recorded with the rule and the version it came from.

Questions

Not answered here? The install guide covers setup, what Mandately reads and where the ledger lives.

Read the install guide
Talk to the founderQuestions about Mandately or your setup? Write to us.hello@mandately.ai
Is it a coding agent or a code reviewer?

Neither. It does not write or review code. It keeps your rules and records every decision against them.

Does it replace my coding agents?

No. Claude Code, Codex, Cursor or your own keep doing the work. Mandately records each decision and what your rules say about it.

Will it ask me anything in the first week?

No. The watch week only records. Its report shows where your word would have been needed.

Which boards does it work with?

Multica today. The adapters are open source, so from the first release you can add yours.

Where does my code go?

Mandately runs on your machine and sends your code nowhere. Your agents keep using your model accounts as they do today.

Is it open source?

Open core. The core is source available under the Business Source License 1.1, each release Apache-2.0 after 3 years. The adapters are open source. The source is published with the first release.

Your rules, your machine, one record.

Read the install guide