Introduction

Sidecar is a CLI-first project memory tool for developers and AI coding agents. It lives inside your repository and gives you a structured place to record the things that code alone can't capture.

Git tells you what changed. Sidecar tells you why.

What Sidecar stores

Sidecar organizes project memory into six types of records:

Decisions sidecar decision record

Architectural choices and their rationale

Work Logs sidecar worklog record

What was done, and what files changed

Tasks sidecar task add

Follow-up work to track inside the project

Notes sidecar note

Observations, warnings, loose thoughts

Summaries sidecar summary refresh

Structured snapshot of recent project state

Preferences sidecar preferences

Project conventions and style guidance

Where to start

If you're new to Sidecar, start with the Getting Started guide:

Install the CLI
Run sidecar init in a project
Understand the files that get created
Record your first decision or work log

Getting Started →

Documentation overview

Getting Started

Install, initialize, and understand what Sidecar creates in your project.

Commands

Complete reference for all Sidecar CLI commands with examples.

Agent Workflow

How AI coding agents use Sidecar as shared project memory.

Preferences

Store project-level conventions and guidance for humans and agents.

Storage & Data

How Sidecar stores data locally with SQLite and generated summaries.

Design principles

Sidecar is built around a few decisions that shape how it works:

Local-first. Everything lives in .sidecar/ inside your project. No cloud, no account, no sync.
CLI-first. The command line is the primary interface. Automation-friendly by design.
Structured over freeform. Records have defined types so summaries are reliable and queryable.
Works for both humans and agents. The same commands work whether a person or an AI is running them.