Demo Mode

Demo Mode

You don't need bd installed to try Bead Me Up, Scotty. Demo mode runs the entire app against a built-in, in-memory dataset — every feature works, nothing is persisted, and your real beads (if any) are untouched.

When demo mode kicks in

• Automatically, when the bd binary isn't found on your PATH.
• On demand, when you force it with BEADS_DEMO=1 or the in-app Settings toggle.
• Always available as a selectable "Demo" project in the project switcher, even when you do have real projects.

The sidebar always shows which mode is active, so you're never guessing.

What you get

The demo dataset is seeded from the project's design export, so it includes a realistic mix of beads — tasks, epics with children, typed dependencies, comments, and a spread of statuses and priorities. That means you can exercise:

• the board and drag-and-drop status changes,
• epics with live progress,
• the dependency graph,
• create / edit / comment flows,
• filtering, search, and the other views.

Because it's in-memory, changes you make in demo mode live only for the session — restart and you're back to the seed data.

How it's wired

lib/store.ts chooses between the live bd bridge and the demo store; lib/demo-store.ts is the in-memory fallback, seeded from lib/demo-data.ts. The demo project has no filesystem path — the store resolver maps it straight to the in-memory store. See Architecture for the full picture.

Moving to real data

Ready to point it at your own beads? See Getting Started — set BEADS_REPO, run from a folder with a .beads repo, or pick the project in Settings.