tik

tik is a process system, not a ticket system. A ticket is an append-only log of signed, content-addressed facts and artifacts. Where that ticket stands in its process is a derived value — a pure function of the log, the process definition, and the current time.

Nobody moves a ticket. People and agents contribute evidence, guards check it, stages derive, and tik explain says exactly what is missing and who can supply it.

$ tik set 3184 severity=:high resolution.ref=abc123def
ok
$ tik explain 3184
To reach :resolved:
  ✓ [:fact [:resolution :ref]]
  ✗ attach an artifact whose path starts with "repro/"
  blocks: :closed
  (see: kb/runbooks/support-request-resolved.md)

The one law

Derived beats declared. If something follows from the log, storing it as authoritative state is a bug. Stage, readiness, “who is blocked”, the board, the inbox, the roadmap — every one of them is computed on read, so every one of them is correct by construction. A cache that goes stale is a cache; the answer lives in the events.

The law has a companion: coordination-free by construction. Every operation is correct on arbitrarily many replicas that share nothing and reconcile by unioning their event sets. No leader, no lock, no consensus — contention resolves by derivation.

Derived beats declared →

What you get

• An answer to “what now?” — tik explain names the missing evidence, its schema, and who is allowed to sign it. tik next turns that into a per-person inbox.
• Offline forever. A store is files in a directory. Signatures are detached sidecars from ssh-keygen -Y; the filename of an event is its own SHA-256, so sha256sum alone audits the store.
• Replication by git pull. Two clones append independently and merge by set union, with no file-level conflict to resolve by hand.
• Time travel that costs nothing. Derivation takes now as an argument, so tik status --at 2026-03-01 answers what was true in March by evaluating March, reproducibly.
• Processes as data. A definition is plain EDN, hash-pinned at ticket creation, linted for a closed guard vocabulary and stratified negation, and testable with scripted cases.

Start here

• Install — one binary, or babashka from source.
• Your first ticket — a working store in five minutes, no server and no database.
• Concepts — the model behind the CLI.
• Authoring processes — designing one worth deriving.

Licensed 0BSD and REUSE -compliant.