Beagle SCM
Ranked 20 of 26 version control systems by recommenders
Research-stage version control storing code as AST trees; admired as an idea, but critics doubt AST storage beats text and say it needs a parser for every language.
Research-stage version control storing code as AST trees; admired as an idea, but critics doubt AST storage beats text and say it needs a parser for every language.
12 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 5
- approval share
- 58%
Recommended in 2 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 1.4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 2 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
SCM as hub for all activities
“the surprising finding is: instead of being a depository of source code blobs, an SCM can be the hub of all activities”
Comment from 4 Mar 2026 in “Weave – A language aware merge algorithm based on entities” “Above that, all the workflow and porcelain stuff is JavaScript in a repo.”
Comment from 23 Jul 2026 in “git's –end-of-options Flag” Stores versioned code as AST trees
“It genuinely stores AST trees in (virtually any) key-value database (RocksDB at the moment).”
Comment from 8 Mar 2026 in “Sem – Semantic version control. Entity-level diffs on top of Git” “The value I see in it is the core format/protocol for storing versioned source code”
Comment from 8 Mar 2026 in “Beagle, a source code management system that stores AST trees” Interesting research concept
“interesting and fun concept, but it seems to me like the text is actually the right layer”
Comment from 8 Mar 2026 in “Beagle, a source code management system that stores AST trees” “I think this project is incredibly cool as a line of research / thought”
Comment from 8 Mar 2026 in “Beagle, a source code management system that stores AST trees” Smooth submodule recursion, clear status
“submodule recursion became smooth in Beagle”
Comment from 7 Jul 2026 in “Automating AI Away” “I love the look of the status output.”
Comment from 23 Jul 2026 in “Malleable Computing, Emacs, and You”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Text, not AST, should be source of truth
“interesting and fun concept, but it seems to me like the text is actually the right layer”
Comment from 8 Mar 2026 in “Beagle, a source code management system that stores AST trees” “it's still just easier implemented as a layer on top of source code than the fundamental source of truth”
Comment from 8 Mar 2026 in “Beagle, a source code management system that stores AST trees” “I just don't think I agree with the Beagle approach (CRDT on AST as the source of truth)”
Comment from 10 Mar 2026 in “Beagle, a source code management system that stores AST trees”
Other version control systems people recommend
The four most recommended other version control systems, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Git | 814 | 503 | 62% | 13 | 15 yrs42 owners | — |
| Jujutsu (jj) | 335 | 106 | 76% | 13 | 1 yr21 owners | Approved |
| Mercurial | 121 | 43 | 74% | 12 | 19 yrs7 owners | Approved |
| jj (Jujutsu) | 115 | 37 | 76% | 12 | 1 yr7 owners | Approved |
| Beagle SCMThis page | 7 | 5 | 58% | 2 | — | — |
What people said
17 of the 18 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“None of Monal, Siskin or Beagle are a good experience”
“I love the look of the status output.”
“Above that, all the workflow and porcelain stuff is JavaScript in a repo.”
“I believe this is the right architecture for the LLM age.”
“submodule recursion became smooth in Beagle”
“the article doesn't do a good job of explaining it”
“And yeah, as durakot pointed out it's Beagle Basic.”
“I just don't think I agree with the Beagle approach (CRDT on AST as the source of truth)”
“it seems like there's a last-write-wins semantic. which is very problematic as an implicit assumption for code”
“The value I see in it is the core format/protocol for storing versioned source code”
“storing any processed form of the file would require extra work”
“I think this project is incredibly cool as a line of research / thought”
“it's still just easier implemented as a layer on top of source code than the fundamental source of truth”
“interesting and fun concept, but it seems to me like the text is actually the right layer”
“it means Beagle needs to understand how to parse every language, and keep up with how they evolve”
“It genuinely stores AST trees in (virtually any) key-value database (RocksDB at the moment).”
“the surprising finding is: instead of being a depository of source code blobs, an SCM can be the hub of all activities”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.