keel
A conductor, not an agent loop
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What is keel?
Keel is a harness/conductor tool that adds auditable stopping conditions and persistent memory to AI coding agents. It provides five gates (G0-G4) for validating specifications, auditing plans, ensuring builds work, enabling code review, and capturing learnings from failures across sessions.
keel pricing
Pricing model: Freemium
keel pros
- Auditable stopping conditions with falsifiable oracles for every acceptance criterion
- Persistent memory across sessions stored in a durable repository-level knowledge base
- Multi-language symbol indexing via tree-sitter (8 languages: Rust, Python, JS, TS/TSX, Go, Java, C#)
- Five-level gate system with evidence tracking and provenance for all measurements
- Prevents agent oversteps: rejects scope creep, detects test weakening, and prevents repeated mistakes
keel cons
- macOS only—Windows branches compile but are untested and unexercised
- Limited to three active lessons against five intended by design (accrues with use)
- G2.5 security review defaults to heuristics unless configured with adversarial reviewer
- Early stage (v0.4.0) with thin evidence base from limited real-world testing
- Requires upfront configuration and learning curve for gate setup
Frequently asked questions about keel
What makes keel different from just running an agent loop?
Keel provides auditable stopping conditions and persistent memory across sessions. Agents without keel can rewrite unrelated code, weaken tests, and forget prior learnings—keel prevents all three.
What are the five gates and what do they check?
G0 validates specs are falsifiable; G1 audits plan reach via import graphs; G2 checks scope, builds, and tests; G3 ensures reviewability with proper evidence; G4 decides if failures should become rules.
How do I install keel?
Run `cargo install keel-harness`, which installs a binary called `keel`. Then `keel init` to set up the store and `keel map` to index your repository.
Is keel open source?
Yes. Source is at github.com/daneb/keel. Keel and keel-cli names on crates.io belong to unrelated projects.