Getting Started with dont

Prerequisites

Build dont from source and install it to your PATH:

git clone https://github.com/charly-vibes/dont.git
cd dont
cargo install --path .

Verify:

dont --version

When to reach for dont

The trigger is a thought that starts with “I think…”, “I believe…”, or “I’m assuming…” — combined with the fact that you haven’t verified it yet, and that being wrong would cost you time.

If you find yourself holding two competing explanations for a bug, that’s the clearest signal. dont gives those competing explanations a name, lets you track evidence for each, and forces you to resolve them before moving on.

A real session

You’re debugging a write-loss bug. Writes succeed (no errors returned) but data disappears after process restart. You have two theories.

First time? Initialize first:

dont init

Returning session? Orient first:

dont prime

This shows what claims are currently doubted or unverified — your open questions from the last session. If the store is clean, it exits 0 silently. If something is doubted, it exits 1 and tells you what to resolve first.

Step 1: Record the claim you’re investigating

dont conclude "CozoDb flushes writes lazily, causing data loss on unclean shutdown"
# → claim:01ABC123...

Step 2: Add a competing hypothesis

You’re not sure. Connection pool exhaustion could also cause silent write drops before any flush happens.

dont hypothesis add claim:01ABC123... --text "Connection pool exhaustion silently drops writes before flush"
# hypothesis added at index 0

Step 3: Gather evidence

You find the flush behavior in source:

dont flag claim:01ABC123... --file src/store.rs --lines 47-62

You check connection pool behavior and find it refutes the competing hypothesis. Hypotheses are referenced by 0-based index:

dont hypothesis assess claim:01ABC123... 0 --refuting src/pool.rs

Step 4: Confirm

Flagging evidence (dont flag) transitions the claim from unverified to verified. dont show lets you confirm the new state:

dont show claim:01ABC123...

Status is verified. The claim is grounded and the competing hypothesis is marked refuted.

Step 5: Lock when mature

dont lock requires ≥ 3 assessed hypotheses and ≥ 2 independent evidence sources. This tutorial used one hypothesis for brevity — see Competing hypotheses and atoms for the full lock pattern.

dont lock claim:01ABC123...

Lifecycle summary

Fast path: one-shot grounding

When you already have both the claim and the evidence in hand:

dont ground "The crate exposes a test recipe" --file justfile --lines 12-13

This concludes and verifies in a single command.