Your First Nodes

Let's create some nodes to see how the decision graph works.

Creating a Goal

Every decision chain starts with a goal—the high-level objective you're trying to achieve:

$ deciduous add goal "Implement user authentication" -c 90
Created node #1: goal "Implement user authentication"

What just happened?

• We created a goal node (a high-level objective)
• The title is "Implement user authentication"
• The -c 90 sets confidence to 90% (we're pretty sure this is what we want)
• It was assigned ID #1

Adding a Decision

A decision represents a choice point—somewhere you need to pick between options:

$ deciduous add decision "Choose authentication method" -c 75
Created node #2: decision "Choose authentication method"

The confidence is lower (75%) because we haven't decided yet.

Adding Options

An option represents something you're considering:

$ deciduous add option "JWT tokens" -c 80
Created node #3: option "JWT tokens"

$ deciduous add option "Session cookies" -c 70
Created node #4: option "Session cookies"

Now we have two options to consider.

Viewing What We Have

Let's see all our nodes:

$ deciduous nodes
ID  Type        Title                            Status   Confidence
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
1   goal        Implement user authentication    active   90
2   decision    Choose authentication method     active   75
3   option      JWT tokens                       active   80
4   option      Session cookies                  active   70

We have four nodes, but there's a problem: they're not connected.

The Connection Problem

Right now, our nodes are just floating in space. The decision graph's value comes from showing relationships:

• Which goal does this decision belong to?
• Which decision do these options relate to?
• What led to what?

Let's fix that in the next section.

Node Types Quick Reference