The PR Workflow

Here's the recommended workflow for integrating decision patches into your PR process.

While Working on a Feature

Create nodes as you normally would:

$ deciduous add goal "Add OAuth login" -c 90 -p "User asked for OAuth"
$ deciduous add decision "Choose OAuth provider" -c 75
... continue working and logging decisions ...

Before Opening the PR

Step 1: Export Your Decisions

$ deciduous diff export \
    --branch $(git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD) \
    -o .deciduous/patches/$(whoami)-$(git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD).json
Exported 12 nodes and 11 edges to .deciduous/patches/alice-feature-oauth.json

Step 2: Generate Visualization (Optional)

$ deciduous dot --auto --png --nodes 60-72
Generated docs/decision-graph-feature-oauth.png

Step 3: Commit the Patch and Graph

$ git add .deciduous/patches/ docs/decision-graph-*.png
$ git commit -m "docs: add decision graph and patch for OAuth feature"

Step 4: Push and Create PR

$ git push -u origin feature/oauth

$ gh pr create --title "Add OAuth Login" \
    --body "$(deciduous writeup --auto -t 'Add OAuth Login' --nodes 60-72)"

For PR Reviewers

After pulling the branch:

$ git checkout feature/oauth
$ git pull

# Apply the patch to get the decisions in your local database
$ deciduous diff apply .deciduous/patches/alice-feature-oauth.json
Applied 12 nodes (12 new, 0 existing)

# Now you can explore with TUI or web viewer
$ deciduous tui

Reviewers now have full context on why decisions were made, not just what code changed.

After PR Merge

When the PR merges to main, teammates pull and apply:

$ git pull origin main
$ deciduous diff apply .deciduous/patches/*.json
Applied alice-feature-oauth.json: 12 nodes (12 new)
Applied bob-refactor.json: 8 nodes (8 existing, already applied)

Because patches are idempotent, teammates who already applied a patch (during review) won't get duplicates.

Continuous Application

Some teams add this to their workflow (e.g., in a git hook or CI):

# After every pull, apply all patches
$ git pull && deciduous diff apply .deciduous/patches/*.json

This ensures everyone's local database stays in sync.

Complete Example Timeline