Idea Garden
How Trellis detects abandoned work and makes every exploration a reusable asset.
Overview
The Idea Garden is one of Trellis' most distinctive features. It automatically detects abandoned work context switches, stale branches, reverted changes and makes them discoverable and revivable.
Detection Heuristics
| Heuristic | Trigger | Signal |
|---|---|---|
contextSwitchDetector | File-set pivot | Ops in unrelated dirs followed by a context switch away |
revertDetector | Complementary ops | Ops undone by a subsequent inverse (add→delete, modify→revert) |
staleBranchDetector | Time + no milestone | Ops on non-main branches untouched >7 days without a milestone |
Using the Garden
# List all clusters
trellis garden list
# Filter by status or file
trellis garden list --status abandoned --file auth.ts
# Search by keyword
trellis garden search --keyword "authentication"
# Inspect a specific cluster
trellis garden show <cluster-id>
# Revive a cluster into a new branch
trellis garden revive <cluster-id>
# Statistics
trellis garden stats
# { total: 12, abandoned: 7, draft: 3, revived: 2, totalOps: 156, totalFiles: 23 }
Best Practice
Before starting new work, check the garden:
trellis garden list
trellis garden search -k "parser"
Someone (including past-you) may have already explored the problem space.