Assistants

An assistant is a Backboard entity that acts as a namespace for memories. Each assistant has its own isolated memory store. When you run tribal init, TribalMind creates an assistant for your project.

How assistants are identified

TribalMind identifies projects using the git remote URL. When you run tribal init:

1. It reads the git remote URL (e.g., github.com/yourorg/yourrepo)
2. It creates (or finds) a Backboard assistant with that identifier
3. The assistant ID is stored in .tribal/config.yaml

This means the same repo cloned on different machines will automatically share the same assistant and memories.

Caution

If there’s no git remote, TribalMind falls back to the directory name. This can cause collisions if you have multiple directories with the same name, or create orphaned assistants if you rename the directory.

Per-project vs global

Per-project (default)

tribal init

Creates a .tribal/config.yaml in your project root with the assistant ID for that specific repo. Memories are scoped to this project only.

Global

tribal init --global

Creates a config at ~/.config/tribalmind/tribal.yaml. Any repo that doesn’t have its own .tribal/config.yaml will use this global assistant.

Note

A global assistant is shared across all repos that use it. This means memories from one project will appear in recalls from another. Use global mode when you want a single shared knowledge base.

Cross-repo search

Even with per-project assistants, you can search across all assistants in your Backboard account:

tribal recall --all "auth token handling"

This is useful when you know knowledge exists somewhere but aren’t sure which project it’s in.

Managing assistants

List all assistants in your account:

tribal config assistants

Clear all memories for a specific assistant:

tribal config clear-memory --assistant asst_abc123

Configuration precedence

TribalMind resolves the assistant ID using this chain:

1. Environment variable: TRIBAL_PROJECT_ASSISTANT_ID
2. Per-project config: .tribal/config.yaml → project_assistant_id
3. Global config: ~/.config/tribalmind/tribal.yaml → project_assistant_id

See Configuration for the full config precedence chain.