Developer Launches 'basou', an Open-Source Harness to Keep AI Coding Agents in Check

A developer has released basou, an open-source tool designed to give programmers greater control over AI coding agents across multiple sessions. The tool stores project context, decisions, and agent activity as plain files in a local '.basou/' directory, ensuring no data leaves the user's machine. It addresses three core pain points: loss of decision context between sessions, the repeated cost of re-explaining project state, and the inability to audit what an AI agent actually did. Key commands let users capture structured decisions mid-conversation, check current work status, and generate handoff documents for the next session or teammate. Named after the Japanese word for tacking up a horse, basou positions itself as a lightweight control layer rather than a dashboard or logging service.