About This Book

BMO is an inspectable terminal agent for real engineering work. Its product bet is simple: the agent can read, edit, run tools, coordinate other agents, and operate background workflows, but the workspace, authority, review gates, run evidence, and recovery paths stay visible to the operator.

This artifact is the full reference profile of the BMO book. It is meant for operators, contributors, integrators, maintainers, and reviewers who need the whole documented surface in one searchable PDF. For first-time evaluation, start with the quick guide or the opening chapters below; use this full reference when you need breadth and exact contracts.

Why BMO

If you need…	BMO’s answer
AI coding help that works in the same checkout you do	Shared workspace state, real file edits, explicit tools, and visible approvals.
More control than a chat wrapper	Session modes, staged workflow, permissions, and named tool surfaces.
Long-running work that stays recoverable	Run events, checkpoints, debugger views, and durable workstream evidence.
Agent coordination without hidden autonomy	Sub-agents, mesh, recipes, schedules, and automation under inspectable boundaries.
One product across terminal, scripts, servers, and agent protocols	TUI, CLI, HTTP, MCP, A2A, and LSP surfaces that reuse the same core concepts.

The book has two layers.

The guide layer (this section) is a short, curated path for new users. It covers installation, your first session, and just enough mental model to work productively. It is roughly 5 pages and is designed to be read in order.

The reference layer (everything after this section) is the full generated documentation for BMO. It covers every feature, integration, configuration surface, and CLI command. It is organized by topic, not by learning sequence, and works best when you already know what you are looking for.

Choose a path

If you are…	Start with	Then read
Trying BMO for the first time	Your First 10 Minutes	Quickstart, then Common Workflows
Setting BMO up for a team	Authentication	Configuration, Safety and Permissions
Operating BMO in scripts or CI	Automation & Headless	Environment Variables, CLI Commands
Wiring editor or agent integrations	Protocol support	MCP Client, MCP Server, Zed
Inspecting runs or support evidence	Workflow Map	Agent Debugger, TUI Runtime Signals, Session Observability Parity
Maintaining BMO itself	Tools Reference	Maintainer notes in the repository and the maintainer-reference book profile

Available PDF profiles

• Latest published PDF book asset — bmo-book-paper-slate-machine.pdf (v0.6.0).
• Current-source PDF builds — generated locally from the checked-out mdBook source and selected profile; they are review artifacts until attached to a tagged release.
• Full reference — searchable inventory for commands, tools, features, and protocols; contributor notes are stripped from the reading path.
• Quick guide — the shortest setup and first-use path.
• Operator manual — setup, operation, integrations, safety, and the high-traffic references.
• Maintainer reference — the full set with contributor and implementation notes retained.
• Compact print — the full reference with denser page geometry for paper review.

External publication checklist

Before publishing a PDF outside the project, confirm the generated artifact has tagged PDF structure, working internal links, readable code blocks, figure captions for diagrams, warnings before destructive commands, and no maintainer-only notes in user-facing profiles. The docs:pdf:check task is the minimum gate; visual inspection is still required for page breaks and figure quality. For product evaluation, prefer the Quick guide or Operator manual unless the reader explicitly wants the full surface area. Maintainers should also confirm docs site, GitHub Wiki, generated HTML, and PDF parity with the surface parity checklist.

Recommended reading order

1. Read Your First 10 Minutes in this section. It walks you from installation through your first real edit.
2. If you want a deeper mental model, read How BMO Thinks and Acts in the Getting Started section.
3. After that, jump into whatever reference section is relevant to your work. The Workflow Map is a good visual starting point for understanding what BMO can do end-to-end.

Finding things

• The Getting Started section covers installation, authentication, and conceptual foundations.
• The Guides section has task-oriented walkthroughs for common workflows.
• The Features section documents capabilities by use case. Each mature operator-facing feature should say what problem it solves, when to use it, when not to use it, what to expect, and where deeper reference lives.
• The Integrations section covers protocol surfaces like MCP, A2A, and LSP.
• The Reference section has configuration, CLI, tools, and environment variable tables. It is dense by design; use it when you need exact contracts.
• The Advanced section covers multi-agent coordination, lifecycle hooks, and sandboxing.
• The Resources section has the changelog, FAQ, and troubleshooting.

Capability maturity labels

Some BMO concepts are everyday operator controls, while others are advanced, maintainer-facing, or evaluation-only surfaces. Pages use these labels when the distinction matters:

Label	Meaning
Daily-use	Safe starting point for regular coding, review, or operation.
Advanced	Useful once you understand the main workflow or are operating BMO in scripts, teams, or integrations.
Maintainer-facing	Primarily for contributors, support, or source-level diagnosis.
Eval-only	Evidence or measurement surface; it does not grant runtime authority or change user-facing behavior by itself.
Reference	Dense contract material to consult after you know the feature or command you need.

Reader journey map

Reader journey map

Quick guideInstall, authenticate, run, ask, edit, recover.

Operator manualConfigure, automate, integrate, observe, and keep runs safe.

Full referenceSearchable inventory for commands, tools, features, and protocols.

Maintainer referenceImplementation notes, source-of-truth links, and contributor-only context.

Use the shortest profile that matches the reader's job; the full reference is a map, not a required reading order.