git404hub

what is whyline fr?

sunradiance/whyline — explained in plain English

Analysis updated 2026-05-18

1PythonAudience · developerComplexity · 3/5LicenseSetup · moderate

tl;dr

A self-hosted tool that captures why past company decisions were made from Slack, email, and other sources, so anyone can later ask why and get sourced answers.

vibe map

mindmap
  root((Whyline))
    What it does
      Stores decision history
      Answers why questions
      Links to source receipts
    Tech stack
      Python
      SQLite
      BM25 search
      MCP server
    Use cases
      Recall why a rule exists
      Track vendor decisions
      Onboard new team members
    Audience
      Teams and companies
      Developers using Cursor
    Integrations
      Slack and email
      Jira and GitHub
      Notion and Confluence

Code map

Detail Auto

An interactive map of this repo's files and how they connect — its source is parsed live in your browser. Click Visualize to build it.

filefunction / class

what do people make with this?

VIBE 1

Capture Slack and email discussions so a team can later ask why a decision was made.

VIBE 2

Connect it to Cursor via MCP to ask about past decisions while coding.

VIBE 3

Ingest Jira, GitHub, and Linear webhooks to build a searchable decision history.

what's the stack?

PythonSQLiteFlaskMCP

how it stacks up fr

sunradiance/whyline0xustaz/streamgatea-bissell/unleash-lite
Stars111
LanguagePythonPythonPython
Setup difficultymoderatehardhard
Complexity3/54/54/5
Audiencedeveloperdeveloperresearcher

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

how do i run it?

Difficulty · moderate time til it works · 30min

Requires an LLM API key and local setup, production team use needs a WSGI server like gunicorn.

Licensed under the MIT license, so it can be used, modified, and shared freely including for commercial purposes.

in plain english

Whyline is a self-hosted tool that helps a company keep track of why past decisions were made, so that months or years later someone can ask why a rule or policy exists and get a real answer with sources, instead of everyone forgetting and re-investigating from scratch. The README describes the common problem of a team repeatedly asking things like why a certain billing rule exists or why a vendor was rejected, with the reasoning lost because the person who knew has left or the conversation is buried in an old Slack thread. The tool stores decisions in a shared SQLite database, a lightweight file-based database, so the information is available to the whole team rather than trapped in one person's browser. It uses a search technique called BM25 to find the most relevant past decisions for a given question, which is designed to keep working even as the collection of decisions grows into the hundreds. Every answer it gives links back to where the information came from, such as a Slack message, an email, a document, or a Jira ticket, so the source can be checked. Decisions can be captured automatically from several places: Slack messages and threads, an email alias, meeting transcripts, documents in Notion, Confluence, or Google Docs, and webhooks from GitHub, Microsoft Teams, Linear, Jira, and Salesforce. It also works as an MCP server, a standard that lets AI coding assistants like Cursor connect to outside tools, so a developer can ask questions about company decisions directly inside their editor. Setup involves cloning the repository, copying an example environment file, adding an API key for a language model service, and running a setup and start command, after which the tool runs locally on your own machine at a local web address. The project also supports multiple user roles for team use, such as viewer, member, admin, and owner, each with different permissions for creating and managing decisions. It is released under the MIT license with no required payment, though it accepts optional voluntary support.

prompts (copy fr)

prompt 1
Set up Whyline locally and connect it to my Slack workspace.
prompt 2
Explain how Whyline's BM25 search finds relevant past decisions.
prompt 3
Show me how to connect Whyline as an MCP server inside Cursor.
prompt 4
Walk me through setting up role-based access control for my team in Whyline.

Frequently asked questions

what is whyline fr?

A self-hosted tool that captures why past company decisions were made from Slack, email, and other sources, so anyone can later ask why and get sourced answers.

What language is whyline written in?

Mainly Python. The stack also includes Python, SQLite, Flask.

What license does whyline use?

Licensed under the MIT license, so it can be used, modified, and shared freely including for commercial purposes.

How hard is whyline to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated moderate, with roughly 30min to a first successful run.

Who is whyline for?

Mainly developer.

peek the repo → explain another one

This repo across BitVibe Labs

double-check against the repo, no cap.