Init and commit

Initialize a panproto repository, stage a schema, and record the first content-addressed commit.

Prerequisites

The schema CLI installed. A directory containing schema files (or a fresh directory you are about to populate).

The task

cd my-schemas/
schema init                 # create .panproto/
schema add user.json
schema commit -m "initial user schema"
schema log                  # show history

init creates a .panproto/ object store and a main branch. It may also generate panproto.toml when package detection finds source packages. add parses or loads the supplied path and stages the resulting schema; commit records the staged schema. A path ending in .json is deserialized directly as panproto’s internal Schema representation. To stage an ATProto Lexicon bundle, point add at a directory whose manifest declares a homogeneous atproto package. Non-JSON source files use the full-AST parser.

To inspect the current state:

schema status
schema diff --staged      # diff the staged schema against HEAD
schema show <commit-hash>

schema diff without --staged requires two file paths. A staged diff also requires an existing commit, so use it after the first commit.

Verification

schema log --oneline

prints one line per commit. The default long format includes the commit ID, schema ID, author, timestamp, and message.

Common mistakes

• Forgetting to schema add before schema commit. Like git, the staging area is explicit; commits only include staged changes.
• Editing inside .panproto/objects/ directly. The store is content-addressed; manual edits break the hash invariants.

See also

• Branch and merge.
• Reference: CLI.
• Schema version control semantics.