What if I stop using Arness — am I locked in?

[fredcallagan]

You're not locked in. Arness produces standard Markdown specs, JSON reports, and regular git commits. If you stop using it tomorrow:

• Your code is your code — Arness never introduces runtime dependencies.
• Plans and specs in .arness/ are plain Markdown, readable by anyone.
• PRs, commits, and issues it helped create are ordinary GitHub/Bitbucket artifacts.
• The .arness/ directory can be deleted in seconds.

There's no proprietary format, no binary state, and no API dependency beyond Claude Code itself. The only thing you lose is the structured workflow.

We'd recommend committing .arness/ to your repo — your specs and plans become part of your project history, which helps onboarding and decision archaeology. But if you prefer, add it to .gitignore.