Does Lockstep replace Confluence?

No. Confluence stays the home for runbooks, architecture pages, and long-form docs. Lockstep reads the allowlisted spaces, captures the rules teams write down but never re-read, and turns them into binding, enforced decisions.

When is Confluence the better choice?

When you need a system of record for documents: compliance pages, runbooks, onboarding guides, meeting archives. If nobody on the team writes code, or nothing enforces decisions against code, Confluence alone covers the documentation job.

We already keep architecture records in Confluence. What does Lockstep add?

Delivery and enforcement. The record you already keep gets captured as discrete decisions, made binding by their owners, briefed to every engineer and AI agent before they touch the affected code, and checked against every PR, so the record stops being write-only.

Can Lockstep run inside our network, like Confluence Data Center?

Yes. Lockstep is Apache-2.0 and self-hosts with docker compose up (Postgres, the API, and the dashboard). Connectors are read-only and limited to allowlisted sources, and secrets are redacted at ingestion.

Do AI agents get our whole Confluence space?

No. They get the binding decisions captured from it, not raw pages. Claude Code, Cursor, or any MCP agent calls get_product_context and receives the decisions that govern the code it is touching, each linked to its Confluence source.

Lockstep vs Confluence

Confluence is a durable archive of what was decided; Lockstep is an active memory that briefs people and AI agents before they code and flags drift before it merges. Keep Confluence for long-form documentation; add Lockstep so decisions stop depending on someone re-reading the wiki.

What Confluence is good at

Confluence is a durable home for long-form documentation and architecture records across a large org.

Where Lockstep is different

Wikis capture decisions once and are rarely re-read, and nothing stops code from drifting away from them. Lockstep auto-captures decisions from the tools your team already uses, makes them binding, briefs humans and agents, and blocks conflicting PRs.

Confluence vs Lockstep at a glance

	Confluence	Lockstep
Record lifecycle	Written once, read rarely, goes stale silently	Captured continuously, made binding, re-delivered before work starts
Getting decisions in	Someone writes the page after the fact	Auto-captured from Slack, Notion, Jira, Confluence, and PRs
Getting decisions out	Search, if you know to look	Briefed to every engineer and agent working the affected code
Enforcement	None; the wiki can't see your PRs	PR check flags changes that collide with binding decisions
Pricing / hosting	Cloud: Free plan for up to 10 users; paid plans priced per user	Open source (Apache-2.0); self-host free, or hosted for design partners
Self-hosting	Data Center (self-managed), with end of life announced for March 28, 2029	Yes: docker compose up runs Postgres, the API, and the dashboard

Confluence facts checked against: Confluence pricing, Confluence Data Center downloads and end-of-life notice.

When to use each

They aren't mutually exclusive. Keep Confluence for wiki & knowledge base; add Lockstep as the layer that captures the decisions automatically, makes them binding, briefs engineers and AI coding agents on them, and flags work that conflicts. See the full pipeline.

How Confluence and Lockstep work together

Confluence keeps the long-form record; Lockstep keeps the decisions inside it active. Architecture pages and runbooks stay in Confluence, and Lockstep reads the spaces you allowlist alongside Slack and Jira, where many of those decisions were actually made before anyone wrote them up.

Keep architecture pages, runbooks, and decision registers in Confluence.
Allowlist the spaces that hold binding rules. Lockstep drafts proposed decisions from them, and from the Slack threads and Jira tickets around them, each anchored to its source.
Each owner confirms in one click, and the decision becomes binding.
Engineers and AI agents are briefed before they touch the affected code, and the PR check flags conflicts. It warns by default; blocking is opt-in.

One decision, both ways

Illustrative example: All customer-facing timestamps are stored in UTC.

In Confluence

Row 14 of the decision register on the 'Platform conventions' page, written up after a Slack debate. Accurate, but only useful to someone who opens that page before writing a migration.

In Lockstep

A binding decision captured from that thread and page, confirmed by the platform lead, briefed to the engineer or agent editing the schema, and flagged at the PR if a new column stores local time.

Adding Lockstep to Confluence

Nothing migrates. Confluence pages stay the long-form source, and Lockstep links each decision back to the page it came from. Install the CLI (npm install -g lockstep-cli), run lockstep onboard, and connect Slack (the most mature connector) plus the Confluence spaces you choose. If you run Confluence Data Center because content has to stay in-house, self-host Lockstep the same way with docker compose up.

Frequently asked questions

Does Lockstep replace Confluence?: No. Confluence stays the home for runbooks, architecture pages, and long-form docs. Lockstep reads the allowlisted spaces, captures the rules teams write down but never re-read, and turns them into binding, enforced decisions.
When is Confluence the better choice?: When you need a system of record for documents: compliance pages, runbooks, onboarding guides, meeting archives. If nobody on the team writes code, or nothing enforces decisions against code, Confluence alone covers the documentation job.
We already keep architecture records in Confluence. What does Lockstep add?: Delivery and enforcement. The record you already keep gets captured as discrete decisions, made binding by their owners, briefed to every engineer and AI agent before they touch the affected code, and checked against every PR, so the record stops being write-only.
Can Lockstep run inside our network, like Confluence Data Center?: Yes. Lockstep is Apache-2.0 and self-hosts with docker compose up (Postgres, the API, and the dashboard). Connectors are read-only and limited to allowlisted sources, and secrets are redacted at ingestion.
Do AI agents get our whole Confluence space?: No. They get the binding decisions captured from it, not raw pages. Claude Code, Cursor, or any MCP agent calls get_product_context and receives the decisions that govern the code it is touching, each linked to its Confluence source.