Lockstep vs Swimm
Swimm keeps documentation coupled to the code; Lockstep keeps code coupled to the decisions made outside it: in Slack, PRDs, and tickets. They solve adjacent problems: Swimm answers 'how does this code work?', Lockstep answers 'what did we decide, and is this change about to violate it?'.
What Swimm is good at
Swimm keeps code-coupled documentation up to date as the code changes.
Where Lockstep is different
Swimm documents the code; Lockstep captures the product and architecture decisions made across Slack, Jira, Notion, Docs, and PRs, approves them, and enforces them against both engineers and AI coding agents.
Swimm vs Lockstep at a glance
| Swimm | Lockstep | |
|---|---|---|
| Source of truth | The code and docs coupled to it | Decisions made in Slack, PRDs, tickets, and PRs |
| Question it answers | How does this code work? | What did we decide, and does this change violate it? |
| Staleness model | Docs update when coupled code changes | Decisions bind on approval; conflicting PRs get flagged |
| AI agent role | Agents can read the docs | Agents are briefed pre-session and checked at the PR |
When to use each
They aren't mutually exclusive. Keep Swimm for code documentation; add Lockstep as the layer that captures the decisions automatically, gets them approved, and enforces them against both engineers and AI coding agents. See the full pipeline.
Frequently asked questions
- Do Swimm and Lockstep overlap?
- Barely. Swimm is code documentation that stays fresh as code changes. Lockstep is a decision record captured from the tools where decisions actually happen. A team can genuinely want both: Swimm for how-it-works, Lockstep for what-was-decided.
- When is Swimm the better choice?
- When the pain is onboarding and code comprehension: engineers can't understand existing code, and docs rot. If decisions aren't getting lost and agents aren't shipping against them, Swimm addresses the sharper problem.
- Can Lockstep document my codebase?
- No, and it doesn't try. Lockstep never stores your source; it records decisions and their source anchors, briefs the people and agents touching affected code, and checks PRs for collisions with what was approved.
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