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bento why

Terminal window
bento why <dish>:<task>     # e.g. bento why marketing:lint
bento why <hex-prefix>      # any prefix from `bento plan --json` or `bento ci --json`
bento why <hash> --json     # structured output

why returns every input that participates in a cache key: hashed files (with sizes + blake3 digests), env-var names (values are hashed but never displayed), the resolved toolchain, every upstream dependency that cascaded into the key, and the bento + adapter version stamps.

Useful for “why did this rebuild?” and “why didn’t this rebuild?” both. The structured JSON shape is registered with bento schema why for agent consumption.