Kanban Workflow

Kanban Workflow (core)

Goal

Provide a reusable core for a project-management “co-worker” that:

• Uses the existing stage:* lifecycle as the canonical state machine.
• Integrates with PM platforms via adapter-managed auth (external CLIs/scripts; may require env vars like API keys). Kanban Workflow does not run interactive OAuth flows or persist secrets.
• Centralizes workflow/rules/runbooks so GitHub/Planka/Plane/Linear implementations share logic.

Queue semantics (requirements):

• next / autopilot-tick operate on assigned-to-me only items (across all configured scopes) for every adapter.
• Multi-scope monitoring is allowed, but it must enforce consistent stage/list/status names across all monitored scopes so a single stageMap is valid everywhere.

Canonical stage model

Treat these labels/states as canonical (and the only stages the agent should consider):

• stage:backlog
• stage:blocked
• stage:in-progress
• stage:in-review

Notes:

• Done/closed is platform-specific and intentionally not part of the canonical stage set.

Adapters map platform concepts (labels, lists, statuses, custom fields) into this canonical set.

Architecture (ports & adapters)

Core (platform-agnostic)

• Canonical entities: WorkItem, Project, Comment, Stage.
• Canonical events: WorkItemCreated, WorkItemUpdated, StageChanged, CommentAdded, etc.
• Workflow engine: stage-based worker loop + clarification/comment templates.
• State: cursors + dedupe + snapshots for diffing.

Adapters (platform-specific)

Adapters are “smart wrappers” that:

• Call existing CLIs (e.g. gh, planka-cli, plane), relying on their auth/session (Plane uses PLANE_API_KEY + PLANE_WORKSPACE; Linear uses LINEAR_API_KEY via the ClawHub skill linear).
• Compose multiple CLI calls to implement higher-level operations.
• Synthesize events by polling + snapshot diffing when webhooks or event types are missing.

Canonical adapter entrypoints live in src/adapters/:

• github.ts (gh CLI)
• planka.ts (planka-cli)
• plane.ts (ClawHub skill plane CLI; owner: vaguilera-jinko)
• linear.ts (ClawHub skill linear auth convention via scripts/linear_json.sh)

See also: src/adapters/README.md for CLI links and assumptions.

Entry points

Library entry points:

• tick() (poll → normalize → diff → events)
• verb-level workflow helpers: show, next, start, update, ask, complete, create, autopilot-tick
• automations: runProgressAutoUpdates()

CLI entry point:

• src/cli.ts (provides kanban-workflow <verb>; see README for setup flags)

CLI ergonomics: "What next" tips

All kanban-workflow <verb> commands print a What next: tip after execution to guide the canonical flow:

setup → next → start → (ask | update) → complete → next

After start, the tip additionally reminds you to run the actual execution/implementation work in a subagent, then report back via ask/update.

If config/kanban-workflow.json is missing or invalid, all commands error and instruct you to complete setup.

Setup (flags-only)

Setup writes config/kanban-workflow.json and validates that the selected platform CLI is installed + authenticated.

Required:

• kanban-workflow setup --adapter <github|plane|linear|planka> ...
• stage mapping flags: --map-backlog, --map-blocked, --map-in-progress, --map-in-review

Optional autopilot scheduling:

• --autopilot-cron-expr "*/5 * * * *" (default)
• --autopilot-cron-tz "Europe/Berlin" (optional)
• --autopilot-install-cron (creates an OpenClaw cron job that runs kanban-workflow autopilot-tick)

Adapter flags (summary):

• GitHub: --github-repo <owner/repo>, optional --github-project-number <number>
• Plane: --plane-workspace-slug <slug>, --plane-project-id <uuid>, optional --plane-order-field <field>
• Linear: --linear-team-id <id> or --linear-project-id <id>, optional --linear-view-id <id>
• Planka: --planka-board-id <id>, --planka-backlog-list-id <id>

Continuous status updates

While a task is in stage:in-progress, Kanban Workflow can post an automatic progress update comment every 5 minutes. Use runProgressAutoUpdates() and persist its state in your agent/runtime.

Recommended repo layout

• scripts/: deterministic helper scripts used by adapters or the core.
• references/: schemas and adapter notes (loaded on demand).
• assets/: runbooks/SOP templates.

Repo status

• The current core implementation is in TypeScript under src/.

Next implementation steps

1. Extend the adapter port to include idempotent write operations (comment/transition/label) in addition to fetchSnapshot().
2. Finish and validate the Plane + Linear adapters (consume ClawHub skill plane output schema; Linear uses scripts/linear_json.sh JSON compatibility wrapper).
3. Decide on the authoritative mapping rule for stage → platform state (names vs explicit mapping table) and codify it.
4. Add a small CLI surface for Kanban Workflow itself (e.g. kanban-workflow tick --adapter plane --workspace ... --project ...).