Kanban

Kanban Multi-Agent Workflow

Overview

Hermes Kanban is a durable SQLite board for multi-profile / multi-worker collaboration. Two roles:

• Orchestrator — decomposes goals into tasks, assigns to specialist profiles, routes and tracks
• Worker — picks up assigned tasks, does the work, completes or blocks with handoff context

The core worker lifecycle (including the kanban_create fan-out pattern and "decompose, don't execute" rule) is auto-injected into every kanban process via the KANBAN_GUIDANCE system-prompt block. This skill provides the deeper playbook for both roles.

Part A: Orchestrator Playbook

Profiles are user-configured — not a fixed roster

There is no default specialist roster. The orchestrator skill does not know what profiles exist on this machine. The dispatcher silently fails to spawn unknown assignee names.

Step 0: discover available profiles before planning.

hermes profile list   # prints available profiles
kanban_list(assignee="<some-name>")  # sanity-check a single name
# Or just ask the user

When to use the board

Create Kanban tasks when:

1. Multiple specialists are needed
2. The work should survive a crash or restart
3. The user might want to interject
4. Multiple subtasks can run in parallel
5. Review / iteration is expected
6. The audit trail matters

If none apply — use delegate_task instead or answer directly.

Anti-Temptation Rules

• Do not execute the work yourself — create a task for the right specialist
• Split multi-lane requests before creating cards
• Run independent lanes in parallel
• Never create dependent work as independent ready cards — use parents=[...]
• If no specialist fits, ask the user — don't invent profile names

Decomposition Playbook

Step 1 — Understand the goal. Ask clarifying questions if ambiguous.

Step 2 — Sketch the task graph. Extract lanes, map to profiles, decide dependencies. Show the graph to the user before creating cards.

Step 3 — Create tasks and link. Use kanban_create with parents=[...]:

t1 = kanban_create(title="research: Postgres cost vs current", assignee="<profile-A>",
    body="Compare costs over 3-year window.")["task_id"]

t2 = kanban_create(title="research: Postgres performance vs current", assignee="<profile-A>",
    body="Compare latency, throughput at 500GB/10k QPS.")["task_id"]

t3 = kanban_create(title="synthesize migration recommendation", assignee="<profile-B>",
    body="Read T1 and T2, produce recommendation.", parents=[t1, t2])["task_id"]

t4 = kanban_create(title="draft decision memo", assignee="<profile-C>",
    body="Turn recommendation into CTO memo.", parents=[t3])["task_id"]

Create parent cards first, capture IDs, pass to child cards. Avoid creating all cards and linking afterward.

Step 4 — Complete your own task. Pass created_cards with IDs from kanban_create return values (never hallucinated IDs).

Step 5 — Report back in plain prose naming actual profiles used.

Common Patterns

• Fan-out + fan-in: N research cards → one synthesis card with all as parents
• Pipeline: planner → implementer → reviewer, each gated on previous
• Same-profile queue: N tasks to same profile, no deps, dispatched serially
• Human-in-the-loop: kanban_block() with clear reason; operator unblocks with answer in comment

Goal-Mode Cards (Persistent Workers)

For open-ended work requiring multiple turns:

kanban_create(title="Translate full docs site to French", body="Every page translated.",
    assignee="<profile>", goal_mode=True, goal_max_turns=15)

Worker keeps going until it calls kanban_complete/kanban_block or budget exhausts. Write body as explicit acceptance criteria.

Recovering Stuck Workers

Three actions from the kanban dashboard:

1. Reclaim — abort running worker, reset task to ready
2. Reassign — switch to different profile
3. Change profile model — edit profile config, then retry

Part B: Worker Pitfalls and Examples

Workspace Handling

Tenant Isolation

If $HERMES_TENANT is set, prefix memory entries with the tenant.

Good Summary + Metadata Shapes

Coding task:

kanban_complete(summary="shipped rate limiter — token bucket, 14 tests",
    metadata={"changed_files": ["rate_limiter.py"], "tests_run": 14, "tests_passed": 14})

Coding task needing human review: Block with review-required: prefix, leave structured metadata in a comment first:

kanban_comment(body="review-required handoff:\nchanged_files: [...], tests_passed: 14")
kanban_block(reason="review-required: needs eyes on key choice before merging")

Research task:

kanban_complete(summary="3 libraries reviewed; vLLM wins on throughput",
    metadata={"recommendation": "vLLM", "benchmarks": {"vllm": 1.0, "sglang": 0.87}})

Claiming Cards

Pass created_cards on kanban_complete with IDs captured from kanban_create return values. Never invent IDs from prose or paste from earlier runs.

Block Reasons

Bad: "stuck" — no context. Good: one sentence naming the specific decision needed.

kanban_comment(body="Full context: ...")
kanban_block(reason="Rate limit key choice: IP or user_id?")

Heartbeats

Name progress: "epoch 12/50, loss 0.31". Skip for tasks under ~2 minutes.

Retry Diagnostics

Check prior run outcomes:

• timed_out — chunk or shorten work
• crashed — OOM/segfault, reduce memory
• spawn_failed — config issue, ask human via kanban_block
• reclaimed — previous run was archived; check status carefully

Notification Routing

In ~/.hermes/config.yaml:

• notification_sources: ['*'] — all profiles
• notification_sources: ['default', 'zilor-ppt'] — specific profiles

Do NOT

• Call delegate_task as substitute for kanban_create
• Call clarify in worker — use kanban_comment + kanban_block instead
• Modify files outside $HERMES_KANBAN_WORKSPACE unless task says to
• Complete a task you didn't finish — block it instead

Pitfalls

1. Task state can change between dispatch and startup — always kanban_show first
2. Workspace may have stale artifacts from previous runs
3. Don't rely on CLI in containerized backends — use tools, not hermes kanban <verb>
4. Reassignment vs new task — if reviewer blocks with "needs changes", create a NEW task
5. Argument order for links — kanban_link(parent_id=..., child_id=...). Parent first
6. Don't pre-create whole graph if shape depends on intermediate findings

CLI Fallback

Every tool has a CLI equivalent for human operators:

• kanban_show ↔ hermes kanban show <id> --json
• kanban_complete ↔ hermes kanban complete <id> --summary "..." --metadata '{...}'
• kanban_block ↔ hermes kanban block <id> "reason"
• kanban_create ↔ hermes kanban create "title" --assignee <profile>