Kanban Dispatcher

Kanban Dispatcher

Structured task board that prevents parallel agents from stepping on each other. Each worker claims one task, heartbeats to stay alive, and can spawn child tasks.

Trigger phrases: "parallel tasks", "kanban", "task board", "orchestrate agents", "dispatch workers", "multi-agent project"

Core State Machine

PENDING → IN_PROGRESS (worker claims)
       → BLOCKED (needs human input)
       → DONE (worker completes)
       → FAILED (worker errors)

Worker Contract

Every worker agent MUST follow this sequence:

# 1. Show current task at session start
kanban_show()

# 2. Heartbeat every 2-3 tool calls (proves liveness)
kanban_heartbeat(note="Running tests in src/auth/")

# 3. If blocked, surface to human
kanban_block(reason="Missing API key — need STRIPE_SECRET_KEY in .env")

# 4. Spawn child task if work decomposes
kanban_create(
    title="Fix type errors in auth module",
    assignee="implementer",
    parents=["TASK-001"],           # blocks parent until done
    context="See src/auth/types.ts line 42"
)

# 5. Complete with structured output
kanban_complete(
    summary="Implemented OAuth2 flow, 14 tests pass",
    metadata={"files_changed": ["src/auth/oauth.ts"], "tests_added": 14}
)

Orchestrator Pattern

# Create task board
kanban_create(title="Implement user auth", assignee="implementer")
kanban_create(title="Write auth tests",    assignee="tester",      parents=["TASK-001"])
kanban_create(title="Auth code review",    assignee="reviewer",    parents=["TASK-002"])

# Dispatch workers in parallel
delegate_task(goal="Work the kanban board as implementer", role="implementer")
delegate_task(goal="Work the kanban board as tester",      role="tester")

# Workers auto-sequence via parent dependencies
# tester waits for implementer to complete TASK-001
# reviewer waits for tester to complete TASK-002

Approval Gate

kanban_request_approval(
    task_id="TASK-003",
    summary="About to apply irreversible migration — please confirm",
    context="Backup at /tmp/backup.sql"
)
# Worker blocks here until human calls kanban_approve("TASK-003")

Heartbeat Protocol

Workers MUST heartbeat — stale tasks get reclaimed after 5 minutes:

# Call every 2-3 tool calls during long operations
kanban_heartbeat(note="Still running cargo build...")

Task Roles

Anti-Fake-Pass

❌ Worker never heartbeats — task reclaimed after timeout
❌ Completing task before child tasks finish
❌ > 3 levels of child task nesting
❌ Blocking without a human-resolvable question
❌ Summary "done" — not a summary

See Also

• core/skills/claude-swarm-orchestration/SKILL.md — auto-decompose approach
• core/skills/subagent-dependency/SKILL.md — DAG-based orchestration