kanban-dev-lane

Kanban Dev Lane (Multi-Engine Autonomous Implementation Lane)

Overview

The kanban-dev-lane plugin enables Hermes Kanban workers (specifically dev-lead and devops-lead) to delegate bounded implementation work into an isolated git worktree with an automatic, resilient 3-tier failover chain:

[Hermes Worker (dev-lead)]
          │
          ▼
 ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
 │ Isolated Git Worktree: /tmp/<task_id>-dev-lane           │
 └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
          │
    ┌─────┴─────────────────────────────────────────┐
    ▼                                               ▼
Tier 1: Claudy (Primary)                     [Success] ──► Hermes Reconcile & Verify
    │ (Quota Exhaustion / 429 / Error)
    ▼
Tier 2: Codex (`codex exec ...` / `--yolo`)   [Success] ──► Hermes Reconcile & Verify
    │ (Quota Exhaustion / Error)
    ▼
Tier 3: AGYD (`agy --dangerously-skip-perms`) [Success] ──► Hermes Reconcile & Verify
    │ (All Engines Exhausted)
    ▼
Tier 4: Hermes Agent Direct Execution ────────────────────► Hermes Complete / Block

Hermes is always the task owner: it controls worktree lifecycle, diff inspection, regression testing, and final board completion. External CLIs serve as isolated input engines only.

---

When to Use

Use kanban-dev-lane when:

• The task is a coding, refactoring, documentation, or test implementation task (DEV-*, OPS-*).
• Acceptance criteria and scope constraints are clearly stated in the Kanban card.
• An isolated git worktree can be created without dirty checkout conflicts.
• Hermes can execute canonical verification commands after the engine finishes.
• At least one engine CLI (claudy, codex, agy) is available on PATH.

---

Capability Check

command -v claudy && claudy --version
command -v codex && codex --version
command -v agy && agy --version

---

Worktree Isolation Pattern

TASK_ID="${HERMES_KANBAN_TASK:-t_manual}"
REPO="/path/to/repo"
BASE="$(git -C "$REPO" rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD)"
SAFE_TASK="$(printf '%s' "$TASK_ID" | tr -cd '[:alnum:]_-')"
BRANCH="lane/${SAFE_TASK}/$(date -u +%Y%m%d%H%M%S)"
WORKTREE="/tmp/${SAFE_TASK}-dev-lane"

git -C "$REPO" fetch --all --prune
git -C "$REPO" worktree add -b "$BRANCH" "$WORKTREE" "$BASE"