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.

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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.