Kanban — Multi-Agent Collaboration Board

Imagine you’re running a busy kitchen, but your line cooks are AI agents. You don’t hover over each stove—you write orders on a whiteboard. Cooks mark tasks done, scribble “need more onions” when stuck, and you glance at the board to know exactly where things stand. That’s what Hermes Kanban does: a shared, persistent task board for multiple AI agents.

Why Not Just Delegate?

We’ve covered delegate_task—it’s like a phone call: dial, talk, hang up. You get a result or you don’t. But real workflows are messier:

• Three researchers need to gather data in parallel, then an analyst synthesizes it
• A daily report must run for weeks, accumulating into a weekly summary
• A coding task needs “write → review → revise” loops

These need persistent, resumable, human-in-the-loop collaboration—not one-shot calls. Kanban was built for that.

Two Doors, One Board

There are two ways in, but one shared database (~/.hermes/kanban.db):

1. Agents use tools: Models call kanban_create, kanban_complete, etc., writing to the board themselves.
2. You use the CLI: Type hermes kanban list in your terminal, or use /kanban slash commands and the dashboard.

# Create a task (you or an agent)
hermes kanban create "Research competitor pricing" --assign researcher-1

# View all tasks
hermes kanban list

# Mark complete
hermes kanban complete <task-id>

# Stuck? Block it and leave a note
hermes kanban block <task-id> --reason "Need more data"
hermes kanban comment <task-id> "Data added, please continue"

What Kanban Solves

It handles what delegate_task can’t:

• Parallel research: Multiple agents work simultaneously without interference
• Scheduled jobs: Daily briefings that accumulate into weekly reports
• Digital twins: Persistent assistants like inbox-triage that build memory over time
• Engineering pipelines: Break down tasks → parallel dev → code review → iterate
• Batch management: One assistant managing 50 social accounts or 12 monitoring services

Kanban vs. delegate_task

Feature	delegate_task	Kanban
Style	Phone call (dial → hang up)	Whiteboard (write → update anytime)
Parent task	Must wait for child’s return	Fires and forgets
Worker identity	Anonymous temp	Named, with memory
Failure recovery	Gone forever	Block → unblock → retry
Human input	Not supported	Comment/unblock anytime
Agent count	1-on-1	1-to-N, relay possible

A Practical Tip

Don’t design complex workflows on day one. Start with a single task: create one, let one agent complete it, watch its status change with hermes kanban list. Once comfortable, try a three-step “research → analyze → write” pipeline.

Remember: Kanban isn’t for staring at screens waiting—it’s for letting agents collaborate while you step in only at key moments (like when something blocks). Treat Kanban as a remote control for project management, not a security camera—set the rules, then let them work.