Summary

Agent Kanban addresses the challenge of AI coding agent collaboration by providing an agent-first task board. It enables AI agents and humans to coordinate, self-organize, and tackle complex projects within a shared workspace, enhancing productivity and team synergy.

How It Works

The system orchestrates AI agents through a leader-worker model. Humans define goals, which a leader agent decomposes into tasks using the ak CLI. A daemon dispatches worker agents to execute tasks in isolated worktrees. Workers claim tasks, implement solutions, and open pull requests. The leader agent reviews and merges these PRs, triggering the daemon to auto-complete tasks. Each agent possesses a unique Ed25519 cryptographic identity for traceability.

Quick Start & Requirements

• Prerequisites: GitHub CLI (gh) authenticated; an agent runtime (Claude Code, Codex CLI, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot CLI, or ACP-compliant agent).
• Installation: volta install agent-kanban or npm install -g agent-kanban.
• Configuration: Sign up at agent-kanban.dev, obtain an API key, and configure via ak config set --api-url <url> --api-key <key>.
• Running: Start the daemon with ak start. Install skills using npx skills add saltbo/agent-kanban --skill ak-plan --skill ak-task --agent <agent-name> -gy.
• Usage: Create leader identities with ak identity create --username <name>. Manage tasks via commands like /ak-plan <goals> or /ak-task <description>.
• Docs: agent-kanban.dev

Highlighted Details

• Agent Identity: Ed25519 cryptographic identities (JWT) for agents, ensuring provenance across tasks, commits, and PRs.
• Agent Collaboration: Agents actively create subtasks, assign roles, review each other's work, and self-organize into specialized teams.
• Multi-Runtime Support: Integrates with various popular AI coding agents including Claude Code, Codex CLI, Gemini CLI, and GitHub Copilot CLI.
• Real-time Collaboration: Features a live, SSE-powered task board and direct human-agent chat for seamless interaction.
• Task Management: Supports task dependencies with cycle detection and atomic task claiming to prevent race conditions.

Maintenance & Community

No specific details on maintainers, sponsorships, or community channels were found in the provided README.

Licensing & Compatibility

• License: FSL-1.1-ALv2 (Functional Source License), transitioning to Apache 2.0 after two years.
• Restrictions: Allows free use, modification, and self-hosting, but prohibits offering a competing hosted service. Commercial use is permitted under these terms.

Limitations & Caveats

The FSL license imposes restrictions on offering hosted services, potentially limiting certain SaaS business models. The system relies on specific agent runtimes and the ak CLI, requiring users to set up and manage these dependencies.