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Tile TypesBackground Runner

Background Runner

The control surface for the workspace’s Background Runner: connect a board, start and stop the Runner, choose what happens after success, and see what is running, queued, or waiting to land. Add one from the tile picker as Background Runner. There is one Runner per workspace, so one tile is all you need.

The header

  • Status — for example Running, Paused, Off, Finishing current work, Waiting for landing, Waiting for review or Waiting for dependencies.
  • Mode — Drain once: stops when Ready is empty or Standing: waits for new Ready cards.
  • Target branch — where card results land.
  • Runner settings (the tune icon) — opens the settings drawer (below).
  • Slots in use against the maximum, and counts of cards ready, waiting on dependencies, and awaiting merge.

The controls:

  • Start starts the Runner with its saved settings.
  • Finish current, then pause stops taking new cards while running ones finish.
  • Cancel active work asks the running agents to stop, after you confirm.

If a cancelled worker can’t confirm it stopped — for example, its sandbox went away — the header shows Waiting for workers to stop… and offers Release held slots as a last resort.

The queue

  • Awaiting merge — finished code cards whose commits haven’t landed yet, each with Review PR #…. Cards that depend on them start once they land. A row’s ⋮ menu offers Mark superseded by… (another card’s result replaces it) and Abandon result… (stop waiting for it, optionally closing its PR). Dependents of an abandoned result stay blocked.
  • In progress — cards being worked on right now.
  • Taken over — cards under your control.
  • Up next — the Ready column in board order, with why each waiting card is waiting (for example After merge of another card).
  • Recent results — the last few outcomes, such as Merged, Succeeded or Needs attention, with a link to the agent’s report.

Where loops are available, Loops and Recently finished loops appear too. Click any card row to open the card editor.

The side column

  • Sources (where loops are available) — whether the Kanban source is on, and a Loops switch.
  • After success — Manual, PR + review or Auto merge, with Only into: branches for Auto merge. See Choose what happens after success.
  • Agent review — Off or Required. See Agent review.
  • Board — the connected board and its Ready → Doing → Done columns, with Open to jump to it.

With no board connected, the tile shows a board and column picker with Connect and start instead.

Runner settings

The settings drawer (also under All settings in the header chip) holds the Source board, After success, Agent review, and two settings that aren’t on the tile itself:

  • Queue mode — Drain once or Standing — wait for new cards.
  • Concurrent executions — 1 to 4 cards at a time. Lowering it lets active work finish before more cards start.

Choose Save runner settings to apply.

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