Kanban Board

A board of cards in columns, with blocked-by dependencies between cards. It is where you describe work — for yourself, for agents, and for the Background Runner, which can dispatch cards from it. Add one from the tile picker as Kanban Board. For the model behind boards, cards and dependencies, see Concepts.

The board lives on the workspace, not on the tile: closing the tile changes nothing about the board or any card in flight.

The board header

• Board name — click it to rename (up to 100 characters).
• Card count.
• Runner source label — whether this board is the Runner’s source and what the Runner is doing (for example Runner source · running), or Not drained — make this the source.
• Board / Graph — switch between columns and the dependency graph (below). Your choice is remembered per board.
• Runner icon — connects the board to the Background Runner:
  • Pick the column the Runner runs cards from. On a board that isn’t the source yet, this asks you to confirm switching the Runner over, and names any Ready cards left behind on the old board.
  • On the source board: Start the runner on ”…”, and optional Mark in-progress in and Move done cards to columns.
  • Turn off for this board stops the Runner taking cards from it.

Columns

New boards start with To do / Doing / Done. You can have up to 20 columns.

• Rename — click the column name.
• Add — the Add column tile at the right end.
• Reorder — drag the column header.
• Color — the palette icon, or No color.
• Delete — the × button. It is disabled while the column still has cards, and a board always keeps at least one column.

The rightmost column is the board’s “done” column: its cards show a struck-through title and a green tint. This is only how the board looks — it isn’t the Runner’s Done column and doesn’t affect dependencies.

Column headers also show how many cards are being worked on right now.

Cards

Adding a card

Choose Add card at the bottom of a column, pick an Expected output, and type a title. Enter adds the card; the arrow button adds it and opens the editor.

The expected output is fixed once the card has run.

The card editor

Click a card to open it. The details side holds:

• Brief — the card’s instructions, in Markdown (Write / Preview), up to 10,000 characters. An agent reads only the card, so say what to do and how you’ll know it’s done.
• Dependencies — choose Manage to add or remove blockers. A dependency that would create a cycle is refused.
• Supersedes — pick a card whose unmerged result this card replaces. When this card’s result lands, the older card’s result is retired and its PR closed.
• Output — once the card has run: commit, pull request, merge (verified or not), and any saved result.
• Agent review — when review is required: the verdict, findings, and Fix findings… to queue a fix of the chosen findings.
• Run details — the attempt, agent, model, lane, branch and outcome, plus earlier attempts. Preview revision / retry queues a new, billed attempt with extra instructions after you confirm.

The activity side shows the agent’s progress through Queued → Working → Review & merge (or Result) → Done, with Review PR #… once there is a pull request.

At the bottom of the editor:

• Preview starts a preview of the card’s unmerged branch, so you can try its work before it lands.
• Take over… moves the card under your control, stopping the Runner from acting on it.
• ⋯ → Delete card… deletes it after confirming. Cards that depended on it are unblocked.

On the board

Each card shows who created it (a dot: you or an agent), a progress bar while it is being worked, badges for agent review and Awaiting merge · PR #… (click to open the PR review), the start of its brief, and ⤿ blocked by N when it’s waiting on other cards.

A card’s status shows states such as Agent running, Awaiting merge, Merge conflict, Merged, Completed, Needs attention, Result missing or Cancelled. Moving a card to another column never changes what it produced; only its recorded result does.

Dragging

Drag a card between columns or within one. Moving a card the Runner is working on asks first; the agent keeps running either way.

Drop a card onto an agent tile to hand it over: the card becomes a staged prompt you review and send. Hold ⇧ as you drop to run it straight away.

If several cards pile up in a column and the Runner isn’t set up, the board offers to start them in the background, one at a time or in parallel.

Graph view

Graph draws the cards as the dependency graph they already are — blockers on the left, dependents on the right. The legend counts cards that are ready, running, awaiting merge or review, failed, cancelled and blocked, and the longest remaining chain is highlighted.

• Hover a card to dim everything outside its lineage.
• Drag from one card’s handle to another’s to add a dependency; hover a link to remove it.
• Click a card to open the same editor.
• The graph fits itself to the pane until you pan or zoom; reset view re-centres it.

Agents and the board

Agents read and change boards with the studio.kanban_* tools (see Workspace MCP Server). Their changes show up live, and cards they create are marked as agent-created.

Copying a board

Export a board to a file and import it into another board with the yolo CLI:

yolo kanban export <tileId> -o board.json
yolo kanban import <boardId> board.json

Export takes the kanban tile id; import takes the target board id. The file carries each card’s key, title, column, brief and dependencies — not results or history. Import is all or nothing and never overwrites: a card key already on the target board fails the whole import, and every column the file names must exist on the target board.

Related pages

• Background Runner — dispatching cards to agents
• Concepts — boards, cards, dependencies and outcomes
• Background Runner tile