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Agentic Kanban

Chat Commands

You can control the Kanban board and drive agent behaviors using commands to @kanban inside the VS Code Chat panel.

Command Reference

Section titled “Command Reference”

/new

Section titled “/new”

Creates a new task card on the board.

  • Usage: @kanban /new <title>
  • Example: @kanban /new Add oauth2 endpoints
  • Behavior: Creates a task file in .agentkanban/tasks/ in the first lane of the active profile (e.g. backlog).

/task

Section titled “/task”

Selects and opens an active task in your editor, setting it as the context.

  • Usage: @kanban /task <query>
  • Example: @kanban /task oauth2
  • Behavior: Resolves the task by fuzzy title matching, opens the task Markdown file, and updates the active task reference in AGENTS.md.

/refresh

Section titled “/refresh”

Re-injects instructions and active task context.

  • Usage: @kanban /refresh [context]
  • Behavior: Syncs the current task details, active project skills, and workflow instructions. Used if the chat window context has drifted during long conversations.

/spec

Section titled “/spec”

Scaffolds spec-driven development (SDD) files.

  • Usage: @kanban /spec [capability]
  • Example: @kanban /spec authentication
  • Behavior: Links the active task to a change directory .agentkanban/changes/<slug>/ and creates a proposal, design document, tasks checklist, and capability contract.

/worktree

Section titled “/worktree”

Manages Git worktrees for isolated task execution.

  • Usage:
    • @kanban /worktree - Creates a clean worktree and checkout branch for the active task.
    • @kanban /worktree open - Opens the active task’s existing worktree in a new VS Code window.
    • @kanban /worktree remove - Cleans up and deletes the worktree folder and git branch.

/archive

Section titled “/archive”

Archives a completed change directory.

  • Usage: @kanban /archive [slug]
  • Behavior: Moves the task’s change folder from .agentkanban/changes/ to .agentkanban/changes/archive/ (runs after the task reaches done).

/prompts

Section titled “/prompts”

Forces a re-scaffolding of agent prompts.

  • Usage: @kanban /prompts
  • Behavior: Overwrites all prompts under .agentkanban/prompts/ with the latest template versions.

/goal

Section titled “/goal”

Manages high-level objectives that group related tasks.

  • Usage:
    • @kanban /goal new <objective> - Creates a new goal and links it to the board.
    • @kanban /goal - Lists all active goals with their progress summary.
    • @kanban /goal show <slug> - Shows the detail view for a specific goal by slug.

/loop

Section titled “/loop”

Emits the stage-driver prompt for a lane into chat. Click the “Send prompt to chat” button in the response to inject it directly into the chat input — no copy-paste needed.

  • Usage: @kanban /loop [lane] [options]
  • Options:
    • --label=<name> - Scope the ready-task list to tasks with the specified label.
    • --priority=<level> - Scope the ready-task list to tasks of a specific priority.
  • Example: @kanban /loop planning --priority=high
  • Behavior: Resolves the stage-driver prompt for the chosen lane (workspace copy in .agentkanban/prompts/ first, bundled fallback), interpolates it with board config vars, shows the list of ready tasks in that lane (non-blocked, dependency-satisfied), and renders a “Send prompt to chat” button. Clicking the button opens the chat input pre-filled with the prompt — press Enter to run. Clipboard copy is also provided as a fallback. No lanes are moved by this command.
  • Default lane: backlog (first lane of the active profile) when no lane arg is given.
  • Lane-to-prompt mapping (Standard): backlog -> stage-backlog-to-planning, planning/in-progress -> stage-planning-to-review, review -> stage-review-to-done, done -> no driver.
  • Lane-to-prompt mapping (Lite): backlog/in-progress -> work-on-task, done -> no driver.
  • Gate enforcement: gates are still enforced when the agent performs the actual board move (UI/moveTask -> TransitionService). /loop does not gate-check or block tasks itself.

/work

Section titled “/work”

Resolves a task and copies the work prompt to clipboard.

  • Usage: @kanban /work [task]
  • Example: @kanban /work oauth2
  • Behavior: Fuzzy-matches the task, interpolates the work-on-task stage prompt with the task’s context, and copies the result to clipboard. Paste into any agent session to start working immediately.

/evidence

Section titled “/evidence”

Views or records evidence for a task (required before review → done).

  • Usage:
    • @kanban /evidence [task] — show current evidence status
    • @kanban /evidence <task> <check> <pass|fail> ["<notes>"] — record a result
  • Example: @kanban /evidence oauth2 lint pass
  • Behavior: Tracks lint, test, build, and behavior evidence entries on the task. The production-readiness gate requires all checks to pass before moving to done.

/pack

Section titled “/pack”

Manages stack packs (drop-in language/framework context blocks).

  • Usage:
    • @kanban /pack list — list available packs
    • @kanban /pack use <name> — activate a pack and regenerate prompts
  • Example: @kanban /pack use typescript-web

/doctor

Section titled “/doctor”

Runs a diagnostic sweep on the board state.

  • Usage: @kanban /doctor
  • Behavior: Scans your workspace and reports any workflow issues, such as lane drift, dependency cycles, stale blocker labels, broken worktrees, or orphaned spec files.