Agent Kanban

A VS Code extension providing an integrated Kanban board for managing coding agent tasks designed to work with GitHub Copilot Chat. Tasks follow a plan → todo → implement workflow, with conversations stored as structured markdown files that are fully version-controllable.

Create tasks on the Kanban board and then plan and converse with your agent in the task markdown file, giving you a permanent task history that's editable, resistant to context bloat and persists after clearing chat context.

Agent Kanban references its own instruction set, so it doesn't interfere with your existing agent files (e.g. AGENTS.md, skills etc).

Features

• Kanban Board — Visual board with customisable lanes (default: Todo, Doing, Done). Drag-and-drop task cards between lanes.
• Markdown Task Files — Each task is a .md file with YAML frontmatter. Conversation history uses [user]:/[agent]: markers — directly readable, editable, and version-control friendly.
• Chat Participant — @kanban in Copilot Chat routes commands to task files. Copilot's native agent mode handles all work (tool calls, diffs, terminal). No custom LLM loop.
• Plan → Todo → Implement — Use /task to select a task, then type plan, todo, or implement (or combinations) in Copilot agent mode.
• Version Control Friendly — One .md file per task, board config in YAML. Standard text files that diff/merge naturally meaning that this folder can be version controlled and shared among the team using your standard Git workflow.

Getting Started

1. Install the extension and click the Kanban icon in the Activity Bar
2. Click + New Task (or @kanban /new My Task in chat)
3. Use @kanban /task My Task to select a task — opens the task file and sets up context
4. In Copilot agent mode, type one or more verbs to work on the task:
   • plan — discuss and plan the task; the agent reads the task file and writes a plan into it
   • todo — generate a TODO checklist from the plan, written into a companion todo_*.md file
   • implement — implement the task following the plan and TODOs
   • You can combine verbs (e.g. todo implement) and append extra context (e.g. plan focus on error handling)
5. The task file accumulates the full conversation — edit it directly to steer the agent or add context
6. Drag cards between lanes as work progresses

Chat Commands

Task matching is fuzzy and case-insensitive. Tasks in the Done lane are excluded. After each command, a follow-up suggestion is shown for the most recently updated active task.

Agent Instructions

.agentkanban/INSTRUCTION.md is managed automatically — synced from the bundled template on every activation and command. Do not edit it directly; changes are overwritten on update. To customise agent behaviour, use your own agent configuration files (AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, skills, etc.). Agent Kanban co-exists with these without interference.

Task File Format

---
title: Implement OAuth2
lane: doing
created: 2026-03-08T10:00:00.000Z
updated: 2026-03-08T14:30:00.000Z
description: OAuth2 integration for the API
---

## Conversation

[user]: Let's plan the OAuth2 implementation...

[agent]: Here's my analysis of OAuth2 approaches...

Storage

.agentkanban/
  .gitignore          # Auto-generated — ignores logs/
  board.yaml          # Lane definitions, base prompt
  memory.md           # Global memory (reset via Agent Kanban: Reset Memory command)
  INSTRUCTION.md      # Agent workflow instructions (managed by extension)
  tasks/
    task_<timestamp>_<id>_<title>.md   # Task file (frontmatter + conversation)
    todo_<timestamp>_<id>_<title>.md   # Todo file (created on demand)

Configuration

Development

npm install
npm run build      # Bundle with esbuild
npm run watch      # Watch mode
npm run lint       # TypeScript type check
npm test           # Run tests

Press F5 in VS Code to launch the Extension Development Host.

Publishing

Releases are published to the VS Code Marketplace manually; pushing a version tag triggers the Release workflow to create a GitHub Release automatically.

# 1. Bump version in package.json and update CHANGELOG.md

# 2. Publish to VS Code Marketplace
npm run build
npx @vscode/vsce package
npx @vscode/vsce login appsoftwareltd   # enter PAT if auth expired
npx @vscode/vsce publish

# 3. Tag and push
git add .
git commit -m "Release v0.2.1"
git tag v0.2.1
git push origin main --tags

LICENCE

Elastic License 2.0 (ELv2)