Plan and track AI coding work as markdown boards — campaigns, missions, tasks and bugs — right inside VS Code, and install a workflow pack that teaches CLI coding agents (Claude Code, Codex, Copilot) to drive them.
Installation
Launch VS Code Quick Open (Ctrl+P), paste the following command, and press enter.
Plan and track AI coding work as plain‑markdown boards — campaigns → missions → tasks, plus
bugs — right inside VS Code. Octobots turns a workspace's .octobots/ directory into a living
project board with no database and no server: the markdown files on disk are the single source
of truth, so your plan is diffable, reviewable in pull requests, and safe for multiple agents (and
humans) to edit at the same time.
It also installs a workflow pack that teaches CLI coding agents — Claude Code, OpenAI Codex,
GitHub Copilot CLI — how to read and drive the very same board.
Features
Board editor in the sidebar. Browse campaigns, missions, tasks, and bugs from the Octobots
activity‑bar view; open any item in its own editor tab.
Status, acceptance criteria, and docs. Set statuses from dropdowns, manage a task's
acceptance‑criteria checklist, and attach documents.
Workflows. Plan how the work runs: a workflow is a folder holding a workflow.md brief and a
workflow.js Claude Code dynamic‑workflow script. The extension draws its phases, agents and
parallel branches as a diagram and lets you edit the steps; Claude Code runs the script. A
campaign's workflows orchestrate its missions; a mission's single workflow orchestrates its tasks.
Disk is authoritative. Every change is written to markdown and the board is rebuilt from
disk. A single debounced, git‑aware watcher keeps the UI in sync through
git checkout / stash / rebase without churn.
Workflow pack installer. One command drops the Octobots skill and planning agents into
<workspace>/.claude so your CLI agents understand the board model.
Getting started
Install the extension and open a folder (Octobots operates on the open workspace folder).
Open the Octobots view from the activity bar.
Create a campaign, then add missions and tasks under it. Every task gets at least
one acceptance criterion.
(Optional) Run “Octobots: Install Workflow Pack” from the Command Palette to let your CLI
coding agents drive the board too.
How the board is organized
Entity
What it is
Id
Campaign
Top‑level body of work; contains missions.
—
Mission
A milestone‑sized initiative; contains tasks.
M<n>
Task
The unit of execution; carries ≥1 acceptance criterion.
T<missionN>.<taskN>
Bug
A defect attached to a campaign or mission, with a severity.
—
Each item has a status: draft → executing → awaitingApproval → done, plus failed and
cancelled. The board lives as markdown under .octobots/, so it travels with your repo and shows
up in normal git diffs.
Commands
Octobots: New Campaign
Octobots: New Mission in this Campaign
Octobots: New Workflow
Octobots: Delete Workflow
Octobots: Install Workflow Pack
… plus per‑item status and delete actions in the tree context menus.
