Start from the Kanban project template in Manager: limit work in progress, pull instead of push, and let an agent check the flow and refill the Ready column.
In Progress holds five cards and Review three. Each column header shows its count against the limit and warns when a column goes over.
The flow-check skill finds blocked cards and the ones sitting longest, so the team swarms what holds up the flow.
One card at a time may carry the Expedite label and jump the queue. Everything else is pulled in order.
Kanban improves the flow of work you already do. Make all of it visible on a board, one column per stage, and cap how many cards each column may hold.
New work is pulled in only when a card leaves. The Ready column is the commitment point. Teams measure how long cards take, swarm on blocked and aging work, and make their policies explicit.
The template maps Kanban onto statuses, labels and two skills. Here is where each practice lives.
| Kanban | In Manager |
|---|---|
| Columns | One status each: Backlog, Ready, In Progress, Review, Done. All types share them. |
| WIP limits | Set on the status, 5 and 3. Over the limit, Manager warns but allows the move. |
| Commitment point | Moving a card to Ready. The replenish skill admits only clear, small, unblocked cards. |
| Expedite | The Expedite label, one card at a time. Filter the board by it to spot the card. |
| Blocked | The Blocked label, set by hand. A Blocks link from open work adds a red badge. |
| Aging work | The flow-check skill reads each card's last status change and flags what has sat too long. |
| Cycle time | The Cycle Time page plots start to done per finished card, with 50th and 85th percentile. |
Connect your AI agent over MCP and let it create the project from the Kanban template, with its columns, WIP limits, labels and flow skills.
Say to your agentManager: Let's create a new project from the Kanban template, and ask me what to call it.
Capture the work as stories and tasks, group bigger pieces under epics and order the backlog by value.
Say to your agentManager: Interview me about the work ahead, then capture it as stories under epics and order the backlog by value.
Pull just enough well-formed cards into Ready to feed the team. The agent splits anything too big into tasks first.
Say to your agentManager: Run the replenish skill.
People and agents take the top Ready card only when the next column is below its limit.
Say to your agentManager: Pull the top Ready card if In Progress has room, and start on it.
Whenever the board feels stuck, the agent checks each column against its limit, flags blocked and aging cards and says what to finish first.
Say to your agentManager: Run the flow-check skill and tell me what to finish first.
A project created from the Kanban template starts with these work item types and statuses. You can adapt all of them to your team later.
A large initiative spanning several stories.
A user-facing requirement or feature that flows across the board.
A concrete unit of work, finishable in a single session.
These skills come with the template in Manager:
flow-checkChecks limits, flags blocked and aging cards, decides what to pull next.
replenishRefills Ready from the top of the backlog with well-formed cards.
Set each limit to what the team really finishes, under Work Item Types in the project settings. The skills quote the default limits, so edit them to match.
A parent starts with its first child and closes with its last, so epics and stories take WIP slots too. Filter the board to one type, like Story.
Kanban fits continuous work with shifting priorities, like support or operations. For fixed sprints with a goal, use the Scrum template. The Manager template suits agent-driven projects.
Every limited column shows its count against the limit, and the flow-check skill names the blocked and oldest cards to finish first.
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