The hermes agent kanban orchestrator is a Hermes profile with the kanban toolset that takes a goal, breaks it into cards on the Hermes Kanban board, assigns each card to one of your other profiles, and then steps back while those workers do the jobs. The Hermes Kanban docs put the rule in one line: "A well-behaved orchestrator does not do the work itself."
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This page covers what the board is, how the orchestrator behaves, how to set one up step by step, the auto mode that splits rough ideas for you, and the mistakes that leave cards stuck. Every command and config key here comes from the official docs.
If you want the full system set up for you, the AI Profit Boardroom is where Julian Goldie shares his agent setups, with step-by-step trainings and weekly coaching calls. If you'd rather talk through your own workflow first, book a free AI strategy session.
What the Hermes Kanban board is
Hermes Kanban is a durable task board shared across all of your Hermes profiles. Each task is a row in a local SQLite file, kanban.db, inside your Hermes home folder. Each worker that picks up a task is a full operating system process with its own identity.
Tasks move through these statuses: triage, todo, ready, running, blocked, review, done and archived. A task has a title, an optional body, and one assignee, which is the name of a profile.
There are two ways in. Agents drive the board through kanban tools such as kanban_show, kanban_create, kanban_link, kanban_complete and kanban_block. People drive it through the hermes kanban command, the /kanban slash command, or the dashboard. Both routes read and write the same database, so they never drift apart.
If you have not set up a board yet, the Hermes Kanban setup guide walks through the basics first.
How the hermes agent kanban orchestrator behaves
The orchestrator is a planner, not a doer. The docs describe its job in four moves: it decomposes your goal into tasks, links them, assigns each one to a profile you have set up, and steps back.
The guidance that makes it behave this way ships with Hermes. The docs say anti-temptation rules, a Step-0 profile-discovery prompt and a decomposition playbook are injected into the system prompt automatically, so there is nothing extra to install.
The orchestrator works with a small set of tools:
- kanban_create makes a child card with a title, an assignee and a body. It can also take parents, skills and a goal mode.
- kanban_link adds a parent to child dependency after the fact.
- kanban_list shows what is already on the board.
- kanban_unblock puts a blocked card back in play.
- kanban_comment leaves notes on other cards.
A child card with parents waits in todo. The dispatcher promotes it to ready only when every parent is done. That is how the docs' example works: two researchers run side by side, and a writer card starts once both research cards finish.
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Kanban vs delegate_task
Hermes has two ways to hand work to another agent, and they solve different problems. This table follows the comparison in the Kanban docs:
| Question | delegate_task | Kanban orchestrator |
|---|---|---|
| Shape | A function call: fork, then join | A durable work queue with statuses |
| Does the parent wait? | Yes, it blocks until the child returns | No, it creates cards and moves on |
| Who does the work? | An anonymous subagent | A named profile with its own memory |
| What if it fails? | No resume | Block, unblock and re-run, or reclaim after a crash |
| Can a person step in? | No | Yes, comment or unblock at any point |
| Record of the work | Lost on context compression | Rows in SQLite that stay |
The docs' short version: delegate_task is a function call, and Kanban is a work queue. Use delegate_task for a quick answer the parent needs before it carries on. Use the orchestrator when work crosses agents, needs to survive a restart, or might need your input.
Mid-way through setting this up and want a second pair of eyes? Book a free AI strategy session and bring your board plan.
How to set up the orchestrator, step by step
These steps follow the Kanban docs and the worker lanes page.
- Create your worker profiles. Name them for their roles, for example researcher, writer and coder. Check they exist with hermes profile list.
- Describe each profile. Add a short description in the dashboard or run hermes profile describe with the auto flag. The decomposer reads these to route cards well.
- Create the orchestrator profile. Call it planner, then run hermes -p planner tools enable kanban. For a chat platform, add the platform flag, for example telegram. Start a new chat after the change.
- Lock it down. The worker lanes page describes the orchestrator lane as a profile with kanban but without terminal, file, code or web tools. The docs suggest limiting it to kanban, gateway and memory, so it cannot do the work even if it tries.
- Create the board. Run hermes kanban init.
- Start the gateway. Run hermes gateway start. The dispatcher lives inside the gateway and checks for ready cards every 60 seconds by default. Without a running gateway, ready cards just wait.
- Give the planner a goal. Ask it in chat. It creates and links the cards. You can also add cards yourself with hermes kanban create and an assignee.
- Watch and steer. Use hermes kanban watch, hermes kanban list or the Kanban tab in hermes dashboard. Drop comments or unblock cards with /kanban from any chat.
A regular chat profile has no kanban tools until you enable them. That is the step most people miss.
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Auto mode: let the board split rough ideas
You don't always need to ask a planner. With kanban.auto_decompose set to true, which is the default, the dispatcher runs a built-in decomposer on cards that land in the Triage column. It reads your profile list and descriptions, then fans the card out into child cards for the best-fit profiles.
The docs list a cap of 3 decompositions per tick by default. The original card stays as the parent, so its owner wakes up to judge the result when the children finish. Set kanban.orchestrator_profile to choose that owner, and kanban.default_assignee to catch cards routed to a profile that doesn't exist.
The dashboard has an Orchestration pill that flips between Auto and Manual. Manual only switches off the built-in Triage decomposer. Your planner profile can still create cards.
Running the board from Telegram, Slack or WhatsApp
The /kanban slash command works in hermes chat and on the gateway platforms the docs list, including Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal and email. It skips the running-agent guard, so you can comment or unblock a card while an agent is still mid-turn.
When you create a card with /kanban create from a chat, that chat is subscribed to the card's end events, such as completed or blocked. Messages over about 3,800 characters get cut short in chat apps, so use the terminal for long lists.
If you run more than one profile gateway, the multi-gateway docs say only one should own the dispatcher. Set kanban.dispatch_in_gateway to false on the others. They still deliver notifications for their own profiles.
This is the kind of agent setup Julian shows members inside the AI Profit Boardroom, and his Agent OS guide explains how the pieces fit together on one machine.
Mistakes that leave cards stuck
- Unknown assignee names. The dispatcher fails quietly on a name it can't find. The card stays ready with a skipped_nonspawnable event. That is why the orchestrator checks hermes profile list first.
- Linking a support card under the card it should unblock. That parks the support card behind its own blocked parent, so neither runs. Put the parent's id in the support card's body instead. hermes kanban unlink frees a deadlock.
- Letting workers guess shared choices. Workers can't see sibling cards. The planner should decide naming, schema or file format once and write it into every child card.
- Workers that never sign off. Every run must end with kanban_complete, kanban_request_review or kanban_block. Otherwise it is marked crashed, gave_up or timed_out. After 2 spawn failures in a row, the default, the card is auto-blocked.
- Expecting cross-board links. Each board has its own database, and links between boards aren't allowed.
Picking models for planner and workers
The docs suggest a cost split: run the orchestrator profile on a frontier model and point worker profiles at inexpensive models, each in its own config.yaml. For a hard card, pin a stronger model with the model flag or hermes kanban set-model. The docs use placeholder names, not a recommended model.
To compare models on real tasks before you choose, see the scores on Goldie Bench. For a one-to-one plan for your own agents, book a free AI strategy session.
FAQ
What is the Hermes Kanban orchestrator?
It is a Hermes profile with the kanban toolset that breaks a goal into board cards with kanban_create and kanban_link, assigns them to your existing profiles, and steps back without doing the work itself.
How do I give a Hermes profile Kanban tools?
Run hermes -p followed by the profile name, then tools enable kanban. Add the platform flag for a gateway platform such as Telegram, then start a new chat.
Does /goal create Kanban tasks?
No. The /goal command loops inside one chat session and never touches the board. For a single card that keeps going until its acceptance criteria are met, create it with the goal flag, which defaults to 20 turns.
Do I need a separate service for the dispatcher?
No. The dispatcher runs inside the gateway by default, so hermes gateway start is enough. The standalone kanban daemon is deprecated.
Set up one planner, two workers and one board today, and you have a working hermes agent kanban orchestrator.
