Kanban & Project Planning

Turn your Aexol specification into an executable project plan. The Kanban system generates a structured task backlog from your spec — each task targeting a specific entity, workflow, visitor capability, or infrastructure concern — then lets your coding agent execute those tasks one by one.

Overview

The Kanban board lives at /studio/kanban?projectId=your-project. It has four columns:

Each task carries:

• Title — what needs to be done
• Description — acceptance criteria, context, technical notes
• Priority (0–100) — higher = more urgent
• Tags — comma-separated: auth, api, frontend, testing, devops
• Assignee — team member responsible

Generating the Project Plan

1. Open your project in Studio
2. Navigate to the Generate panel
3. Select "Project Plan" from the artifact type dropdown
4. Choose a model (Claude 3.5 Sonnet recommended)
5. Click Generate

The AI reads your .aexol specification and produces a structured task list.

What the AI analyzes from your spec

Priority bands

The AI assigns priorities automatically:

Generation options

When calling via the backend API or Remote MCP, you can configure:

curl -X POST "https://api.aexol.ai/mcp" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk-aexol-team-..." \
  -d '{
    "jsonrpc": "2.0", "id": 1, "method": "tools/call",
    "params": {
      "name": "remote_start_inference",
      "arguments": {
  "spec": "...",
  "commands": [
    { 
      "artifactType": "PROJECT_PLAN",
      "options": {
        "granularity": "task",
        "maxTasks": 25,
        "defaultColumn": "BACKLOG"
      }
    }
  ]
}
    }
  }'

Managing the Board

In Studio

Drag cards between columns. Click a card to see the full description, edit metadata, or delete.

Via API

All Kanban operations are available through the GraphQL API:

Create a task:

mutation {
  createKanbanTask(input: {
    projectId: "proj_abc",
    title: "Implement JWT auth middleware",
    description: "Add middleware that validates JWT tokens on protected routes",
    priority: 95,
    tags: "auth,security,api"
  }) {
    id
    title
    column
  }
}

Move a task:

mutation {
  moveKanbanTask(input: {
    taskId: "task_xyz",
    targetColumn: "DONE",
    targetSortOrder: 0
  }) {
    id
    column
    completedAt
  }
}

List tasks:

query {
  kanbanTasks(projectId: "proj_abc") {
    id
    column
    title
    priority
    tags
  }
}

Agent-Driven Execution

Once your board is populated, the Spectral coding agent can execute tasks autonomously. See the Agent Kanban documentation for the full workflow.

Quick preview of the execution loop:

kanban_next  →  picks highest-priority TODO → IN PROGRESS
    │
    ▼
Agent reads task description, implements (read/write/edit/bash)
    │
    ▼
kanban_move  →  DONE
    │
    ▼
kanban_next  →  next task

Re-planning

When your .aexol specification changes, re-generate the Project Plan. The AI performs a diff-based update:

• New spec elements → new tasks added to BACKLOG
• Removed spec elements → existing tasks marked with [OBSOLETE] tag
• Changed spec elements → task descriptions updated, priority recalculated
• Existing tasks not in the spec → left untouched (manual tasks)

Enable clearExisting: true if you prefer a fresh board on every generation.

Architecture

The Kanban system has two main components:

1. Backend — PostgreSQL-backed CRUD via GraphQL mutations + SSE real-time updates. Effector dirty-tracking detects changes and pushes board state to all connected browser tabs.

2. Agent Bridge — A built-in pi extension (kanban-bridge.ts) that registers 7 tools the coding agent uses to interact with the board. The bridge reads authentication from ~/.spectral/config.json, resolves the project ID from the Studio binding (.aexol/aexol.jsonc), and makes direct GraphQL calls to the backend.

Studio UI ←── GraphQL ──→ Backend (PostgreSQL + SSE)
                                ↑
                                │  GraphQL (Bearer auth)
                                │
                   Kanban Bridge Extension
                   (cli-node/src/extensions/kanban-bridge.ts)
                                ↑
                                │  pi.registerTool()
                                │
                   Spectral Coding Agent
                   (read/write/edit/bash + kanban_* tools)