robot

Wes McKinney's kenn.io released Robot, a local multi-agent development control plane that coordinates work across four tools plus Git: Kata for issue and work tracking, kwt for git worktrees and tmux workspaces, Roborev for optional operator-approved AI code review, and AgentsView for agent session history. The workflow enforces a lifecycle from claiming a Kata issue through worktree creation, subagent implementation, coordinator review and testing, and evidence-backed closure, with a merge gate requiring explicit operator approval before anything reaches main.

| | --- | | | name: robot | | | description: Operate a local multi-agent development workflow built on Kata issue/work ledger , kwt git worktrees + tmux workspaces , Roborev optional, operator-approved AI code review , and AgentsView agent session history . Use when choosing or claiming work, creating a worktree for an issue, recording progress or evidence, reviewing commits, closing or abandoning work, running experiments, handing off between agents, supervising parallel worker agents, recovering after a crash, or when the user mentions kata, kwt, roborev, agentsview, /robot, "ready work", "claim", "worktree", "review loop", or "close with evidence". | | | --- | | | Robot: local agent development control plane | | | Four tools by Wes McKinney / kenn.io, plus Git. There is no other database. Every piece of state comes from the system that owns it: | | | \| Question \| Authority \| Look at \| | | | \|---\|---\|---\| | | | \| What work exists, who owns it, what's blocked, what was decided, how it ended \| Kata \| kata ready , kata show \| | | | \| Where the work happens worktree, branch, dirty or clean \| Git + kwt \| kwt list --json , kwt status --json \| | | | \| What the code is, what's integrated \| Git \| git log , git merge-base --is-ancestor \| | | | \| Did the operator ask for a Roborev pass, are its findings open \| Roborev \| roborev list --open --all-branches \| | | | \| What agents actually did or tried, and why \| AgentsView \| agentsview session search \| | | | AgentsView observes. It never defines task status. Do not copy the same state into a second system, and never create JSON or markdown status files. | | | Lifecycle | | | text | | | kata issue ─► kata claim ─► kwt add -b kata/<id -<slug ─► subagents implement ─► commit | | | ─► coordinator reviews the diff ─► fixes ─► coordinator runs the tests ─► kata comment evidence | | | ─► ASK THE OPERATOR: roborev pass, operator diff review, or merge now | | | ─► roborev loop, if asked ─► integrate git merge, per repo policy ─► kata close --done --commit --test ─► kwt remove | | | | | | Everything up to the question happens inside the worktree. Nothing reaches main without the operator's answer. | | | Invariants | | | 1. Every substantial piece of work has a Kata issue, including experiments that may be abandoned. | | | 2. The Kata short ID is the shared key. Kata IDs look like abc4 , or <project abc4 when qualified; there is no custom prefix. Use branch kata/abc4-short-slug , which kwt names kata-abc4-short-slug on disk. | | | 3. Each independent piece of concurrent work gets its own kwt worktree. | | | 4. Claim before starting: kata claim <id . A claim that fails means someone else owns the issue. Stop. | | | 5. Kata holds durable findings, decisions, blockers and handoff notes. Keep them short. Never paste transcripts there. | | | 6. Detailed session history lives in AgentsView. Recover it from there instead of re-deriving it. | | | 7. The coordinating agent reviews every diff itself and runs the tests itself, in the worktree. Roborev is a separate agent and is never automatic: no post-commit hook, and no roborev review until the human operator has said yes. When the branch is ready to merge, ask the operator one question, as described in workflow.md references/workflow.md the-merge-gate : run Roborev, review the diff themselves, or merge now. Wait for the answer. No answer means stop; it never means merge. | | | 8. When a Roborev pass was asked for, judge each finding against the requirements and the code's actual behavior. Fix it, or record why not with roborev comment . Never close findings mechanically in either direction. | | | 9. kata close --done needs evidence --commit , --test , --reviewed , ... . "I'm done" is not evidence. | | | 10. A failed experiment is a legitimate outcome. Record what was tried and why it was rejected, then close --wontfix . Keep the branch if it is worth keeping. | | | 11. Never merge, remove worktrees, delete branches, reset, discard, --force , kata delete/purge , roborev review , roborev fix/refine/compact just because a tool suggests it. Check the state first kwt changes , git status , ancestry . When unsure, ask the user. | | | 12. Workers implement. Supervisors or humans decide scope. A worker does not quietly change the task or declare open findings irrelevant; it says so in a Kata comment and escalates kata meta set <id work.attention needs-human . | | | Which reference to load | | | Load only what the current step needs: | | | - Doing a normal task, an experiment, a handoff or a review loop → references/workflow.md references/workflow.md . Start here. | | | - Kata commands create, ready, claim, deps, comment, close, reopen → references/kata.md references/kata.md | | | - Worktrees create, find, status, cleanup → references/kwt.md references/kwt.md | | | - Roborev only once the operator asked: launch, inspect, respond → references/roborev.md references/roborev.md | | | - History what did a previous agent do or try → references/agentsview.md references/agentsview.md | | | - Supervising several workers, or rebuilding state after a crash → references/orchestration.md references/orchestration.md | | | - A tool is missing or unconfigured, or setting up a new machine or repo → references/installation.md references/installation.md | | | Commands were checked against upstream docs as of 2026-09: kata v0.18, kwt v0.6.1, roborev v0.69, agentsview v0.44. If a command fails, run <tool --help before improvising. | | | Instructions | | | 1. Establish context. Run kata whoami , git rev-parse --show-toplevel and kwt list --json . If any tool is missing, load installation.md. | | | 2. Identify your role: | | | - Worker with an assigned issue → follow workflow.md for that case. | | | - Supervisor → follow orchestration.md. | | | - Recovering → follow the recovery section in orchestration.md. | | | 3. Load a tool reference only when you need that tool's exact commands. | | | 4. Before any destructive step, run the safety checks from the tool's reference. Report what you verified. | | | 5. Reflect and improve this skill. After the task: | | | - Reflect: Did an instruction or command here mislead or fail? For example, flags that changed upstream, or a user correction or preference. Was a step missing or out of order? | | | - Decide: A generalizable lesson → edit the relevant file in this skill. A one-off or user-specific lesson → do not edit consider memory instead . Nothing notable → say so and skip. | | | - Edit: Make small, surgical edits, such as fixing a flag or adding a bullet, in the file that owns that topic. Never delete this reflection step. | | | - Report: Tell the user in one or two sentences what changed, or that nothing did. |