Glossary

Quick reference for terms used across the Kangentic documentation.

A

Action A unit of work that Kangentic performs when a task transitions between columns. Actions include spawning agents, sending commands, creating worktrees, and more. See Action Types.

Action Chain A sequence of actions executed in order when a task arrives in a column. For example, “Kill Session, then Create Worktree, then Spawn Agent” runs three actions sequentially. See Action Chaining.

Activity State The real-time status of an agent: thinking (actively working) or idle (waiting for input, stopped, or hit a permission prompt). Displayed as visual indicators on task cards. See Activity Detection.

Agent Override A per-column setting that runs sessions in that column with a specific agent CLI instead of the project default. Supported agents: Claude Code, Codex CLI, Gemini CLI, Cursor CLI, GitHub Copilot CLI, Aider, and Warp/Oz CLI. Drop a task into a column with an override and Kangentic spawns that column’s agent (e.g., Claude for Planning, Codex for Executing). Combined with Cross-Agent Handoff (below), this enables multi-agent pipelines on a single board. See Per-Column Customization.

Auto-Command A prompt automatically injected into a running agent session when a task arrives in a column. Enables hands-free transitions like moving from “Executing” to “Code Review.” See Auto-Commands.

Auto-Spawn A per-column toggle that controls whether moving a task to that column automatically starts an agent session. Enabled by default on active columns.

B

Backlog A staging area for tasks that aren’t yet on the board. The backlog is a separate view from the Kanban board where you can plan, prioritize, and organize work before promoting items to board columns. See Backlog.

Base Branch The git branch that a worktree branches from. Defaults to main (configurable via git.defaultBaseBranch). Can be overridden per-task.

Board Configuration The shareable kangentic.json file that defines columns, actions, and transitions for a project. See Board Configuration.

C

Column A vertical lane on the Kanban board representing a workflow stage. Each column can have its own permission mode, auto-command, and auto-spawn setting. Also called a swimlane internally.

Context Bar The information strip shown with the terminal panel displaying shell name, agent version, model, session cost, token usage, context window fraction, and (for Claude) 5-hour session and weekly plan-usage rate-limit bars. Each pill can be toggled individually under contextBar.* settings.

Cross-Agent Handoff The mechanism by which Kangentic passes the prior agent’s native session history file to the next agent when a task moves into a column with the handoff_context option enabled. Lets a Plan task written by Claude continue as an Execute task in Codex with full conversation context, for example. Supported for Claude Code, Codex, and Gemini (the agents with parseable native history files). For Cursor, Copilot, Aider, and Warp, the option is a no-op; the next session starts without prior-agent context. See Agent Orchestration.

D

Done A special column with the done swimlane role. Moving a task here suspends its session (preserving context for later resume) and archives the task.

E

Event A structured log entry representing something that happened during an agent session (tool use, idle state, prompt submission, etc.). Events are displayed in the Activity Tab. See Event Types.

Execution Order The numeric ordering of actions within a transition. Actions run sequentially from lowest to highest execution order.

G

Ghost Column A column defined in kangentic.json that doesn’t yet exist on the board. Ghost columns appear with a dashed border and are created when you first move a task into them.

H

Hook An agent-specific event callback that Kangentic injects into a session for activity detection (Claude Code’s PreToolUse/PostToolUse/Stop, Gemini’s BeforeAgent/AfterAgent, Copilot’s preToolUse/postToolUse/agentStop/preCompact). Hooks fire on events like tool use, agent stop, and permission requests. Hook files are reference-counted so concurrent sessions don’t clobber each other. See Per-Agent Detection Strategy.

P

Permission Mode Controls how much autonomy an agent has. Options: default (uses project settings), plan (read-only), acceptEdits (auto-approve file edits), dontAsk (deny unless allowed), bypassPermissions (full autonomy), auto (classifier-driven auto-approval, Claude and Copilot only). Not every agent supports every mode; see Permission Modes for the per-agent matrix.

Plan Exit Target The column a task automatically moves to when an agent in plan mode calls ExitPlanMode. Enables the Plan → Execute workflow pattern.

Plan Mode A permission mode where agents can only use read-only tools. The agent analyzes the codebase and creates a plan without making changes. See Plan Mode Workflow.

Q

Queue When the maximum concurrent session limit is reached, new sessions enter a FIFO queue. Queued tasks show a “Queued” label and start automatically when a slot opens. See Queue Management.

S

Session An agent CLI process (Claude Code, Codex, Gemini, Aider, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, or Warp/Oz) managed by Kangentic. Sessions can be in one of four states: running, suspended, exited, or orphaned. See Session Persistence.

Swimlane Internal name for a board column. Two swimlanes have special roles: todo (first column, no agents run by default) and done (sessions are suspended and tasks archived). All other swimlanes are fully customizable.

Swimlane Role A special designation for columns: todo or done. These roles control built-in behaviors like session suspension and task archiving.

T

Template Variable A placeholder in prompt templates and auto-commands that gets replaced with task-specific values at runtime. Examples: {{title}}, {{description}}, {{worktreePath}}. See Template Variables.

Transition A rule that defines what actions run when a task moves from one column to another. Transitions have a source column, target column, and an ordered list of actions.

W

Wildcard Transition A transition with * as the source column, matching moves from any column. Useful for catch-all behaviors like logging every column change. See Wildcard Transitions.

Worktree An isolated git working directory created for each task. Allows multiple agents to work on the same repository simultaneously without branch conflicts. See Git Worktrees.