istosandClaude Fable 5
44537ae653
A vendored clone of bench arrives carrying bench's own task cards, plans and reference documents, so a new user's first board opened pre-loaded with our backlog. install.py now detects first boot — a vendored install (project root != manager root) whose manager/local/ has never been populated (no .env, no state/) — and only then clears the stage directories, tasks/archive/, plans/ and reference/, keeping task-template.md and the .gitkeep files and printing every removal. --dry-run lists instead of removing. After cleaning it stamps manager/local/state/, so the guard is permanently false on every later run even if the adapter wire fails, and a host's own cards are never touched. Self-hosted repos (bench itself, including fresh dev clones) are never cleaned: their tasks/ is the repo's history. Covered end-to-end in tests/test_install_first_boot.py by running install.py as a subprocess against scratch host layouts; README notes the first-boot behaviour under "Install into a repo". Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Bench
A live kanban for coding-agent work: task files in stage directories are the only source of truth; a stdlib-only board narrates everything that happens to them — agents working in git worktrees, PRs opening on review, CI and Copilot state on the cards, drives of the app from a task's own branch, and an archive that is never a delete.
Install into a repo
git clone <this repo> .task-manager && rm -rf .task-manager/.git
./.task-manager/start.sh # wires the project (idempotent) and serves
The first start.sh clears the distribution's own cards from tasks/,
plans/ and reference/ (printing each removal), so a fresh install
starts with an empty board.
Commit .task-manager/ into the host repo — core is vendored on purpose,
so clones work offline and updates show up in the host's own diffs.
Update
# in manager/local/.env: BENCH_SOURCE=<this repo's git url>
./.task-manager/update.sh # latest
BENCH_REF=v1 ./.task-manager/update.sh # a specific release tag
Updates replace manager/core/ and the top-level scripts wholesale and
touch nothing else — tasks, plans, reference, and everything under
manager/local/ (your driver, commands, prompt overrides, settings,
state) survive every update. Then python3 .task-manager/install.py and
restart the board.
The three-layer law
Core knows about tasks, worktrees, PRs and events. It knows nothing about
any particular app (drivers do: local/driver/start), agent vendor
(adapters do: core/adapters/), or project (local/ does). Full docs in
CLAUDE.md; the adapter contract in manager/core/adapters/README.md.