istos db3b56b737 merge main into task/35: keep both rails' folded strips and 34's lede
article.html: 34 added the lede under the h1, 35 added the folded
contents strip in the same place. Both belong, and site.css settles the
order — its lede adjacency names .menu-contents + p, so the strip sits
between the title and the lede.

Two things the merge exposed rather than caused:

- $toc and $sidebar were spelled inside article.html's own comments,
  and string.Template substitutes there too, so every page carried a
  second copy of both rails inside a comment (28 toc links for 7
  headings). Doubled to $$toc / $$sidebar, as the template contract
  already said to.
- test_site_pages assumed one rendering of each rail. Both are now
  written twice by design, so the tests assert every rendering agrees
  with the page instead of assuming there is one.

The card file keeps main's location: the board owns a card's stage, and
main had already moved 35 to review/.
2026-07-31 15:27:00 +02:00
2026-07-31 15:09:02 +02:00
2026-07-30 07:40:17 +02:00

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. Turn on team mode (BOARD_SYNC=1) and the truth is origin/main: moves commit and push themselves, every board pulls on a beat, and the person who claimed a card first keeps it.

Install into a repo

mkdir .task-manager && curl -L \
  https://github.com/12vectors/bench/releases/latest/download/bench.tar.gz \
  | tar -xz -C .task-manager
./.task-manager/start.sh        # wires the project (idempotent) and serves

No token, no clone: releases are curated artifacts that never contained bench's own cards or settings, so the board starts empty by construction.

The first run asks three questions it cannot answer for you — solo or team, which agent adapter, what command runs your tests — and writes manager/local/.env from the documented example, so every other setting is discoverable in your own copy. Bare Enter takes the default throughout; with no terminal (CI, a script) it asks nothing and install.py --setup asks later.

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.

The workflow brief ships as .task-manager/AGENTS.md — the cross-vendor name coding agents read natively — with CLAUDE.md beside it as a one-line compatibility pointer. Both live inside .task-manager/, so a host repo's own root AGENTS.md is never touched.

Update

./.task-manager/update.sh              # latest release
BENCH_REF=v2 ./.task-manager/update.sh # an exact release tag

The artifact is stamped with the repo it was built from, so updating needs no configuration; BENCH_SOURCE=<owner/repo> in manager/local/.env overrides the stamp. 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. If the source repo has no published release yet, update.sh says so and changes nothing.

Working on bench itself

git clone git@github.com:12vectors/bench.git && cd bench && ./start.sh

A clone carries bench's own cards and local/ content — that is dev mode, not an install. (Installing from a clone anyway works: install.py clears the shipped cards on its first boot in a host repo.) Releases are built by ./release.sh from the manifest at manager/core/release-manifest: tag = v<VERSION>, one stable asset name (bench.tar.gz), contents at the tarball root — the two things the install one-liner above depends on.

The three-layer law

Core knows about tasks, worktrees, PRs and events. It knows nothing about any particular app (drivers do: manager/local/driver/start), agent vendor (adapters do: manager/core/adapters/), or project (manager/local/ does).

The consequence is what makes an update safe: update.sh replaces manager/core/ wholesale, and everything a project taught bench about itself lives outside it. Full docs in AGENTS.md; the adapter contract in manager/core/adapters/README.md.

License

MIT.

S
Description
Bench is a local task manager that integrates with coding agents to make it easier to manage work in a repo.
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