Task Templates

Task Templates

A task template is a reusable multi-step workflow with persona assignments per step. Useful for codifying repetitive multi-pane work like "develop a feature" or "deploy a service."

Source: src/main/config-loader.ts. Defaults: resources/defaults/tasks/. User overrides: <userData>/clusterspace-data/config/tasks/.

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The 2 defaults

feature-development (in tasks/development/)

End-to-end feature workflow from branch creation to merge.

Assigned personas: builder, reviewer, tester Success criteria: "Feature merged to main with passing tests and approved review"

Steps:

1. Branch — builder creates a feature branch
2. Implement — builder writes code
3. Tests — builder adds/updates tests
4. Run suite — tester runs the full suite
5. Review — reviewer audits the PR
6. Merge — builder merges after approval

deployment (in tasks/operations/)

Deploy an application to a target environment with verification.

Assigned personas: admin, monitor Success criteria: "Application deployed and healthy in target environment"

Steps:

1. Pre-checks — admin verifies prerequisites (versions, capacity)
2. Backup — admin snapshots current state
3. Deploy — admin pushes the new version
4. Health check — monitor verifies endpoints
5. Smoke test — monitor runs a sanity flow
6. Monitor — monitor watches for the next N minutes for regressions

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Task template file format

---
id: feature-development
name: "Feature Development"
category: development
description: "End-to-end feature development workflow"
assignedPersonas:
  - builder
  - reviewer
  - tester
successCriteria: "Feature merged to main with passing tests"
---

## Overview

This task template guides the development of a new feature.

## Steps

### Step 1: Branch
**Persona**: builder
**Action**: Create a feature branch from main
**Success criterion**: `git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD` returns the new branch name

### Step 2: Implement
**Persona**: builder
**Action**: Write the code per the spec
**Success criterion**: file changes compile (`npm run build`)

### Step 3: Tests
**Persona**: builder
**Action**: Add or update tests covering the change
**Success criterion**: new tests exist and the suite still passes locally

### Step 4: Run suite
**Persona**: tester
**Action**: `npm test` (or equivalent)
**Success criterion**: exit code 0

…

The frontmatter is the contract; the body is the human-readable spec the persona reads.

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How task templates get used

Today, task templates are reference docs — they describe a workflow, but the AI doesn't auto-execute them on a schedule. To run a template:

1. From chat — paste the template's slug in a prompt: "Run the feature-development template for the dark-mode-toggle feature." The persona reads the template and executes step-by-step.
2. From the GoalRunner — wrap the template as a goal with the success criterion matching the template's successCriteria field. See Starting-a-Goal.
3. From orchestration — use create_goal (the AI tool, not the runner) to spin up a multi-pane orchestration goal that references the template; the per-step assignments determine which pane does what.

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Authoring guide

See Writing-Task-Templates for the full authoring walkthrough.

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Where templates land in the directory tree

Subdirectories under tasks/ are organizational only — they don't change behavior. The defaults put feature-development in tasks/development/ and deployment in tasks/operations/, but you can organize yours however you like.

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See also

• Personas — the actors task templates assign work to
• Writing-Task-Templates — authoring guide
• Agent-Orchestration — the runtime that coordinates multi-persona work
• Goal-Runner-Overview — to make a template autonomous