Hermes Agent Kanban Orchestrator: One Planner, a Team of Workers

The Hermes Agent Kanban orchestrator is a planner that runs your other agents. You give it a goal, it breaks the goal into tasks on a shared board, assigns each one to a worker profile, and steps back. As the docs put it, “a well-behaved orchestrator does not do the work itself.” Here’s how to set one up, how the dispatcher works, and when to use it instead of delegate_task.

What Hermes Kanban is

The Kanban docs describe a durable task board shared across all your Hermes profiles. Each task is a row in ~/.hermes/kanban.db, and each worker is a full process with its own identity. Agents use kanban_* tools. You use hermes kanban, /kanban or the dashboard.

What the orchestrator does

The orchestrator is a profile whose job is planning, not doing. It breaks the goal into tasks with kanban_create, links them with kanban_link so a child only becomes ready when its parents are done, assigns each one to an existing profile, and steps back. The guidance is injected automatically, so there’s nothing extra to install.

• Profile discovery first. The dispatcher silently skips unknown assignee names, so the orchestrator checks hermes profile list.
• Shared decisions in every card. Workers can’t see sibling cards, so naming, schema and file format go into each card body.
• Don’t link a helper under the card it unblocks. Neither will run. hermes kanban unlink releases a deadlock.

1. Create your worker profiles

Make one profile per role, for example researcher, writer and coder, and check them with hermes profile list. Profile descriptions (from the dashboard or hermes profile describe --auto) help the decomposer route tasks to the right worker.

2. Create the orchestrator profile

hermes -p planner tools enable kanban
# for a chat platform:
hermes -p planner tools enable kanban --platform telegram

Start a new chat after changing tools. A normal hermes chat has no kanban_* tools until you enable them. The worker lanes docs recommend limiting the orchestrator to the kanban, gateway and memory toolsets, so it can’t slip into doing the work itself.

3. Start the board and the dispatcher

hermes kanban init
hermes gateway start

The dispatcher runs inside the gateway by default and ticks every 60 seconds. Without a running gateway, ready tasks just wait. It starts each worker with hermes -p <assignee> chat -q <prompt> in the task’s workspace. Every run must end in kanban_complete, kanban_request_review or kanban_block, and after two spawn failures in a row a task is blocked automatically.

Running several profile gateways? Per the multi-gateway docs, only one owns the dispatcher. Set kanban.dispatch_in_gateway: false on the rest.

4. Give it a goal

Plan a launch for our new service page:
research 5 competitors, write the page,
then draft 3 emails. Assign researcher,
writer and writer. Put shared tone rules
in every card.

Or create tasks yourself with hermes kanban create "…" --assignee researcher, or /kanban create from any chat. With kanban.auto_decompose: true (the default), the dispatcher breaks Triage tasks down for you, up to three per tick. Watch it with hermes kanban watch or hermes dashboard → Kanban.

Kanban vs delegate_task vs /goal

The docs sum it up: delegate_task is a function call and Kanban is a work queue. A card can also loop toward its goal with --goal, as covered in the goals docs.

Run it from your phone, and keep costs down

/kanban works on every gateway platform, including Telegram, Discord, Slack and WhatsApp, even mid-turn, so you can /kanban unblock or /kanban comment from your phone. /kanban create from a chat subscribes that chat to the task’s completed and blocked events.

The docs’ cost tip: run the orchestrator on a frontier model and the workers on cheaper models, each in its own profile config, then pin hard cards back to a stronger model with hermes kanban set-model.

My verdict

Start with three worker profiles and one locked-down planner, run the gateway, and give it one real goal. Once you see the board fill and clear on its own, the Hermes Agent Kanban orchestrator becomes the way you run a team of AI agents.

About Julian Goldie

I’m Julian Goldie — founder of Goldie Agency and the AI Profit Boardroom. I test new AI agents almost every day for 432K+ YouTube subscribers and run Hermes, OpenClaw, OpenCode, Claude and Codex side by side in my own Agent OS. Claim your free strategy session or join the AI Profit Boardroom.

Want another angle? Read the AI Profit Boardroom guide to the Hermes Agent Kanban Orchestrator.

FAQ: hermes agent kanban orchestrator

What is the Hermes Agent Kanban orchestrator?

A Hermes profile with the kanban toolset that breaks a goal into board tasks, links and assigns them to your worker profiles, and steps back without doing the work.

How do I give a Hermes profile Kanban tools?

Run hermes -p tools enable kanban, adding –platform for a chat platform, then start a new chat.

What’s the difference between Kanban and delegate_task in Hermes?

delegate_task is a blocking call to an anonymous subagent. Kanban is a durable queue where named profiles pick up tasks that can be blocked, unblocked or retried.

Does /goal create Kanban tasks?

No. /goal loops inside one chat session and never touches the board. Use hermes kanban create with –goal for a card that iterates.

Do I need a separate service to run the Kanban dispatcher?

No. The dispatcher runs inside the gateway by default and checks every 60 seconds. The standalone daemon is deprecated.

Can I manage the Hermes Kanban board from Telegram or WhatsApp?

Yes. /kanban works on gateway platforms, including mid-turn, and /kanban create subscribes the chat to that task’s events.

Related reading

• Hermes Delegation
• Hermes Multiple Profiles
• Hermes Agent Cron Job

Last updated November 2026. This page is a living guide to hermes agent kanban orchestrator — the facts here move fast and it is updated as they do.