# Task board

> Hand work to the agent as cards. Each card is carried out in a conversation of its own, one after another; cards can wait for each other, and the board tells you when one needs you.

Source: https://eggent.ai/docs/board/

The **board** is where you hand work to the agent and leave it. Each piece of work is a **card**: a task the agent carries out by itself, in a conversation of its own, while you do something else. The board shows what is waiting to start, what is being worked on and which cards need you.

Open it with **Board** in the sidebar, under New Chat. The number beside it is how many cards are waiting for you; a dot means cards are being worked on.

## Columns {#columns}

| Column | What is in it |
| --- | --- |
| Inbox | Cards written down but not started. Cards the agent proposes always land here and wait for you |
| Queue | Cards that start by themselves as soon as there is room, top first |
| Working | Cards the agent is working on right now |
| Waiting for you | Cards stopped for you: the agent asked a question, the run failed, you stopped it, or the result waits for your check |
| Done | Finished cards. The last answer of each is its result |

## Writing a card {#create}

**New card**, then:

1. **Title** — a short name.
2. **Task** — what to do, written so it can be done without you: the sources, what the result should look like, where to save it.
3. **Project** — the card runs in that project, with its instructions, skills, memory and files, or in the orchestrator.
4. **Start after** — the cards this one waits for (see below). Optional.
5. **Let me check the result** — the card stops in "Waiting for you" when finished instead of going straight to Done. Optional.

**Start now** puts it in the queue; **Save to Inbox** keeps it for later.

## Asking the agent to plan {#from-chat}

In any chat:

> "Split the competitor study into tasks and put them on the board."

The agent writes the cards, chained where one step needs the previous one, into the Inbox. It cannot start them: look them over, change what you want and press **Start all** above the Inbox, or **Start** on one card.

## Cards that wait for each other {#after}

A card with **Start after** starts only when every card it waits for is done, and its first message includes what those cards came to: their final answers and the files they made. That is how a chain like "collect → compare → summarise" runs, across projects too: the first card in one project, the next in another.

## Each card is a conversation {#chat}

Everything a card's agent did is in the card's conversation: an ordinary chat, marked with the board icon in the chat list. Open it from the card with **Open the conversation**.

You can write in it: an answer, a follow-up, a correction. The card follows that turn - it shows as working while it runs and takes its new result when it ends. A line at the top of the chat says which card it is and where it stands.

## When a card needs you {#waiting}

- **Question.** When nobody is watching, the agent puts its question on the card and stops there. Answer on the card, with one of its buttons or in your own words: the card goes to the front of the queue and carries on with your answer. **Let the agent decide** carries on without one.
- **Failed.** A run that ended with an error is retried once by itself a minute later. If it fails again, the card waits with the error; **Run again** once the cause is fixed.
- **Went quiet.** A run that stopped saying anything for too long is stopped, as in a [chat](https://eggent.ai/docs/chats.md#while-working).
- **Stopped.** You pressed **Stop**. **Continue** picks up where it stopped.
- **Check the result.** The card was written with a check. **Accept as done**, or **Run again**.
- **Interrupted.** The workspace restarted in the middle of a run. The board picks such a card up again by itself, twice in a row at most; after that it waits for you.

## When the model service refuses {#paused}

If the model service refuses a card's run — the balance is spent, the workspace is closed — the whole board pauses, because every card after it would be refused in turn. Deal with the cause and press **Resume** on the board.

## How many at once {#limits}

Up to three cards work at the same time, and one per project: cards of one project share its folder and could overwrite each other's files. Cards of different projects run side by side. On your own server this is set with `EGGENT_BOARD_MAX_RUNNING` and `EGGENT_BOARD_MAX_PER_PROJECT` (see [Configuration](https://eggent.ai/docs/self-host-config.md)).

## Moving cards {#moving}

Drag a card between the Inbox and the Queue, or up and down inside them: the queue starts from the top. The same moves are buttons in an opened card - Start, Back to Inbox, Move up, Move down, Put away, Delete. A card being worked on is not moved, only stopped.

**Put away** hides a finished card from the Done column; **Show cards put away** under the board brings them back into view. **Delete** removes the card and its conversation; the files it made stay where they are.

## What the agent may do with the board {#agent}

The agent reads the board and writes new cards with the `eggent_board` tool. Only you start work: a card the agent writes always waits in the Inbox, and once a card is started its task is no longer the agent's to change. This is deliberate: the agent reads pages, files and messages from outside, and a line in any of them must not be able to put a task with a shell into the queue.

## Pipelines {#pipelines}

The board replaces pipelines: a chain of steps is now cards that wait for each other. The old Pipelines page opens the board.