Stale page: the huddle is being renamed and rebuilt as the Task Manager, so this page will be rewritten. Treat what it says as out of date until then.

Items and states

Every piece of work in the huddle is an item on a list. This page explains the lists, what an item carries, the status each item shows, and who is allowed to change what.

Lists

• One list per project. Each project you have in Carnivore gets its own list.
• The shared list. One list that belongs to no project, for work that spans projects.
• All projects. A read-only view over every list at once: the shared list first, then each project under its own heading, in its own priority order. Everything you can do in a single list works here too. An add goes to the list the add box names.

Pick the list at the top of the huddle. When the huddle opens, the list on screen and the add box's list both follow the project of the terminal tab you are on. Moving to a tab with no project changes nothing. After that, the list on screen stays where you put it while the add box keeps following your tab.

What an item carries

An agent is told to write a title for any item you wrote without one, so your list reads at a glance. A list holds at most 500 live items.

The statuses

The server works out each item's status from its stored state and its history; no screen computes it on its own. The status decides the section the item sits in (by status view), the small icon at the left of the row, and the color of the stripe on the row's left edge.

Sections run in that order from the top. Todo and done start folded.

Working is a claim that lasts

An item reads working once an agent claims it, either by saying so or by reading a change of yours that a send carried to it. The claim survives the agent going idle, a restart and a dead session. It ends only when the agent asks a question, marks the item done, sets waiting to install, sets it back to open, moves it to todo, or when you tick or delete it. An agent posting an info does not end it, and neither does your reply. A nudge about a working item says which way the claim was made: you set it working, or you picked up its send and have not replied (reply, review or set it open to release it).

Your changes and the agent's read

When you change an item (add it, reply, note, tick, move), it waits for the agent to read it. The server still tracks this as waiting_to_send, but the screen shows such an item as open. A send or the agent's own read carries the change; see Send to carnivore and the send queue.

How to use it

1. Add an item: type in the box at the bottom and press add (or Enter). See The add box inbox for what happens next.
2. Reorder: drag a row by its dotted grip, or focus the grip and press the up and down arrow keys. A drag moves a row inside its own section only; the server, not a drag, decides an item's status.
3. Open an item: click its row, or press Enter or Space on it.
4. Use the item menu (the move key on an open item): move to another list or group, schedule..., title..., fork..., and move to todo (which becomes take off todo).
5. Remove an item: the remove key on the open item. A removed item is a soft delete, kept in the database.
6. Clear done items: remove completed (n) at the foot of the list, then remove to confirm. It removes the checked items of the list on screen.

Forking an item

fork... makes a new item beside the original, copying its title and text, and sets the new item's state, and if you like the original's, in one step. Use it to split a piece off a larger todo and file it as done or todo at once. The fork shows "from" and the parent's title, which opens the parent. Each side gets a one-line note on its thread saying where it came from or went.

Moving an item

Moving sends the same item, with its thread, note, state and unread mark, to the bottom of another list. An item another project's agent wrote shows a small "from" line naming that project.

Examples

• You drag "login bug" to the top of open. It stays first among the open items in every view and on every device.
• An item has three parts. You fork the finished part off and set the fork to done in the same dialog; the original stays open.

Troubleshooting

• An item I changed shows open, not working. The agent has not read your change yet. Press send to carnivore, or wait for the queued send to go out.
• I cannot drag a row into another section. That is by design: sections follow the status, which only the item's own changes move.
• An agent's update on an item was refused with "card is held by a swarm agent". The item is a Swarm card held by a Swarm agent; only that agent's card tools, or you, move it.

Related pages

• Reviews and ticks
• Groups, views and densities

For AI: key facts

• Stored states (rules.STATES): open, todo, review, done; plus waiting, and working is a claim (items.claude_working, items.claude_working_by), not a stored state.
• Derived status (lifecycle.status), highest first: done, todo, question, scheduled, waiting_to_send, review, waiting, working, open.
• needs_you is a flag beside status, true exactly when needs_action is set (answer, unstick, or an old look's tick / push / answer). A review is never needs_you.
• Section order (SECTION_ORDER): needs_you, question, review, waiting, working, scheduled, open, todo, done.
• number follows the owner's current view order; a checked item has number: null. Use the id as the stable key.
• Limits: 500 live items per list, text 2000, note and message 4000, title 120.
• A write naming an older expected_revision is refused with 409 task_manager_stale.

updated 2026-10-11