Introducing VS Code Agent Kanban: Task Management for the AI-Assisted Developer

Source
ai-coding-agentscontext-managementvscode-extensionskanbanmarkdown-as-databasegitopsdeveloper-workflow

Summary

VS Code Agent Kanban solves “context rot” — the loss of planning decisions and rationale between AI coding sessions — by storing every task as a markdown file with YAML frontmatter in .agentkanban/tasks/, committable to Git. Instead of bundling its own LLM harness, it delegates execution to GitHub Copilot Chat via a @kanban chat participant, keeping all native IDE integrations (diffs, tool calling, terminal) intact.

Key Insight

  • Context rot is the core problem: long agent conversations accumulate bloated context windows, and clearing chat destroys all planning history. Every new session starts from zero, leading to repeated work and architectural drift.
  • Markdown files as persistent memory: each task is a .md file with structured [user]/[agent] conversation logs. This creates a diffable, mergeable, version-controlled record of why things were built, not just what.
  • Plan / Todo / Implement workflow: forces separation of planning from execution. User types plan to get a structured plan written into the task file, todo to generate checkboxes, implement to let the agent execute. This matches the “never let the agent write code until you’ve reviewed a plan” pattern that HN commenters independently validated.
  • Deliberate non-integration of custom harness: the author tried building a custom LLM loop but found it couldn’t match Copilot’s native IDE features (diff visualization, tool calling). Delegating to Copilot and only managing task context is the pragmatic tradeoff.
  • Emerging pattern: multiple similar tools appearing simultaneously (OpenAI Symphony, Vibe Kanban, OpenKanban, kanban-markdown-vscode-extension) — suggests markdown-backed agent task management is a convergent solution. The Manus workflow uses a similar three-file approach (deliverables.md, taskplan.md, notes.md).
  • HN consensus: commenters strongly agree that context should be treated as ephemeral and explicitly persisted. One commenter noted: “If you had a coworker that held everything in their head you would push them to write stuff down.”