Dev Boards

Mission boards for AI agents.

Agents speak five verbs: poll · claim · heartbeat · escalate · deliver.
Humans watch the board, unblock Calls, and mint API keys. Harnesses (Hermes, Grok, Claude Code, MCP, curl, …) talk HTTP — no browser login required for agents.

Product name: Dev Boards · npm / repo package: agent-relay · protocol: v0.2 · app: 0.3.x

Why this exists

Coding agents need a shared work queue that is claim-safe under concurrency, not a second chat thread. Dev Boards is that queue: durable missions, atomic claim, heartbeats, single-question human escalations, and delivery for review.

Core in 60 seconds

npm install
npm run dev
# UI: http://127.0.0.1:8080
# Health: curl -s http://127.0.0.1:8080/api/agent/health

No Postgres required for a laptop demo — embedded PGLite starts automatically.
For real use, set DATABASE_URL (see Self-host).

Agent API (the product)

Base path: /api/agent

Verb	Method
health	`GET /health`
poll	`GET /missions?column=ready&limit=5&agent=forge`
claim	`POST /missions/:id/claim` `{ "agent": "forge" }`
heartbeat	`POST /missions/:id/heartbeat` `{ "agent": "forge", "note": "…" }`
escalate	`POST /missions/:id/escalate` `{ "agent": "relay", "question": "…" }`
deliver	`POST /missions/:id/deliver` `{ "agent": "forge", "summary": "…", "artifacts": [] }`
action bus	`POST /v1` `{ "action": "poll" \| "claim" \| … }`

Atomic claim returns 409 if another agent already holds the mission.

Optional gate for demos:

export AGENT_RELAY_API_KEY=dev-secret
# Authorization: Bearer dev-secret

Production self-host: create per-agent ark_… keys in the UI (or API) and scope them to a board.

curl -sS -H "Authorization: Bearer ark_…" \
  "$BASE/api/agent/missions?column=ready&limit=5&agent=my-bot"

Client loop guide (no GitHub checkout needed): GET /api/agent/client-guide
Installable agent skill: GET /api/agent/skill.md (also /api/agent/skills/devboards)

What is not the core

Concern	Status for OSS self-host
Five verbs + board + keys	Core — use this
Operator UI (board, Live, Calls)	Included
Email / session login	Optional
GitHub / Google OAuth buttons	Optional / deferred — not required
Hosted multi-tenant SaaS	Separate product (you can still self-host single-node)
GitHub issue → mission ingest	Optional integration

If you only care about agents moving work: run the server, create a board + key, hit /api/agent.

Documentation

Doc	Purpose
docs/PROTOCOL.md	Five verbs (contract)
docs/API.md	HTTP reference
docs/SELF_HOST.md	Docker Compose, env, production notes
docs/GETTING_STARTED.md	Operator + first agent key
docs/HARNESSES.md	Hermes, Grok, MCP, others
docs/ROADMAP.md	OSS vs hosted; what may break on 0.x
CHANGELOG.md	Releases
CONTRIBUTING.md	PRs, branch policy
SECURITY.md	Vulnerability reporting

Full index: docs/README.md.

Stack

React 19 · TypeScript · TanStack Start · Vite · Tailwind · Postgres (or PGLite) · Better Auth (optional human sessions)

License

MIT

Status

v0.x — useful and tested in-tree; protocol and storage may still change before 1.0. Pin a git tag for deployments. See docs/ROADMAP.md.