What is kanban-review-loop?

The Kanban Review Loop is a sophisticated background daemon designed for continuous project health monitoring and automated board management. It proactively tracks Kanban board status, identifies escalated or stale tasks, and ensures sprint progress remains on track through real-time alerts and automated QA remediation, significantly reducing manual oversight and preventing project bottlenecks.

When should I use kanban-review-loop?

kanban-review-loop is useful in the following scenarios: • Real-time Board Health Monitoring: Automatically scan Kanban boards every 5 minutes to detect blocked, stale, or high-risk tasks without manual intervention. • Automated Task Escalation: Identify tasks that have exceeded their maximum iteration limits and trigger critical alerts for immediate human review. • Dynamic QA Backlog Management: Automatically spawn QA sub-agents to clear review backlogs when they exceed a specific threshold, ensuring a smooth development pipeline. • Sprint Progress & Risk Assessment: Track active sprint goals and iteration counts, providing early warnings when a sprint is at risk of failing its objectives. • Cross-Session Context Continuity: Generate structured session summaries and health reports that bridge context between different work windows and AI agent interactions.

name	kanban-review-loop
description	Kanban continuous health monitoring daemon. USE WHEN user says /kanban-review-loop OR wants background board monitoring.

Kanban Review Loop - Continuous Health Monitoring

You are starting the Review Loop - a background daemon that continuously monitors Kanban board health with Ralph Wiggum awareness and session tracking for cross-context-window continuity.

Arguments

/kanban-review-loop - Start the daemon
/kanban-review-loop stop - Stop (user should kill the background task)

Behavior

This runs as a background process that:

Checks board health every 5 minutes
Monitors escalated tasks (exceeded max iterations)
Detects and reports issues
Auto-spawns QA if review backlog grows
Alerts on stale or blocked tasks
Tracks sprint progress
Generates session summaries for context bridging

Start the Daemon

Run in background using Task tool:

Task tool:
  subagent_type: "general-purpose"
  run_in_background: true
  description: "Kanban review loop daemon"
  prompt: [See daemon instructions below]

Daemon Instructions

You are the KANBAN REVIEW LOOP DAEMON with Ralph Wiggum awareness and session tracking.

## Main Loop (repeat continuously)

### Step 0: Session Check (once at start)
Start session: kanban_session_start with agentId: "review-loop-daemon"
This gives you context about recent activity and any continuity notes.

### Step 1: Board Health Verification
Run: kanban_verify_board_health
This returns structured health status with recommendation.

### Step 2: Full Health Check
Run: kanban_health_check with role: "architect", staleThresholdHours: 24

### Step 3: Check Escalations
Run: kanban_get_escalated_tasks with role: "architect"

### Step 4: Check Active Sprint
Run: kanban_sprint_list with role: "architect"
For each active sprint, check iteration count vs maxIterations.

### Step 5: Analyze & Alert

Check for issues:

**CRITICAL ALERTS:**
- **Escalated tasks** (exceeded maxIterations):
  Log "CRITICAL: Task [title] escalated after [N] iterations - needs human review"
- **Critical tasks not started**:
  Log "ALERT: Critical task [title] waiting"

**WARNING ALERTS:**
- **High iteration tasks** (iteration >= maxIterations - 1):
  Log "WARNING: Task [title] at iteration [N]/[max] - at risk of escalation"
- **Stale tasks** (in_progress > 24h):
  Log "WARNING: Task [title] stale for [hours]h"
- **Sprint at risk** (iteration near max):
  Log "WARNING: Sprint [goal] at iteration [N]/[max]"

**INFO ALERTS:**
- **QA backlog > 3**:
  Log "INFO: QA backlog high, spawning QA agent"
- **Overloaded agents** (> 5 tasks):
  Log "INFO: Agent [id] overloaded with [N] tasks"
- **Low backlog** (< 3 tasks):
  Log "INFO: Backlog low, plan more work"

### Step 6: Auto-Remediation

If QA backlog > 3, spawn QA agent (NOT in background):

Task tool: subagent_type: "general-purpose" prompt: | You are QA. Clear the backlog. 1. kanban_session_start with agentId: "qa-auto" 2. kanban_qa_list with role: "qa" 3. For each task: - kanban_get_task_detail to see iteration history - Review and approve/reject with structured feedback 4. kanban_session_end with summary


### Step 7: Generate Summary
Run: kanban_generate_summary
This updates the session-summary.md file for other agents.

### Step 8: Report Status

Output:
---
[TIME] Review Loop Check #N
Health: [OK | WARNING | CRITICAL]

Sprint Status:
- [Sprint goal]: Iteration [N]/[max] - [status]

Board:
- Backlog: X | In Progress: Y | Blocked: Z | Done: W
- Pending QA: Q
- Escalated: E

Issues:
- [list of alerts]

Actions Taken:
- [any remediation]

Next check in 5 minutes...
---

### Step 9: Sleep
Wait 5 minutes, then repeat from Step 1.

### On Shutdown
When loop is stopped:

kanban_session_end with: agentId: "review-loop-daemon" sessionNotes: "Review loop stopped. X checks performed." cleanState: true

Monitoring

After starting:

Note the task ID returned
Check status: TaskOutput with task_id, block: false
Stop: User kills the background task

Alert Priority

Level	Action
CRITICAL	Immediate notification, needs human intervention
WARNING	Soon to become critical, monitor closely
INFO	Informational, auto-remediation if possible

Examples

User: "/kanban-review-loop"
-> Spawn background daemon
-> Report task ID for monitoring
-> Daemon runs continuously:
   -> kanban_session_start (once)
   -> Checks board health with kanban_verify_board_health
   -> Monitors escalations
   -> Tracks sprint iterations
   -> Alerts on issues
   -> Auto-spawns QA when needed (with session protocols)
   -> kanban_generate_summary (updates file)
   -> Sleep 5 minutes, repeat
-> On stop: kanban_session_end

kanban-review-loop

When & Why to Use This Skill

Use Cases