next-task
Autonomous workflow orchestrator that takes a task from discovery to production through 12 coordinated phases - exploration, planning, implementation, multi-agent review, and shipping.
Why
Manual development workflows leak time at every handoff: finding the right task, setting up isolated branches, remembering to run tests, reviewing your own code, syncing docs, creating PRs. next-task removes all of that. You select a task and approve a plan; everything after that runs autonomously.
Use cases:
- Pick the highest-priority issue from GitHub/GitLab and ship it end-to-end
- Resume an interrupted workflow from exactly where it stopped
- Run parallel workflows in isolated git worktrees
Installation
agentsys install next-task
Requires agentsys runtime.
Quick Start
/next-task # Start fresh - select source, pick task, approve plan, ship
/next-task --resume # Resume active workflow
/next-task --resume 123 # Resume by task ID
/next-task --resume feature/my-task-123 # Resume by branch name
/next-task --status # Show current workflow state
/next-task --abort # Cancel and clean up
/next-task bug # Filter to bug-labeled issues only
/next-task --base develop # Target a non-default branch
How It Works
The workflow has 12 phases. Phases 1-6 involve the user; phases 7-12 run autonomously.
| Phase | Name | Agent | Model |
|---|
| 1 | Policy Selection | - | - |
| 2 | Task Discovery | task-discoverer | Sonnet |
| 3 | Worktree Setup | worktree-manager | Haiku |
| 4 | Exploration | exploration-agent | Sonnet |
| 5 | Planning | planning-agent | Opus |
| 6 | User Approval | - | - |
| 7 | Implementation | implementation-agent | Opus |
| 8 | Pre-Review Gates | deslop:deslop-agent + prepare-delivery:test-coverage-checker | Sonnet |
| 9 | Review Loop | 4+ parallel reviewers | Sonnet |
| 10 | Delivery Validation | prepare-delivery:delivery-validator | Sonnet |
| 11 | Docs Update | sync-docs:sync-docs-agent | Sonnet |
| 12 | Ship | ship:ship | - |
Human interaction happens exactly three times: source/priority selection (Phase 1), task selection (Phase 2), and plan approval (Phase 6). Everything after Phase 6 is autonomous.
Phase highlights
Task discovery (Phase 2) fetches from GitHub Issues, GitHub Projects, GitLab, or local markdown files. Issues with open PRs are automatically excluded. Tasks are scored by priority labels, severity, and age.
Worktree isolation (Phase 3) creates a git worktree per task so multiple workflows can run in parallel without conflicts.
Multi-agent review (Phase 9) spawns 4 core reviewers in parallel - code quality, security, performance, and test coverage - plus conditional specialists (database, API, frontend, backend, devops, architecture) based on which files changed. Runs up to 5 iterations with stall detection.
Pre-review gates (Phase 8) run deslop (AI slop cleanup) and test coverage checks in parallel before the review loop starts.
Task Sources
| Source | How it works |
|---|
| GitHub Issues | gh issue list with label-based scoring |
| GitHub Projects | gh project item-list (v2 boards) |
| GitLab Issues | glab issue list |
| Local file | Scans PLAN.md, tasks.md, TODO.md for unchecked items |
| Custom | CLI, MCP, or Skill tool |
State Management
Workflow state survives session restarts via two files:
{stateDir}/tasks.json - active task registry (in main repo){stateDir}/flow.json - workflow progress (in worktree)
The state directory is platform-aware: .claude/, .opencode/, or .codex/.
Skills
| Skill | Purpose |
|---|
| discover-tasks | Fetch, filter, score, and present tasks for selection |
Phases 8-10 use agents from the prepare-delivery plugin:
prepare-delivery:test-coverage-checker (Phase 8), prepare-delivery:delivery-validator (Phase 10).
Requirements
- agentsys runtime
- Git 2.20+ (worktree support)
- GitHub CLI (
gh) for GitHub sources, or GitLab CLI (glab) for GitLab
- Node.js 18+
Cross-Plugin Dependencies
| Plugin | Used in |
|---|
| deslop | Phase 8 - AI slop cleanup |
| prepare-delivery | Phases 8-10 - test coverage, review orchestration, delivery validation |
| sync-docs | Phase 11 - documentation sync |
| ship | Phase 12 - PR creation, CI, merge |
Related Plugins
agent-sh