Honeycomb (hc) — Multi-Agent Task Coordination

Honeycomb is hive's built-in task coordination system. A conductor agent creates epics and tasks; worker agents claim leaf items, record progress, and mark work done.

Session ID and repo key are auto-detected from the working directory.

Quick Reference

hive hc create <title>           Create a single epic or task (tasks require --parent)
hive hc create                   Bulk create from stdin JSON
hive hc list [epic-id]           List items (optional epic filter)
hive hc show <id>                Show item + comments
hive hc update <id>              Update status, title, desc, or assignment
hive hc next <epic-id>           Get next actionable task for an epic
hive hc comment <id> <message>   Add a comment to an item
hive hc context <epic-id>        Show epic context block
hive hc prune                    Remove old completed items

Workflow for Worker Agents

1. Check context at start of session

# Get epic context (markdown, suitable for pasting into prompt)
hive hc context <epic-id>

# Get context as JSON for programmatic use
hive hc context <epic-id> --json

2. Claim the next available task

# Get and assign in one step
hive hc next <epic-id> --assign

# Or get first, then assign
hive hc next <epic-id>
hive hc update <id> --assign --status in_progress

3. Record progress (use sparingly)

Comments accumulate in context and consume tokens — only add one when there is something worth preserving for the next agent. Prefer a single substantive note over several incremental ones.

Good reasons to comment:

• A non-obvious decision was made ("chose polling over webhooks because X")
• Stopping mid-task and the next agent needs orientation
• A blocker or external dependency was discovered

hive hc comment <id> "Switched to optimistic locking — pessimistic caused deadlocks under load"

4. Record a handoff checkpoint when stopping mid-task

One comment at stop time, prefixed with CHECKPOINT:, is enough. Include what is done and what remains.

hive hc comment <id> "CHECKPOINT: DB schema done, need to wire API handlers next"

5. Mark task complete

hive hc update <id> --status done

Workflow for Conductor Agents

Create an epic with tasks (bulk mode)

echo '{
  "title": "Implement Authentication",
  "type": "epic",
  "children": [
    {"title": "Add JWT library", "type": "task"},
    {"title": "Implement login endpoint", "type": "task"},
    {"title": "Implement logout endpoint", "type": "task"},
    {"title": "Add session middleware", "type": "task"}
  ]
}' | hive hc create

All items are output as JSON lines (one per line):

{"id":"hc-abc1","type":"epic","title":"Implement Authentication",...}
{"id":"hc-abc2","type":"task","title":"Add JWT library","epic_id":"hc-abc1",...}
...

Create a single item

hive hc create "Fix login redirect" --type task --parent <epic-id>
hive hc create "New feature epic" --type epic

Monitor progress

# List all open tasks for an epic
hive hc list <epic-id> --status open

# List items assigned to a specific session
hive hc list --session <session-id>

# Show item + full comment history
hive hc show <id>

Command Reference

hive hc create [title]

Single-item mode (title as positional arg):

• --type epic|task — item type (default: task; tasks require --parent)
• --desc <text> — item description
• --parent <id> — parent item ID (required for tasks)

Bulk mode (no positional arg, reads JSON from stdin or --file):

• --file <path> — read JSON from file instead of stdin

hive hc list [epic-id]

• [epic-id] — optional positional arg to filter by epic (returns children only, not the epic itself)
• --status open|in_progress|done|cancelled — filter by status
• --session <id> — filter by session ID

Output: JSON lines with --json; colored tree without (use --json when parsing programmatically).

hive hc show <id>

Output: JSON lines — item first, then comments in chronological order.

hive hc update <id>

• --status open|in_progress|done|cancelled — new status
• --title <text> — update the item's title (empty string rejected)
• --desc <text> — update the item's description (empty string clears it)
• --assign — assign to current session
• --unassign — remove session assignment
• --add-blocker <id> — mark another item as a blocker (must complete first)
• --remove-blocker <id> — remove an explicit blocker

Cascade: when an epic transitions to done or cancelled, all non-terminal descendants are automatically set to the same status. Items already in a terminal state are not changed.

hive hc next <epic-id>

Returns the next actionable leaf task (open/in_progress, no open/in_progress children).

• <epic-id> — required positional arg to scope to an epic
• --assign — assign to current session and set status to in_progress

Exits with error if no actionable tasks found.

hive hc comment <id> <message>

Adds a comment to an item. All positional args after the ID are joined as the message.

Use sparingly — comments accumulate in the context block and are visible to every subsequent agent reading this epic. Prefer one meaningful note over several incremental ones. For handoffs, prefix with CHECKPOINT:.

hive hc context <epic-id>

Assembles context block containing:

• Epic title and description

• Task counts by status

• Tasks assigned to current session (with latest comment) — My Tasks

• All open/in-progress tasks not assigned to the current session — Other Open Tasks

• --json — output as single JSON object (default: markdown)

hive hc prune

• --older-than <duration> — remove items older than this (default: 168h / 7 days)
• --status <status> — statuses to prune, repeatable (default: done, cancelled)
• --dry-run — show count without removing

Output: {"action":"pruned","count":N}

Item Structure

{
  "id": "hc-abc123",
  "repo_key": "owner/repo",
  "epic_id": "hc-epic1",
  "parent_id": "hc-epic1",
  "session_id": "mysession",
  "title": "Implement login endpoint",
  "desc": "Optional description",
  "type": "task",
  "status": "in_progress",
  "depth": 1,
  "created_at": "2026-01-01T00:00:00Z",
  "updated_at": "2026-01-01T01:00:00Z"
}

Epics have type: "epic" and empty epic_id (they are their own root).

Comment Structure

{
  "id": "hcc-def456",
  "item_id": "hc-abc123",
  "message": "CHECKPOINT: auth middleware done, need tests",
  "created_at": "2026-01-01T02:00:00Z"
}

Status Values

Status	Meaning
open	Not started, available to claim
in_progress	Actively being worked on
done	Completed
cancelled	Abandoned, will not be completed