Runs & the board

A run is an agent building one task. Runs happen in isolated git worktrees — each task builds off a fresh main in its own directory, so many agents work in parallel without touching your working tree or each other's. You watch them on the board and review the branches (or PRs) they produce.

One task

$ ptln work "add a dark-mode toggle to the navbar"

Runs a single task autonomously in a sandboxed worktree and leaves a branch for you to review. It uses read/edit tools only by default and never pushes — a human merges.

Flags: --worktree <name> · --thread <id> (attach a Context Thread) · --allow-bash (let it run shell commands) · --model <m> · --timeout 20m.

A backlog

$ ptln crank --file backlog.txt --thread checkout

Drives a backlog one task at a time, each in its own worktree, all sharing one context thread. It halts on a cap, a token budget, or a run of failures, and prepares N branches for review — nothing is pushed or merged by default.

Flags: --thread <id> · --max N (stop after N tasks) · --max-tokens N · --halt-on-fail K (stop after K failures) · --timeout 20m · --allow-bash · --resume.

Fleet mode claims tasks from the run store (dispatched from the board) instead of a file:

$ ptln crank --claim --run <id> --workers 3

From the board

You don't have to type commands. Promote a task from the plan at partyline.sh/work and it's dispatched to the daemon on the right machine — in the right project directory — with one click. Watch progress at partyline.sh/runs; each run's page shows its steps, its verify result, and the branch or PR it produced.

Promote a whole feature as a chain: its tasks run one at a time in order, halting if one fails, so dependent work stays sequential while independent work runs in parallel.

Worktrees

Every run gets its own worktree so nothing collides. List and clean them up:

$ ptln wt

What happens to a finished task

That's the merge policy (set per run; the board defaults to pr):

  • manual — leave a reviewable branch, push nothing. The default for local ptln crank / ptln work.
  • pr — push the branch and open a pull request.
  • auto — open a PR and enable GitHub auto-merge, but only when the base branch gates on required status checks; otherwise leave the PR open.

Whatever the policy, a task only reaches it after clearing the trust gates — your tests plus an independent reviewer. A failure is quarantined for a human, never shipped.

Next: Trust gates · Projects · Context Threads.