Tasks and Handoffs

Tasks are how MindMux turns converged discussion into execution.

The role of tasks

MindMux does not try to become a full project management system. Its task model is intentionally narrow:

• Assemble the right context
• Choose the right execution path
• Dispatch work cleanly
• Preserve enough state to understand what happened

Discuss first, then create a task

Tasks should be created only after the work is clear enough to hand off. They are not meant to carry the entire discussion.

The litmus test is: can the current conversation agent complete this directly?

• If yes → not a task; let the agent do it via an MCP tool in chat.
• If no (needs a long-running independent agent, worktree, or isolated context) → this is a task.

Creation flow

1. Focus the session on a concrete action.
2. The agent calls create_task to generate a draft.
3. A task confirmation card appears in chat, showing the goal, brain pages, channel, and isolation mode.
4. After the user confirms, the task is immediately dispatched and enters dispatched.

Execution mode

All tasks currently run in agent mode:

• A separate sub-agent run is started.
• It shares the same (runtime, profile) binding as the originating chat.
• Optional worktree / tempdir isolation prevents pollution of the main workspace.
• A real-time event stream flows back to the right task panel.

Isolation

For coding work, MindMux defaults to isolated execution:

• worktree: a separate git worktree that does not affect the current branch.
• tempdir: a temporary directory, suitable for tasks that produce out-of-tree files.

The exact isolation mode is determined by the TaskType and is visible in the confirmation card.

After a task

MindMux keeps post-task handling narrow. After a task completes, ask:

• Did the result change project truth?
• Should a page or root doc be updated?
• Are there follow-up tasks or corrections?

Small fixes are handled through suggest_patch in chat, rather than turning the whole conversation into an unconstrained editing environment.

Relationship to the handoff skill

The handoff skill is still available for "I want to manually paste this context into some external agent" scenarios. The task feature is its structured upgrade:

• Output goes from "a block of text" to "a structured task object"
• Dispatch goes from "copy and paste" to "one-click routing + status feedback"

Why this matters

The value is not that tasks exist. The value is that tasks inherit the right project brain and discussion context, so execution starts from a better information state.