Tasks and work leases

Tasks turn planned work into explicit ownership. A claim carries a lease and declared resources so overlap is rejected before conflicting work commits.

Create and offer work

agent-comms task create \
  --id task-api-auth \
  --title "Add token rotation" \
  --repository local \
  --branch feat/token-rotation \
  --resource internal/auth \
  --resource tests/auth \
  --risk ROUTINE

agent-comms task offer --id task-api-auth --to <agent-a> --expires-in 1h

Resources are coordination scopes, not filesystem permissions. Choose the narrowest stable paths or logical resources that describe where writes may happen.

Claim and execute

agent-comms --actor <agent-a> task claim --id task-api-auth --duration 4h
agent-comms --actor <agent-a> task start --id task-api-auth
agent-comms --actor <agent-a> task renew --id task-api-auth --progress "rotation path implemented; adding failure tests"
agent-comms --actor <agent-a> task review --id task-api-auth --summary "ready for review"
agent-comms --actor <agent-a> task complete --id task-api-auth --summary "token rotation and tests complete"

A heartbeat only proves process presence. Lease renewal requires a progress-bearing summary. This prevents a silent process from retaining work indefinitely.

Block, hand off, or take over

agent-comms --actor <agent-a> task block --id task-api-auth --summary "waiting for security decision"
agent-comms --actor <agent-a> task handoff --id task-api-auth --to <agent-b> --summary "implementation complete; verify threat cases"
agent-comms --actor <agent-b> task handoff --id task-api-auth --accept --summary "accepted verification"

Takeovers and shared-write exceptions are governed transitions. The authority rechecks role, lease, resource overlap, and required approval against the same locked state used to append the event.