Files
kandev/docs/specs/tasks/multi-branch/spec.md
T
João Salavisa fd79d6170f feat(tasks): multi-branch tasks — N (repo, branch) pairs per task (#1226)
* feat(tasks): multi-branch tasks — N (repo, branch) pairs per task

Extends multi-repo into multi-branch so a single task can hold multiple
worktrees on the same repo (one per branch). Sibling worktrees layout at
<task>/<repo>/ + <task>/<repo>-<slug>/, dedicated PRWatch per branch,
live agentctl tracker rescan + frontend store updates so the UI splits
PRs / files / commits per branch without a session restart. MCP
add_branch_to_task_kandev tool is shielded to the worktree executor.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* fix(web): unify multi-branch repo label as <repo> · <branch> across panels

PR Changes and Commits panels rendered repo labels differently for multi-branch
tasks — Commits showed "kandev · feature/x" while PR Changes leaked the raw
"kandev-feature-x" agentctl tracker tag. Reformat tracker-tagged repo names via
formatRepoLabel using the longest known-repo prefix so kandev-cli-* doesn't
collapse to kandev · cli-*.

* fix(tasks): address multi-branch PR review — data races, slug collisions, MCP error codes

Backend
- agentctl process.Manager: add repoTrackersMu RWMutex guarding repoTrackers
  + workspaceTracker. Reads snapshot under RLock; RescanRepositories builds
  trackers first, takes Lock for swap/append. Validates newWorkDir via
  os.Stat before publishing cfg.WorkDir.
- worktree.Manager: reject invalid explicit BranchSlug up-front; cache key
  uses sanitized wt.BranchSlug so read/write paths are symmetric.
- worktree.store: narrow isDuplicateColumnError to "duplicate column name".
- task service AddBranchToTask: slug-collision guard rejects feat/a vs feat-a.
- orchestrator resolvePushRepo: two-pass exact-name match before subdir
  prefix fallback so "backend" doesn't swallow pushes for "backend-admin".
- executor buildRepoSpecs: duplicate repos always get a non-empty BranchSlug
  (falls back to branch-N when both branch fields sanitize to empty).
- MCP handler: classifyAddBranchError maps service errors to NOT_FOUND /
  CONFLICT / VALIDATION_ERROR; add ErrorCodeConflict constant.
- MCP server: extract registerAddBranchToTaskTool, register in task mode
  only (external mode contract: config tools + create_task_kandev).
- workspace_rescan handler: reject malformed JSON with 400 instead of
  silently rescanning the current root.
- branch_materializer: split MaterializeBranch into prepare + finalize
  helpers to satisfy the 80-line cap.

Frontend
- existingPrUrl returns undefined when a task has >1 PR so per-repo View PR
  buttons take over (no silent linking to a sibling).
- formatRepoLabel checks exact known-repo match before prefix splitting so
  "kandev-cli" isn't mislabeled as "kandev · cli".
- Repo chip key now includes base_branch so siblings differing only on
  base render as distinct chips.

Docs
- multi-branch spec uniqueness wording aligned with the canonical 4-column
  key (task_id, repository_id, base_branch, checkout_branch).
- worktree.CreateRequest.BranchSlug doc describes the sibling layout
  (<repo>-<slug>) instead of the obsolete nested form.

* fix(tasks): scope slug-collision check to repo only + use errors.Is for ErrTaskNotFound

- service_branches: drop base_branch from the slug-collision check. Worktree
  path is (repo, slug); two rows on the same repo cut from different bases
  still collide on disk.
- service_branches: prepareBranchAdd wraps taskrepo.ErrTaskNotFound via
  fmt.Errorf with %w so classifiers don't have to substring-match the
  formatted task UUID.
- mcp handlers: classifyAddBranchError uses errors.Is(err, ErrTaskNotFound).

* fix(agentctl): sanitize rescan work_dir before os.Stat to clear CodeQL path-injection

CodeQL flagged the rescan endpoint as a path-injection sink (the
HTTP-supplied work_dir flowed straight into os.Stat and downstream
scanRepositorySubdirs). Add validateRescanPath which:
- requires the input to be a clean absolute path with no ".." segments
- rejects anything that isn't equal to or an ancestor of the current
  cfg.WorkDir — the only legitimate use case is the branch materializer
  promoting <task>/<repo>/ to <task>/

Defense in depth: agentctl binds to localhost, but any colocated process
could otherwise direct it at /etc or the user's home by POSTing
/api/v1/workspace/rescan.

* fix(agentctl): tighten validateRescanPath, close TOCTOU on existingTrackers, add tests

- Drop the strings.Contains(clean, "..") guard. filepath.Clean already
  resolves traversal; the substring check rejects legitimate names like
  /home/u/..hidden without adding defense (the ancestor check via
  filepath.Rel is the real boundary).
- Drop the rel == "." branch in the ancestor check — early return for
  clean == currentClean already covers identity.
- Read existingTrackers inside the write-lock section (not under RLock
  then re-Lock) so two concurrent rescans can't both see 0 trackers and
  double-bootstrap the multi-repo set.
- Add table-driven TestValidateRescanPath covering rejection paths
  (relative, descendant, sibling, traversal-cleaned, empty input),
  legitimate ancestor promotion, exact match, no-anchor first-launch,
  and a /home/u/..hidden dotted-segment case.

* fix(agentctl): break taint flow into os.Stat — derive rescan path from cfg, not HTTP body

CodeQL's go/path-injection trace still flagged manager_rescan.go after the
prior sanitizer because the user-supplied newWorkDir flowed (after
validation) into os.Stat and then into cfg.WorkDir → tracker paths →
workspace_monitor os.Stat sinks.

Replace validateRescanPath with resolveRescanPath: it returns a path
DERIVED from currentWorkDir (no-op = currentClean, promotion =
filepath.Dir(currentClean)) and uses newPath only for comparison, never
as a source for the returned string. os.Stat now receives a path whose
provenance is trusted manager config.

Functionally the legitimate caller (branch materializer promoting
<task>/<repo>/ to <task>/) is unchanged.

* test(agentctl): make TestResolveRescanPath windows-portable

The Linux Backend Tests job passed but the Backend (windows) job rejected
every "absolute" case because filepath.IsAbs("/task/repo") is false on
Windows (no volume letter).

Build inputs via filepath.Join against absRoot() (filepath.Abs of "/" /
"\\") so the same table covers POSIX (`/...`) and Windows (`C:\...`)
without per-OS branches. Keep the traversal-after-Clean case POSIX-only
since filepath.Clean is the shared primitive and that input form needs a
volume to be considered absolute on Windows anyway.

* fix(agentctl): serialize RescanRepositories + re-check trackers under write lock

Two concurrent RescanRepositories calls could both observe an empty
tracker set (between the snapshot read and the bootstrap branch) and both
enter transitionToMultiRepoMode, leaking a duplicate bare-root tracker
and duplicate per-repo trackers. Same race in appendNewRepoTrackers would
double-append the same new child across both callers.

Fix:
- Add rescanMu sync.Mutex on Manager. Acquired for the full body of
  RescanRepositories so the snapshot → branch → mutate sequence is
  serialized. repoTrackersMu still guards individual field reads from
  unrelated goroutines (subscribe/unsubscribe/poll-mode).
- appendNewRepoTrackers re-checks membership inside the write-lock
  before appending and drops already-present trackers (Stop + detach
  outside the lock). Defense in depth.
- Test: add `dotted segment is legal as promotion` case so the
  ..hidden-segment promotion path stays exercised.

---------

Co-authored-by: Kandev Agent <agent@kandev.dev>
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-06-01 19:36:20 +01:00

5.9 KiB

Multi-branch tasks

Status: shipped Owner: Kandev backend Date: 2026-06-01 Related: ADR 0013

What

A single Kandev task can hold N (repository, branch) pairs — including multiple branches on the same repository. Each pair gets its own worktree under the task directory. PRs, sessions, changes, and review surfaces all key on the pair so the agent can fan out work across branches without fragmenting into sibling tasks.

Why

The previous model forced one task = one branch per repository. Users wanted:

  • Stacked PRs — work that naturally splits across two branches against the same repo while staying in one conversation with the agent.
  • Feature-flag rollouts — same repo, "with flag on" and "with flag off" branches reviewed side-by-side.
  • A/B experiments — two implementations of the same change, opened as two PRs, compared from one task.
  • Multi-repo, but stronger — the existing multi-repo (different repos in one task) was a natural neighbour of "same repo, different branches". Unifying them removed an arbitrary asymmetry.

Workarounds (sibling tasks, manually managing two worktrees) lost shared context: the agent's history, the kanban view, the chat thread.

Surface

Backend API

  • Service.AddBranchToTask(task_id, repository_id, base_branch?, checkout_branch?) — appends a new task_repositories row to a live task. Enforces uniqueness on the canonical 4-column key (task_id, repository_id, base_branch, checkout_branch) so both branch fields disambiguate siblings.
  • Service.CreateTask — already accepted []TaskRepositoryInput; now accepts duplicate repository_id entries when checkout_branch differs.
  • task_repositories.UNIQUE(task_id, repository_id, base_branch, checkout_branch) — relaxed from the legacy UNIQUE(task_id, repository_id) via the migrateTaskRepositoriesAllowMultiBranch migration. Both branch columns participate because the worktree executor anchors the branch in base_branch (leaving checkout_branch empty) while the local executor inverts the split. Either column alone would miss one of the two shapes.

MCP

  • add_branch_to_task_kandev — new tool that takes task_id, repository_id, checkout_branch, optional base_branch. Backed by ws.ActionMCPAddBranchToTask and handleAddBranchToTask.
  • create_task_kandev — unchanged externally; agents can already submit multiple repository entries.

Worktrees

  • Single-branch tasks: ~/.kandev/tasks/<task-dir>/<repo>/ (unchanged).
  • Multi-branch tasks: first occurrence of each repo keeps ~/.kandev/tasks/<task-dir>/<repo>/; additional occurrences sit as siblings at ~/.kandev/tasks/<task-dir>/<repo>-<branch-slug>/. The slug is derived deterministically from CheckoutBranch (or BaseBranch when the checkout branch is empty) via worktree.SanitizeBranchSlug.
  • The orchestrator (buildRepoSpecs) detects same-repo duplicates and tags additional rows with a BranchSlug; the worktree manager applies the slug as a suffix at the task-root level. Sibling siting (rather than nesting inside the primary) keeps each worktree's git scope isolated.

PRs

  • task_prs.UNIQUE(task_id, repository_id, pr_number) already permitted multiple PRs per (task, repo). task_prs.head_branch already disambiguates which branch the PR tracks. No schema change.

Frontend

  • TaskRepository.checkout_branch was already on the http type.
  • Worktrees are keyed by worktree.id in the Zustand store, so two worktrees with the same repository_id already coexist.
  • Repo chips in chat-message renderers now key on (repository_id, checkout_branch) so multi-branch tasks render distinct chips instead of collapsing.
  • Full "+ Branch" UI affordance and grouped repo > branch tabs are deferred — agents drive multi-branch via the MCP tool today.

Non-goals

  • Auto-stack PRs. Multi-branch lets you open N PRs; it does not detect base/branch relationships and stack them. Users do that themselves.
  • Cross-branch merge orchestration. Each branch's PR lifecycle is independent.
  • Branch deletion / cleanup automation. A RemoveBranchFromTask symmetric service method is planned but not in v1.

Risks

  • Slug collision. Two distinct branches that sanitize to the same slug (e.g. feat/a vs feat-a) would collide on disk. The service-layer dedup catches matching CheckoutBranch exactly; near-identical names trip git worktree add with a clean error.
  • Repo-lock contention. Worktrees for different branches of the same repo serialize on the per-repo lock in worktree.Manager. Multiple concurrent agents on the same task = lock queue, not parallelism. Acceptable for safety; revisit if it becomes a bottleneck.
  • Migration replay. The constraint relaxation migration is idempotent and triggers on a substring of the legacy DDL. Databases that already migrated skip cleanly.

Acceptance tests

  • TestSanitizeBranchSlug — slug determinism + handling of slashes, dots, special chars.
  • TestTaskWorktreePath_BranchSlugNesting — empty slug stays flat, non-empty slug nests.
  • TestCreateTask_AllowsSameRepoDifferentBranches — a task can be born with two rows on the same repo.
  • TestCreateTask_RejectsSameRepoSameBranch — dedup guard still rejects exact duplicates.
  • TestAddBranchToTask_HappyPath — second branch appended after the fact lands as a new row.
  • TestAddBranchToTask_RejectsDuplicate — re-adding the same (repo, branch) errors.

Open questions

  • "Primary" branch for the kanban card / task title rendering — currently the lowest-position row. Acceptable until users complain.
  • Whether update_task_kandev should accept the multi-branch shape for bulk edits, or whether add_branch_to_task_kandev + a future remove_branch_from_task_kandev is enough. Deferred to feedback.
  • "+ Branch" UI button — design and placement open. The MCP tool is enough for the agent-driven flow today.