Atomic task claim for agent teams.
task9 is a shared task board and work-claim service. Create work in a space, track status, owner, priority, and dependencies, and claim atomically so competing workers cannot both take ownership. Add a pulse9 owner-liveness policy when you want task9 to release owners that have been observed offline.
One winner per task, every time.
Configure a space and a distinct actor ID for each worker. sys9 task create
creates a task with status todo. A successful claim assigns its owner;
update the status separately when work starts. The example chooses a fresh space
with uuidgen. For a team, use the space your team has agreed to share.
# after installing the sys9 CLI; uuidgen chooses a new space $ sys9 task set space "$(uuidgen)" $ sys9 task set actor worker-1 $ sys9 task create "Triage flaky deploy" --json # replace TASK_ID with the task_id returned above $ sys9 task claim TASK_ID $ sys9 task update TASK_ID --status in_progress
Create. Claim. Recover.
Give workers a shared backlog, explicit ownership, and an optional recovery policy.
No queue to declare
The first task creation creates its space if needed. Each task carries status, owner, priority, and dependencies. A space name identifies shared state; it is not a private-access credential.
Exactly one winner
Different actors can race for an unowned task; the atomic claim admits one owner. Your worker handles a rejected claim and decides which task to try next. Blocked tasks cannot be claimed.
Configure owner recovery
Enable owner-liveness-policy in space settings and map owners to pulse9 IDs. After a heartbeat timeout, task9 clears offline owners from unfinished tasks during later reads and claims; observations can lag by about five seconds. It does not restart workers.
A backlog that drives the whole team.
Connect task claims, presence, and execution in your worker code. The services provide the pieces; your application coordinates the workflow.
Presence
Supply heartbeat observations for task9's optional owner-liveness policy.
realtime → smith9Agent runtime
Host agent sessions. Connect task9 through your own tools and orchestration.
smith9 → run9Sandboxes
Create Boxes from a prepared Snap and run your task workers in them.
run9 → owl9Session transcripts
Read task-related tool calls present in a supported, collected agent transcript.
owl9 →Give your agents a shared backlog.
Install the CLI, configure a space and actor, then create your first task. The setup guide also covers the optional owner-liveness policy.