HelixML

Manage your backlog on the Kanban board

Create spec tasks, move them through stages, run agents in parallel, and track progress across your project.

Each Helix project has a Kanban board where spec tasks move through stages: Draft → Planning → Approved → Implementing → Review → Done.

This guide assumes you've already done the Quickstart and have a project with at least one repository connected.

Creating a spec task

Click New Task inside a project. Write a one-paragraph description of the desired outcome — not an implementation plan. Good specs describe what should be true when done, not how to get there.

Tips:

  • Be specific about scope. "Add input validation to the login form" is better than "improve the login page".
  • Reference specific files, functions, or UI elements if relevant.
  • State what should not change if there's a risk of over-reach.

Planning and approval

Click Start Planning on a Draft task. The planning agent reads your repository and produces a step-by-step execution plan, pushing it to a helix-specs branch in your repository.

Reviewing the plan: Read each step. If something looks wrong, highlight the text and submit feedback — the agent will revise and re-plan.

Approving: When the plan looks right, click Approve. This commits to the plan and moves the task to Implementing.

You can approve or reject without reading every line — the pull request is the real review gate.

Running tasks in parallel

Helix can run multiple tasks at the same time. Each task gets its own isolated sandbox. You don't need to wait for one to finish before starting another.

Split-screen view: Click the split-screen icon to see multiple agent desktops side by side. Each panel can be maximized, minimized, or closed independently.

Practical limit: your concurrency is bounded by the number of sandboxes available on your plan or deployment. On Helix Cloud, this scales automatically. On self-hosted, it's bounded by your GPU capacity.

Reviewing implementation

While a task is Implementing, you can:

  • Watch the agent's desktop live via the video stream
  • Switch away and come back when it finishes
  • Interact with the agent directly by typing in the task thread

When the agent finishes, the task moves to Review. Click Open PR to create a pull request in your repository.

Handling merge conflicts

If your repository moved while the agent was working, GitHub may report merge conflicts on the PR. Go back to the task and tell the agent to fix them:

There are merge conflicts on the PR. Please rebase against main and resolve them.

The agent will rebase and force-push to the PR branch. Once CI passes again, merge as normal.

Using Optimus for backlog management

Optimus is a Helix agent you can enable on a project to help manage the backlog itself. When enabled, it watches your GitHub issues on a schedule and prepares new spec tasks from them — so issues flow automatically into the board without manual triage.

Enable Optimus from the project Settings tab under Automations.