Put a five-minute watchdog on your board: the agent clears blocked cards and calls you only when it cannot
r/hermesagent 讨论串留言者（原帖不可读，未取得用户名）Reddit · Date not disclosed
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采集站 agentusecases.ai 的编辑摘要（原帖 Reddit 线程在本次采集时不可读，以下为转述而非引文）：一位用户让 Hermes 建了一个名为 Kanban watchdog 的定时任务，每五分钟检查一次被阻塞的卡片。发现阻塞卡片后，Hermes 会调查为什么被卡住，尝试自行解除阻塞，并把结果发到 Discord；人只在它需要访问权限或其他人工输入时介入。用户称到目前为止效果不错，早上等待处理的阻塞任务大幅减少；仍然会升级 Hermes 无法自行解决的情况，例如缺少权限。同一帖中另一位用户用它修复搬家后 Home Assistant 登录失败的问题。
Business model
One user set up a Kanban watchdog cron on Hermes that checks for blocked cards every five minutes. When it finds one, it investigates why the card is stuck, tries to clear the blocker itself if that is safe, and posts the outcome to Discord; the person only steps in when the agent needs permissions or other human input. The reported result is far fewer blocked tasks waiting by morning, with cases it cannot resolve - missing permissions being the example given - still escalated. What transfers is not the tool but three things: a fixed scan interval, a written conclusion every round, and an explicit list of actions it must never take on its own.
The value is compressing detection latency from a day to minutes, and the safety comes from the allow-list. Without the allow-list the same watchdog turns your board into production data an agent edits on its own; with it, you get someone noticing before the standup.
Workflow
- Write down what counts as blocked: a blocked flag, or too many days in one column.
- Write an allow-list of actions it may take automatically, and a never-list next to it: no permission changes, no deletes, no outbound messages, no production config.
- Run it on a fixed interval, five minutes to start, and adjust after a week rather than guessing.
- Require evidence before action: which rule matched, which log or field, and escalate anything whose cause it cannot establish.
- Record before and after state in a card comment or log for every action it takes.
- Post results to exactly one channel the team already reads, split into auto-handled and needs-you.
- Escalate immediately when permissions, outside information or out-of-scope actions are needed, stating what the human must do.
Adaptation plan
The thread gives no hours saved, no volumes, no error rate, no cost and no tooling detail beyond the five-minute cron and Discord reporting. The original post could not be read at collection time (Reddit returned HTTP 403 on every public endpoint). Workflow, prompt and pitfalls are AgentFlow's proposals, untested.
Prompt
AgentFlow starter draft: not tested in the original business setting; results are not guaranteed. Synthetic examples do not verify the author’s revenue.
You are a task board watchdog. Find blocked cards on a schedule, fix only what is safe, escalate everything else. Your authority comes from the allow-list below and nothing outside it. [INPUT] Board and API: [paste] Blocked rule: [for example card has the blocked flag, or has sat in one column for more than 2 days] Allowed automatic actions: [for example fill a missing field, rerun a failed job, add a comment] Forbidden actions: [change permissions, delete data, send messages outside, change production config] Notification channel: [for example one Discord channel] [EXECUTION STEPS] 1) Each round, first list the matching cards: name, column, which rule matched, how long it has been stuck. List only; change nothing. 2) For each card give a cause judgement and its evidence source: which log, which field, which failed run. If you cannot establish a cause, mark it for a human instead of guessing. 3) Check whether the fix is inside the allow-list. Only then act, one step at a time, and write the change back as a comment. 4) If the fix needs permissions, outside information or anything outside the allow-list, stop and escalate, stating exactly what the human must do. 5) Close each round with counts: scanned, matched, auto-handled, escalated, skipped - and why anything was skipped. [OUTPUT] - Match list with columns: card / column / rule matched / time stuck / cause / evidence source. - Action log for this round: what changed, before and after, timestamp. - Escalation list: what the human must do, which card, how long it has been stuck. - Round summary with the four counts and the skip reasons. [HUMAN CONFIRMATION] - The allow-list must be approved before any write action. - Deletes, permission changes, outbound messages and production config changes always require my approval. - If the same card fails three rounds in a row, stop retrying and escalate. [SYNTHETIC EXAMPLE - not real data, format only] Input: 42 cards; blocked means the blocked flag or more than 2 days in a column. Three matches this round: | Contract stamping, client A | Waiting to stamp | 3 days | waiting on legal account permission | last comment is the legal access request | | Monthly reconciliation script | In progress | blocked flag | upstream API timed out 3 times | run log at 09:14 / 09:19 / 09:24 | | New product page copy | Awaiting review | 2 days | no owner assigned | owner field empty | Action this round: filled the owner field on the copy card and added a comment (inside the allow-list). Escalations: 1) contract stamping needs legal account permission from me; 2) reconciliation script's upstream API keeps timing out and needs a call to the provider. Round summary: scanned 42, matched 3, auto-handled 1, escalated 2, skipped 0.
Running costs and pitfalls
The thread gives no hours saved, no volumes, no error rate, no cost and no tooling detail beyond the five-minute cron and Discord reporting. The original post could not be read at collection time (Reddit returned HTTP 403 on every public endpoint). Workflow, prompt and pitfalls are AgentFlow's proposals, untested. No independent cost benchmark is available. Check subscriptions, permissions and external actions before running a workflow.
