Hivemind turns agent traces into skills and shares with your team

Summary

• Remove the hivemind tasks CLI + hivemind_tasks / hivemind_task_events table-creation code in favour of the VFS-backed goals system that already existed in parallel. End-state for users: one canonical "team work item" primitive (goals), addressable as either "goal" or "task" by the model.
• Fix two latent bugs the unification surfaced: (1) Write/Edit tool calls targeting ~/.deeplake/memory/ failed with a cryptic Path must be a string, received undefined because the pre-tool-use hook returned a Bash-shaped decision for a non-Bash tool; (2) goal owner matching in the new SessionStart inject used strict equality and silently missed historical rows whose owner column held the email form instead of the short userName.
• Surface open goals in the SessionStart context block for every agent that has a SessionStart hook (claude-code, cursor, hermes — codex deliberately excluded to keep its user-visible TUI clean).

What's removed

| Surface | Notes |
|---|---|
| hivemind tasks CLI (add / list / done / assign / progress / report / edit) | All subcommands gone. The codebase no longer dispatches on cmd === "tasks". |
| src/tasks/ directory | index.ts, read.ts, write.ts, kpi-generator.ts, kpi-validator.ts |
| src/events/ directory | append.ts, aggregate.ts, index.ts — entirely task-driven |
| src/hooks/auto-extract.ts + auto-extract-patterns.ts | gh pr merge auto-extracted task progress events |
| DeeplakeApi.ensureTasksTable + ensureTaskEventsTable | No code path creates these tables anymore (not even lazily) |
| TASKS_COLUMNS + TASK_EVENTS_COLUMNS from src/deeplake-schema.ts | Schema definitions removed |
| Config.tasksTableName + Config.taskEventsTableName | Config fields gone |
| HIVEMIND_TASKS_TABLE + HIVEMIND_TASK_EVENTS_TABLE env vars | Removed (no consumer left) |
| HIVEMIND_KPI_MODEL + HIVEMIND_KPI_LLM env vars | Only kpi-generator consumed them |
| Test suites: tests/shared/tasks.test.ts, events.test.ts, auto-extract.test.ts, auto-extract-orchestrator.test.ts, kpi-generator.test.ts, tests/claude-code/cli-tasks.test.ts, tests/evals/kpi-generation.eval.ts | Removed alongside the code they covered |
| docs/RULES_TASKS_KPIS.md | Replaced by an updated README section pointing at goals |

What's added / changed

| Surface | Notes |
|---|---|
| pre-tool-use.ts (claude-code) | Write and Edit on memory paths now return permissionDecision: "deny" with a clear "use Bash heredoc instead" reason. Closes the "Path must be a string" failure mode. |
| claude-code/skills/hivemind-goals/SKILL.md | allowed-tools reduced to Read Bash. All write instructions rewritten to use cat > <path> <<EOF so the deny path is never triggered in the happy flow. |
| All four hivemind-goals skill variants (claude-code, codex, hermes, openclaw) | Description broadened to accept task / todo / work item / remind me to / fix X triggers so the agent maps "create a task" to the goals system rather than falling back to the harness's local TaskCreate tool. |
| src/hooks/shared/context-renderer.ts | New === HIVEMIND GOALS === section. New listOpenGoals helper with MAX(version) sub-select for CLI-vs-VFS dedup, owner matched via LIKE '%<sqlLike(user)>%' + bi-directional substring guard (mirrors the pattern already in notifications/sources/open-goals.ts). |
| src/commands/context.ts, three SessionStart hooks (claude-code / cursor / hermes) | Pass the new goalsTable field through; empty-state diagnostic updated to "no active rules or open goals". |
| src/hooks/shared/goals-instructions.ts | Inject text in both VFS and CLI variants spells out that goal and task are the same Hivemind row. |

Cross-agent surface

| Agent | Goal creation | SessionStart goal inject | User-visible banner? |
|---|---|---|---|
| claude-code | Path A: Bash heredoc via VFS | yes (new) | yes — pre-existing session-notifications hook + primary-banner.ts |
| codex | Path A: Bash heredoc via VFS | no, by design (TUI would be clobbered — additionalContext is user-visible in codex) | no (intentional) |
| cursor | Path B: hivemind goal add CLI | yes (new) | no — cursor hook protocol has no user-visible field |
| hermes | Path B: hivemind goal add CLI | yes (new) | no — hermes hook protocol has no user-visible field |
| pi | Path B: hivemind goal add CLI | n/a (no SessionStart hook) — uses hivemind context on demand | no |
| openclaw | Path C: hivemind_goal_add registered tool | n/a (extension model, no SessionStart hook) | no |

Breaking changes

• hivemind tasks ... is no longer a valid command. The CLI exits with the standard "Unknown command" warning. The replacement is hivemind goal ... for runtimes that need the CLI fallback, or the hivemind-goals skill for VFS-routing runtimes.
• HIVEMIND_TASKS_TABLE, HIVEMIND_TASK_EVENTS_TABLE, HIVEMIND_KPI_MODEL, HIVEMIND_KPI_LLM env vars are no longer read. Existing values in shell rc files are harmless but inert.
• Existing rows in the hivemind_tasks / hivemind_task_events tables (if any) are left in place on Deeplake — the schema simply isn't touched anymore. There is no migration to back-port their content to hivemind_goals.

Test plan

• [x] npm run bundle succeeds (dist/ rebuilt fresh: zero stale cmd === "tasks" / HIVEMIND TASKS references across bundle/cli.js, claude-code/bundle/, codex/bundle/, cursor/bundle/, hermes/bundle/, openclaw/dist/)
• [x] npx tsc --noEmit — no new errors. Only the two pre-existing tree-sitter / @anthropic-ai/sdk optional-dep errors remain (identical to origin/main)
• [x] Unit tests: 149/149 across affected suites pass (context-renderer, cli-context, pre-tool-use, three SessionStart hook variants, deeplake-schema, deeplake-api, config)
• [x] Pre-existing failing tests (graph + cli-index, all tree-sitter dependent) identical to origin/main — not introduced or regressed by this PR
• [x] End-to-end with claude --plugin-dir ./claude-code against the test_plugin/default org:
  • SessionStart inject contains === HIVEMIND GOALS === with the test goals — verified by asking the model to enumerate them
  • Goal creation via skill ("create a goal X") — agent uses Bash heredoc (not Write tool), file lands in hivemind_goals
  • Goal creation via task phrasing ("crea un task X") — same skill activates, same hivemind_goals row written (proves the task→goal alias)
  • Write on a memory path — direct bundle invocation returns permissionDecision: "deny" with the Bash retry message
  • Cross-form owner matching — INSERTed a row with email-form owner ([email protected]), creds carry short form (emanuele.fenocchi), SessionStart correctly surfaces all three test goals (short / short / email)
• [x] Two codex review passes against origin/main. First pass flagged the stale bundle artifacts on disk (resolved by a clean dist + bundle rebuild — bundles regenerate in CI / on npm prepack anyway). Second pass flagged the strict-equality owner match regression (fixed in 65236b1).

Codex review history

• Pass 1 (after steps 1+2): [P1] "rebuild shipped bundles after removing the tasks surface" — bundle artifacts on disk were stale because npm run bundle reads from dist/ (not source) and dist/ was populated by an older partial build. Fixed by rm -rf dist && npx tsc && npm run bundle. Bundles are .gitignored in this repo (caf46b8 chore: untrack bundles), so the actual ship path goes through npm prepack / CI re-build.
• Pass 2 (after steps 3+4): [P1] "match goal owners robustly in SessionStart queries" — listOpenGoals used strict equality; the codebase already tolerates short userName and full-email forms elsewhere. Fixed by 65236b1 (LIKE substring + bi-directional JS guard).

Commits (6)

05ce0d7 feat: broaden skill triggers so task/todo phrasing maps to goal
65236b1 fix: match both short userName and full-email owners in listOpenGoals
4648dab chore: scrub remaining "hivemind tasks" references after tasks removal
e351dfb feat: inject open goals into SessionStart context block
e2bf295 refactor: remove hivemind tasks CLI + task-events table-creation code
7cdd12c fix(claude-code): deny Write/Edit on memory paths with Bash guidance

Net: 38 files changed, +707 / -1620 (mostly tasks removal). Bundles untouched (gitignored).

Summary by CodeRabbit

• New Features

  • Goals system now consolidates task and goal management; hivemind tasks CLI operations integrate into the goals workflow.
  • Rules and goals are presented separately in context blocks for improved clarity.

• Documentation

  • Updated guidance to clarify goals system covers tasks, todos, and work items.
  • Separated rules documentation from goals/KPIs content.

• Bug Fixes

  • Enhanced permission controls for memory path file operations.