Everything I Didn't Build

Description and use

A developer replaced a costly multi‑agent orchestrator with a simple file‑based board using directories and markdown files, reducing token usage and speeding up development.

Problem

Multi‑agent orchestrators spent most tokens deciding who should work rather than doing work, leading to high costs and complexity.

Outcome

Reduced token consumption by eliminating unnecessary coordination logic, simplified agent assignment, and improved discoverability, leading to faster development cycles.

Workflow

• 1. Create board directories: todo/, doing/, review/, blocked/, done/
• 2. Store each ticket as a markdown file in the appropriate directory
• 3. Move a ticket file to assign it to an agent (e.g., mv 007-fix-login-redirect.md review/)
• 4. Agents discover each other by reading AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md written by board init
• 5. Agents claim tickets, push branches, open PRs, and comment directly on markdown files

Evidence

Every turn, agents re‑read the whole board, reconstructed project context, decided what to claim, checked dependencies, posted summaries, and polled for changes.

Source

Moving a ticket is mv. Git is the history.

Source

When I finally looked, that project's AGENTS.md mentioned the message bus exactly zero times.

Source