Kanban workers run headless — no live user is on the other side of `clarify`,
so the call times out (~120s default) and the task sits silently in `running`
with no signal to the operator that input is needed. Reporter observed a real
incident where a worker asked 'promote to production, or check staging first?'
via clarify, the call timed out, the agent hallucinated a fallback, and the
task sat 'running' for hours.
Fix: explicit 'do not call clarify' bullet in two surfaces every kanban worker
sees —
- `agent/prompt_builder.py` KANBAN_GUIDANCE `## Do NOT` section (auto-injected
into every dispatcher-spawned worker run).
- `skills/devops/kanban-worker/SKILL.md` `## Do NOT` section (the bundled
worker skill).
Both point at the right pattern: `kanban_comment` (context) + `kanban_block`
(decision needed) — the task surfaces on the board as blocked, the operator
sees it, unblocks with their answer in a comment, and the worker respawns
with the thread.
Co-authored-by: kweiner <17778+kweiner@users.noreply.github.com>
40217aa194