Built-in habits and habit reference

A habit is something kanman keeps doing without being asked again, for the team or for one person. How to make and change one is explained in How habits work; ideas to start from are in Habit ideas to copy.

Built-in habits

Every team gets these habits from the start. You can pause them and change how they work by telling kanman in the chat; you cannot delete them.

Habit	What kanman does	On from the start
Review merge requests	Reviews every merge request it opens before it merges. Reviews your team’s merge requests when someone asks, or every one if you want. See Code review.	Yes
Watch main	When a pipeline on a default branch fails, finds out why and gets it fixed. See Failing pipelines.	Yes
Keep dependencies and security current	Scans the team’s repositories for vulnerable, outdated and unused dependencies and decides what becomes a story. Works alongside Renovate and Dependabot. See Maintenance mode.	Depends on the team
Weekly recap	Tells the team on Fridays what shipped and why it matters, with the delivery review after the weekly report.	Yes
Retro prompt	Collects what went well and asks what the team wants to change, on a weekday of your choice.	Yes, on Fridays
Daily update	One short update per working day, only when there is something to say.	No: say “daily update” to start it
Answer mentions and assignments	Answers where people mention it or assign it work. See Mentions and assignments.	Yes
Incident from alert	Turns the alerts of one problem into an incident and follows it until it is resolved. See Incidents.	As soon as the team has an alert source

The parts of a habit

Part	What it says	Default
When	A time (“Fridays 15:00”) or an event: main turns red or green again, a new vulnerability is found, a tracker issue reaches a status, an alert arrives on one of the team’s webhooks.	Proposed by kanman from your words
What	Your words, which kanman reads every time the habit comes round, and optionally one of the team’s skills.	Your words
Where	The team’s chat, or only you.	Team chat for team habits
May do	What it may do in connected systems. A habit follows each connection’s mode (Off, Ask first, Automatic) and can only be stricter.	Asks first before it changes anything outside kanman
Budget	Its share of the team’s budget.	From the team budget; small for habits members start
Started by	Built in, Proposed by me (kanman), Made by a teammate, Made by you or From a skill.	Set automatically
Runs	The last runs with their outcome, cost and a link to the work.	Recorded automatically

Why a run was held

A habit’s run can be held instead of run. The habit’s runs say why:

Paused: someone paused the habit.
The same event again: kanman already handled this event and does not act twice.
Too often: the habit came round more often than makes sense in a short time.
Budget used up: the team’s budget, or the habit’s share of it, is used up for now.

Status

Status	Meaning
On	The habit runs when its time or event comes.
Paused	Nothing runs until someone starts it again in the chat.
Done	A one-off ask that fired. It drops off the list.
Off	A built-in habit that is not on for this team, for example the daily update until someone asks for it.

Who may do what

Everyone in the team can make habits for themselves and small habits for the team.
A habit for the team can be changed by the person who started it, by the team’s owners and leads, and by any member while it stays small.
Built-in habits can be paused, started again and changed by the team’s owners and leads.
Your own habits are yours alone.
People who can only view the workspace cannot make or change habits.

Automations and routines

Habits replace the former Automations and Routines pages, and the built-in habits replace the team settings pages Code review and Maintenance and CI, the rituals and the daily update of the former Hours and rhythm, and the mention switches of the former Chat and mentions. Links to them open the team’s Habits tab or the habit itself. The rules for kanman’s own merge requests (a person’s approval before merge, asking a teammate to review) are under Team > Budget and limits.