Tips & tricks

Bikube keeps its interface small, so some of its most useful moves aren't on a button. This page collects them.

Let agents fill the board

Ask for cards, also in another workspace

Agents can create cards with board create, and Claude Code cards already know how. Just ask, in plain words: "split this into cards in Backlog", or "create a card for the API change in the api workspace". For another workspace, the agent finds it with board workspaces and passes its name with --workspace:

board workspaces
board create --workspace api Backlog "Add a /releases endpoint"

The new card shows a New mark in the other workspace until someone opens it, so you notice it when you get there. New cards never start by themselves. See The board command.

Hand over the whole task

A card created with --description-file carries its task as a description, and its agent is asked to read it when it first starts, so the new card needs no briefing. An agent can write it straight to standard input:

cat <<'EOF' | board create --workspace api --description-file - Backlog "Add a /releases endpoint"
The web app needs GET /releases: the latest 20 releases, newest first.
EOF

Ask for a worktree

Add "in its own worktree" to the request and the agent adds --worktree (and --branch if you name one), so the new card runs on its own branch, set up by the workspace's Worktree setup when someone first opens it. See Pending worktrees.

Shells for the rest

Triggers for dev servers, builds and test runs

Make a trigger for each command you run again and again: npm run dev, npm test, make build. One click runs it in the background, its icon says when it passed or failed, and a failure notifies you. When it prints a localhost address, a dev server chip opens it in your browser. See Shells & triggers.

Run the dev server on the agent's branch

With a worktree card open, pick Run in this worktree from a shell's Start button dropdown: the dev server now serves the agent's branch, without touching your own checkout. See Run a shell in a worktree.

Dev server chips on cards

When an agent starts a dev server in its card, the card shows a localhost:5173 chip while it listens. Click it to try the agent's work in your browser without opening the card.

Keep many agents moving

Make the board a pipeline

Set the workspace's automatic moves so cards move by themselves: When working to In Progress, When waiting for you to Review, When stopped to Done. The board then shows at a glance which agents work and which wait for you.

Jump to whoever needs you

⌘J / Ctrl+Shift+J opens the card that has waited longest, in any workspace; press it again for the next. Set a global shortcut with Open the next waiting card on, and one keypress from any app takes you to the next agent that needs you.

Watch two agents at once

Open a card in its own window with ⇧⌘O / Ctrl+Shift+O and put it beside the main window, or on another screen. It keeps running and reporting on the board. See Card windows.

Use the grid for many agents

A workspace in the Grid view shows every card in one grid, the ones that need you first, with a search. It suits a workspace with many parallel agents better than columns do.

Open running cards by number

The sidebar lists each workspace's running cards and shells. ⌃1…9 / Alt+1…9 opens the first nine of the current workspace's; hold the modifier to see their numbers.

Small things

• Reorder from the keyboard: focus a card and press ⌥↑ / Alt+ArrowUp or ⌥↓ / Alt+ArrowDown to move it in its column, ⌥← / Alt+ArrowLeft or ⌥→ / Alt+ArrowRight to move it to the next column. The same keys move a focused workspace in the sidebar.
• $BIKUBE_BIN when PATH is reordered: if board isn't found in a card because your profile reorders PATH (macOS's path_helper does in a login shell), call "$BIKUBE_BIN/board". Use that form in scripts and agent instructions.
• Copy what a command printed: ⇧⌘A / Ctrl+Shift+A copies the output of the last command; jump to an older one with ⌘↑ / Ctrl+Shift+ArrowUp first.
• Paste a screenshot into Claude Code with the Paste shortcut, ⌘V / Ctrl+Shift+V.
• Find the same error everywhere: the find bar remembers its query, so ⌘F / Ctrl+Shift+F in the next card searches it again.
• Any card from anywhere: the command palette also searches branches, statuses and activity, so waiting lists every card that waits for you.