Workflow Roles

Overview

Workflow roles let you assign a semantic purpose — To Do, In Progress, Testing, or Done — to each column on your kanban board. Roles tell Kanvas AI what a column means in your team’s workflow, so automations like moving a task when a pull request is merged know which column to target. Assign roles from the column settings dialog and see them at a glance by hovering any column icon.

Use it for: labelling columns so automations route tasks correctly, helping new team members understand the board layout, and giving connected tools context about your workflow stages.

How it works

Each kanban board column can have one workflow role, or no role at all.
Available roles are To Do, In Progress, Testing, and Done.
Roles appear as a tooltip when you hover the column icon in the board header.
Automations — such as moving tasks when a GitHub pull request is merged — use roles to decide where to place a task. They target the leftmost column that has the matching role.
When you create a new project, the default columns come with roles pre-assigned to match a standard workflow.

Setup

Workflow roles are available on every project board automatically — no configuration is required. Default columns are created with roles already assigned when you create a new project.

Usage

Assign a role to a column. Open the column settings dialog from the column header menu. Use the Workflow role dropdown to select a role — To Do, In Progress, Testing, or Done — or choose None to clear the role.

View a column’s role. Hover the column icon in the board header. A tooltip shows the assigned role name. If the column is the leftmost one with that role, the tooltip also notes that it is the default target for automated actions such as task moves triggered by pull request events.

Use the same role on multiple columns. Two or more columns can share the same role. For example, you might have two “Done” columns — one for completed work and one for archived items. When an automation needs to find the “Done” column, it picks the leftmost one.

Edge cases & limits

Multiple columns can share a role. There is no requirement for roles to be unique across a board. The leftmost column with a given role is treated as the default target for automations.
No role is required. Columns can exist without any role. Columns with no role assigned work normally but are not targeted by role-based automations.
Role visibility. Roles are shown in a tooltip on the column icon, not as a permanent label. Collapsed columns do not display role information.
Default columns. New projects start with default columns that already have roles assigned. You can change or remove these roles at any time through the column settings dialog.
Connected tools. External clients connected through the MCP Server receive each column’s workflow role in project and board responses, so they can understand your board’s structure without relying on column names.

MCP Server — connected AI clients receive column workflow roles in project and board responses