KAN › The board · lesson 2 of 3

A story's state

Ask three people whether a story is done and you can get three answers. KAN gives one, computed from the record itself, and says where it came from.

Teaches from go/kanboard/README.md, “Dependencies”, and specs/kan/stories/kan.13.aus.md.

The rule

A story's state is the one KAN's rung inspection gives it: “accepted when its front matter says status: "accepted", ready when every prerequisite is accepted, waiting otherwise, with what it waits on.” The prerequisites are the story's depends_on list, by KAN id.

Prose does not decide it: “The status line does not decide it, so a story whose line reads accepted without that front matter is listed under records to correct.” A rung takes its class from its stories: all accepted is accepted, and accepted or awaiting is awaiting.

The same inspection is a KAN operation. kan.13's promise is to inspect one rung, “its AUS membership, ready work and unresolved source references without launching effects”; the kan MCP tools expose it as kan_rung_inspect.

Try it

In the EchoEdu delivery

This course's own story, specs/edu/stories/edu.29.aus.md, carries status: "proposed" and depends_on two stories: edu.17, the shared course foundation, and edu.16, the islands boot. Its state follows from those two records, not from any message saying the work is going well. Its acceptance section ends “Evidence: pending”, and only the acceptance owner's verdict, recorded in the front matter, can change that.

Check yourself

1. A story's status line says it is accepted, but its front matter says proposed. What does the board show?
2. Every prerequisite of a story is accepted. What state is it in?
3. Why is inspecting a rung allowed to launch no effects?

Previous: What the board shows · Next: Records the board can read

Teaches ecd/kan at 54532f9b, 25 October 2026.