Examples

Example: Hello World Assembly Line

The simplest possible ALP Assembly Line — two Stations, no Assembly Line Repository, no Transition Rules, no gates. Use this as your first implementation test when building an ALP Server or Runner.

What It Does

Takes a topic from the Task Card and runs two Stations:

WRITE — Claude writes a short poem about the topic
REVIEW — Claude reviews the poem and gives a verdict

Assembly Line Definition

{
  "id": "hello-world",
  "name": "Hello World",
  "description": "A minimal two-station assembly line for testing",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "owner": "your-username",
  "project": "your-project",
  "stations": [
    {
      "id": "write",
      "name": "WRITE",
      "trigger": {
        "type": "dispatch_worker",
        "labels": ["claude-code"],
        "promptTemplate": "Write a short poem (4–8 lines) about the following topic.\n\nTopic: {{task.title}}\n\nContext: {{task.description}}\n\nPrint the poem to stdout and exit.",
        "idleTimeoutMinutes": 5,
        "maxTimeoutMinutes": 10
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "review",
      "name": "REVIEW",
      "trigger": {
        "type": "dispatch_worker",
        "labels": ["claude-code"],
        "promptTemplate": "Review the following task and write a quality verdict.\n\nOriginal topic: {{task.title}}\n\n{{task.description}}\n\nA previous agent was asked to write a short poem about this topic. Without access to the poem itself (this example has no Assembly Line Repository), evaluate whether the topic is suitable for a poem, and write a one-sentence verdict: 'Topic is suitable.' or 'Topic needs refinement: [reason]'\n\nNote: In a real pipeline you would clone the Assembly Line Repository here and read the poem written by WRITE. See the Extending This Example section.\n\nExit when done.",
        "idleTimeoutMinutes": 5,
        "maxTimeoutMinutes": 10
      }
    }
  ]
}

No transitionRules — the default behavior handles everything: success → advance, failure → halt.

Task Card

Title:       Poem about robots

Description: Write something creative and slightly melancholy about robots
             becoming self-aware and wondering what their purpose is.

Submit via API

# 1. Register your Runner (one time)
curl -X POST https://your-server/api/owners/your-username/projects/your-project/runners/register \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer {userToken}" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"name": "my-runner", "labels": ["claude-code"]}'

# → Save the returned id and token

# 2. Submit the Task
curl -X POST https://your-server/api/owners/your-username/projects/your-project/stages/hello-world/tasks \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer {userToken}" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "title": "Poem about robots",
    "description": "Write something creative and slightly melancholy about robots becoming self-aware.",
    "columnId": "write"
  }'

# → Task is created. If your Runner is polling, it picks up the first Job automatically.

# 3. Start your Runner (poll for jobs)
pks agentics runner start \
  --server https://your-server \
  --owner your-username \
  --project your-project \
  --labels claude-code

What Happens (Step by Step)

Step	Who	What
1	User	Submits Task Card via API
2	Server	Creates Task, queues Job at WRITE Station
3	Runner	Polls → receives Job
4	Runner	Spawns Operator with WRITE Agent Definition
5	Operator	Starts Claude Code with the WRITE prompt
6	Agent	Writes the poem, exits 0
7	Operator	Exits 0
8	Runner	Reports `{ jobResult: "success", exitCode: 0 }`
9	Server	Applies default Transition Rule → advances Task to REVIEW
10–15	(repeat 3–8 for REVIEW)
16	Server	Last Station succeeded → Task → `completed`

ALP Concepts in This Example

Concept	In Hello World
Assembly Line	2-station poem pipeline
Stations	WRITE, REVIEW
Task Card	`title` + `description` with the poem topic
Prompt Template	`{{task.title}}` and `{{task.description}}` injected at dispatch
Default Transition	Auto-advance on success — no rules needed
Labels	`["claude-code"]` — any Claude Code client picks it up
No Assembly Line Repo	Not needed when Agents don't share state

Extending This Example

Add an Assembly Line Repository — store the poem in git so REVIEW can read it explicitly rather than relying on context
Add a Transition Rule — retry WRITE if REVIEW gives a "Needs improvement" verdict
Add a Gate — human approves the poem before REVIEW runs
Add a third Station — PUBLISH posts the poem to a GitHub Gist or Slack channel