Kata

Kata is a local-first issue tracker for humans and coding agents. Issue state lives in a local daemon and SQLite database rather than in the repository; a repo commits only a small .kata.toml binding to its Kata project. The roborev integration is bidirectional: reviews can pull task context from your Kata project into the review prompt, and review hooks can file failed reviews and review findings back into Kata as issues.

Prerequisites

• The kata CLI must be on PATH. If it is missing, both directions are skipped without failing the review.
• The repo must be bound to a Kata project with a committed .kata.toml.

Task Context in Review Prompts

When enabled, roborev includes Kata issue content in local review prompts so the reviewer understands the task intent behind a change:

# .roborev.toml or ~/.roborev/config.toml
[kata_context]
mode = "current"   # off (default), current, or open
max_chars = 50000  # cap on Kata context bytes in the prompt

Mode	Behavior
off	Do not include Kata context (default)
current	Include only Kata issues referenced in the reviewed commit messages, such as Closes: kata#abc4 or <project>#abc4
open	Include all open Kata issues from the bound project, excluding issues filed by roborev itself

current mode frames referenced issues as authoritative task intent. open mode frames the open backlog as background context so the reviewer does not treat every open issue as part of the current change. Dirty reviews have no commit messages to inspect, so current mode includes no Kata context for them; use open if you want dirty reviews to see the backlog.

Kata context applies to local review prompts only (single commit, branch ranges, and dirty reviews). Daemon CI pull-request reviews never include Kata context, since PR head content is untrusted and backlog details could leak into public PR comments. Fix and task jobs do not receive Kata context either.

If the prompt exceeds max_prompt_size, roborev trims other optional context first and drops Kata context last.

See Kata Integration in the configuration reference for full details.

Filing Findings as Kata Issues

A type = "kata" review hook files review failures and findings as Kata issues:

[[hooks]]
event = "review.*"
type = "kata"
branches = ["main"]
labels = ["from-review"]
priority = 2

Event	Verdict	Action
review.failed	n/a	Creates a priority-1 Kata issue for the failed review job
review.completed	F (fail)	Creates a priority-2 Kata issue for the review findings, including roborev show and roborev fix commands
review.completed	P (pass)	No action

The hook uses the repo’s committed .kata.toml binding by default; set project = "myproj" to override. Every issue receives the roborev label plus a marker label (review-failed or review-finding) and any extra labels you configure. roborev uses an idempotency key per job/event, so reruns do not create duplicate issues.

See Built-in: Kata Integration in the review hooks guide for hook fields and event patterns.

Closing the Loop

Together, the two directions form a workflow: a commit references a Kata issue, the review prompt includes that issue as task intent, and if the review fails or finds problems, the findings land back in the Kata backlog with the commands to reproduce and fix them.