Skip to main content
T1 starter · engineering / any team — two data sources gathered in parallel, one model call, one file on disk. Your first taste of « the boring parts run themselves ».

​
The job

Every morning you reconstruct yesterday from memory. Your git history already knows. This workflow reads the commits since yesterday, stamps the date from a builtin (not from the model’s imagination), and writes the three standup bullets in your tone.

​
The shape

​
The file

t1-standup-digest.nika.yaml
nika: v1
workflow: standup-digest
description: "Read yesterday's commits, write today's standup note"

model: mock/echo            # deterministic · swap for ollama/llama3.1 (local · zero key)

tasks:
  # No deps between these two → the engine runs them in parallel.
  - id: today
    invoke:
      tool: "nika:date"
      args: { op: now }

  - id: history
    exec:
      command: "git log --since=yesterday --oneline --no-merges"

  - id: digest
    depends_on: [today, history]
    infer:
      prompt: |
        Date · ${{ tasks.today.output }}
        Commits since yesterday ·
        ${{ tasks.history.output }}

        Write my standup note · 3 bullets · done / doing / blocked.
        Plain words · no fluff.

  - id: save
    depends_on: [digest]
    invoke:
      tool: "nika:write"
      args:
        path: "./standup-note.md"
        content: "${{ tasks.digest.output }}"

outputs:
  note: ${{ tasks.digest.output }}

​
How it works

1

Two tasks start together

today and history declare no depends_on — the engine runs them in parallel. Parallelism is the default, not an option you switch on.
2

The digest waits for both

depends_on: [today, history] makes digest the merge point. Its prompt interpolates both outputs with ${{ tasks.X.output }}.
3

The note lands on disk

nika:write takes an explicit content: — a write without content writes nothing. The workflow also returns the note via outputs:.

​
Constructs you just used

ConstructWhereReference
implicit parallelismtoday + historyDAG shape
exec:historyThe 4 verbs
nika:date · nika:writetoday · saveBuiltins
outputs:envelope tailYAML syntax

​
Make it yours

  • Point --since at your sprint cadence (--since=friday for Monday standups).
  • Swap mock/echo for anthropic/claude-haiku-4-5 — a one-liner job wants a fast model.
  • Add a nika:notify task to post the note straight into your team channel — see Release notes for the pattern.

Next · Meeting actions

Same tier, one new idea: structured output — the model returns typed JSON, not prose.