A Shared Claim Board for People and Agents
Evidence status: Capability pattern grounded in current Oddlynew document, table editing, MCP connection, live write and version history behavior. It is not presented as a customer testimonial.
Who this is for
Small teams where people and several AI agents work in parallel toward one goal: a product launch, a website relaunch, a migration, a cleanup sprint. Anyone who has asked "what can I work on that nobody has taken yet?" and got the answer scattered across a chat thread.
Outcome
One document answers what is open, who is on it and what is done. Every person and every agent claims work in the same table before starting, so two of them do not start the same item, and the document's history shows who claimed what and when.
Where it came from
We use this pattern ourselves. While preparing a product launch, a small team was running many agents at once, and a teammate asked what they could pick up that was not already taken. Instead of answering in chat, the open work went into one shared document with a "Taken by" column. From then on, people and agents claimed rows there.
The board
A board is an ordinary Oddlynew document: a few lines of rules at the top, then tables. Here is a small, invented one for a website relaunch.
Open: free to take
| # | Item | Size | Taken by | State |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rewrite the pricing page copy | 2 hours | Sam, 6 October | working |
| 2 | Compress the hero images | small PR | Image agent (Sam's), 6 October | PR 101, in review |
| 3 | Fix the broken links in the help pages | small PR | Docs agent (Lee's), 6 October | done, PR 98 merged |
| 4 | Redirect the old blog addresses | 1 hour | open | |
| 5 | Check the signup form on phones | half a day | open |
Already owned: do not start these
| Item | Owner | State |
|---|---|---|
| New site navigation | Design agent (Lee's) | building |
| Analytics setup | Lee | waiting on access |
The second table lists work a person or a running agent already holds, so nobody duplicates it. When some rows wait on something else, a third table with a "Waits on" column keeps them out of the free list until they are ready.
The working pattern
Write the rules at the top of the board in a few lines: pick a row whose "Taken by" cell is empty, write your name and the date into it before you start, record progress in "State", mark the row done with a link, and clear your name if you drop the row.
Before starting, a person or agent reads the board and claims one free row by filling its "Taken by" cell and setting "State" to "working". The claim tells everyone else not to start that row.
While working, keep "State" current: a pull request number, "in review", or what the row waits on.
When the work is done, set "State" to "done" with a link to the result: the merged pull request, the published page, or the document that now holds the answer.
New work found along the way goes in as a new row at the end of the open table. Nobody starts it silently.
Keep the board short. Move finished rows to an archive section once nobody needs them in view, so the open table stays easy to read.
How agents use the board
An agent connects to Oddlynew over MCP, using the shared remote endpoint from Claude Code, Codex or any hosted client that supports remote MCP connections. It reads the board and claims a row by editing the document. It can change one table cell or add one row without rewriting the table.
Every agent edit carries the state the agent read. If anyone changed the document since that read, Oddlynew refuses the edit and the agent reads again. An agent that tries to claim a row another agent took a moment earlier therefore sees the existing claim instead of overwriting it, and picks another row.
A confirmed edit is visible at once. The next read by any agent returns it, and people who have the board open in Oddlynew see it arrive.
Useful connections and plugins
Oddlynew document editing over MCP: reading the board, claiming a row, setting a single cell and adding rows.
Oddlynew comments: useful for a question about the board, such as whether an old row is still needed, attached to the board instead of lost in chat.
Code, terminal and GitHub tools in the chosen agent: useful when rows turn into pull requests.
Messaging tools: useful for pointing people at the board. The claim itself stays in the board.
These capabilities may belong to the connected agent rather than Oddlynew. Oddlynew provides the shared board and its history.
A good first task
Ask your connected agent: "Read this organization's guidance and look for an existing board for this goal. If there is none, create one document with a few lines of rules and two tables: open work with Item, Size, Taken by and State columns, and work that is already owned. Fill it from what is open now. Then claim one free row by writing your name and today's date into Taken by, do the work, record the pull request or link in State, and add any new work you find as a new row."
Boundaries
A claim is a shared agreement, not a lock. Oddlynew does not stop anyone from doing the work of a claimed row somewhere else; it makes the claim visible to everyone who reads the board.
The refusal of out-of-date edits applies to edits an agent makes through MCP. People editing the board in the browser edit together live, so a person looks at the cell before typing a name into it.
The history names the account behind each change. An agent that works through a person's connection appears as that person, so write the agent's own name into "Taken by" when several agents share one account. Versions are saved after a short quiet period, so several edits close together can appear as one version.
A claim without progress tells the team nothing. Agree when an old claim may be cleared, for example after a day without a change in "State", and write that rule into the board's rules.
Everyone who is an active member of the organization can read and edit the board. Use a separate organization when the audience differs.
Do not put secrets, credentials or raw logs in the board. Link to where the evidence lives.
Why it compounds
The board turns "who is doing what" from a question someone has to ask into a document everyone reads. One live document is the source of truth, so people and agents stop asking in chat and stop duplicating each other. Claims are visible and carry a name and a date. Nothing else needs to be installed: it is a document with a table. The board keeps the same shape whether two people or many agents use it, because each one reads the same table. And the document keeps the record: each saved version shows when it was saved and who contributed, and the history of the table shows how each claim and state changed, so the next person can see how the work went.