Hermes Kanban can wake a planner on task outcomes without a notification ping. Escalating only undecidable questions still requires planner instructions; enabling the board alone does not implement this policy.

Hermes Kanban supports wake-only task subscriptions through a live gateway. This resumes the destination agent without a passive notification. The resulting model turn can still produce a reply.

Headless workers should record the context with kanban_comment and use kanban_block for genuine blockers. Hermes' injected worker protocol discourages clarify in a headless run because no live user can answer. Completed work should leave a summary and structured handoff evidence; a reviewer can return changes through the review lifecycle.

The operator's escalation requirement is a proposed behavioral policy, not an automatic consequence of enabling Kanban. Put it in the planner's SOUL.md: process outcomes, investigate uncertainty by assigning more work, resolve choices supported by the available context, and ask the operator only if the decision cannot be made. A blocker should first become an orchestration decision. Wake-only delivery removes the passive ping, not the need to specify that policy.

Sources: Kanban delivery modes, Multi-gateway routing, Injected worker protocol, Review and handoff lifecycle.