The Case for Markdown as Your Agent's Task Format

When I started coordinating multiple AI coding agents, my first instinct was JSON for task definitions. Structured, parseable, unambiguous. It lasted about a week. The problem wasn't parsing. The problem was everything else. What went wrong with JSON { "id": 27, "title": "Add JWT authentication to the API", "status": "in-progress", "assigned_to": "engineer-1", "description": "Implement JWT-based auth middleware for all protected routes. Use the jsonwebtoken crate. Add login and refresh endpoints.", "acceptance_criteria": [ "All protected routes return 401 without valid token", "Login endpoint returns access + refresh tokens", "Tests cover happy path and expired token" ] } This works for machines. But when you're supervising agents and need to quickly check what's happening: cat tasks.json gives you a wall of brackets and quotes git diff shows structural noise alongside actual changes Editing a task description means navigating JSON syntax The agent needs a JSON parser to read its own a