Plugins: paths and changes

Andon's two plugins add what colors alone cannot show. draw.io lets you define the path: the sequence of steps, decisions and dependencies a piece of work should follow. Yi Jing helps you assess change: when the situation shifts, it gives you a structured moment to ask what kind of change it is before you react. The colors say where you are; the path says where you are going; the reading helps you decide what a change means.

The Plugin Manager

Plugins add features without weighing down Andon itself. Open Preferences, then Manage Plugins to open the Plugin Manager. For each plugin you can Install, Update or Uninstall; Andon asks you to restart to apply changes. Each installed plugin adds its own tab to every task. The Plugin Manager goes online to list and download plugins, and says when a plugin needs a newer version of Andon.

Uninstalling a plugin keeps its data, such as your diagrams and readings: install it again and they come back.

Both plugins are optional. Andon works fully without them, and you can install either one alone. The rest of the guide does not depend on this chapter.

Why these two

Projects rarely fail for lack of a task list. They drift in two ways: the order of the steps is never made explicit, so work happens out of sequence; or the situation changes and you keep following a plan that no longer fits. Each plugin answers one of those risks.

The daily loop

The loop runs: map the path (draw.io, steps and decisions) → follow it with colors (one child task per step) → a change appears (a task turns orange or red) → assess the change before reacting (Yi Jing reading, then notes) → redraw the path (draw.io, the new route, old one kept) → continue following it with colors.

The two plugins frame the colors: draw.io sets the route before work starts, the colors track progress along it, and when a change appears, a Yi Jing reading and a few lines of notes come before the route is redrawn.

draw.io: defining the sequential path

What it gives you

Install draw.io Diagrams from the Plugin Manager. Every task then has a Diagram tab containing the full draw.io editor. Each task keeps its own diagram, saved automatically as you draw. The editor runs inside Andon without an internet connection, and follows your theme. The tab's title shows how many pages the diagram has.

Why a path matters

A task list says what must be done. It does not say in what order, what depends on what, or where the decisions lie. Drawing the sequence does three things:

• It exposes dependencies early. A step that cannot start until another finishes is visible before it turns into an orange task.
• It shows the decision points. You see where the route can branch, and where a red task may one day appear.
• It makes the next step explicit. The step after the current one is on the map, not only in your head.

Using it day to day

1. Draw the path when a task starts. Open the task's Diagram tab and draw the steps as boxes, in order, joined by arrows. Draw each decision as a diamond, such as "Tests pass?", with one arrow per outcome.
2. Mirror the path in the task list. Create one child task per step, in the same order. The colors then show progress along the path, and the step you are on, last in the list, drives the parent's color.
3. Show where you stand. Keep the diagram in step with the colors: fill the box of the current step, and gray out a branch you abandoned rather than deleting it.
4. Redraw when the route changes. When a step turns red, draw the new route on the diagram and add the new child task after the red one.
5. Keep a record of earlier paths. The Diagram tab holds only the latest version. Before a large redraw, take a screenshot of the diagram and paste it into the task's notes: the note history keeps the earlier path, next to the reason it changed.

A map of the whole project

Diagrams belong to tasks, not to projects. For a map of the whole project, create a top-level task called "Path", keep it first in the list, and draw the overall route in its Diagram tab; each task's own Diagram tab then holds its detailed steps. Leave the Path task white: a white task first in the list never changes the project's color, so it cannot mask the signals of the real tasks.

Yi Jing: assessing mutations

What the Yi Jing is

The Yi Jing (易經, the Classic of Changes) is one of the oldest Chinese texts. Its premise is that every situation is in transformation. Its 64 hexagrams, figures of six solid or broken lines, describe the typical moments of change: beginnings, obstacles, waiting, conflict, breakthrough, completion. It has long been consulted less to predict the future than to reflect on the nature of a moment and on the attitude that suits it.

What the plugin does

Once installed, the plugin adds a 易經 tab to every task. The tab shows how many readings the task holds.

[Screenshot: the Yi Jing tab after a cast, with the question, the hexagram, its moving lines and the Becomes page]

1. Ask. Type your question in the field "What question are you holding?". It is saved with the reading.
2. Cast. Click Cast. Three coins are tossed for each of the six lines, from the bottom up, and the hexagram builds on screen line by line. Each line shows its coin values and its kind: young yang, young yin, old yang or old yin.
3. Read. The reading shows the hexagram's number, its Chinese name, its pinyin and its name in your language, then its Judgment and its Image.
4. Follow the change. When the cast has moving lines, two more pages appear beside the reading: Moving lines, with the text of each moving line, and Becomes, the hexagram the situation turns into once those lines change. A Commentary page gives Richard Wilhelm's commentary.
5. Keep it. Every cast is recorded automatically under Past readings, with its date, time and question. Click a past reading to open it again. Save to Notes adds the reading, moving lines and transformed hexagram included, to the task's notes; Copy reading copies it as plain text.

Moving lines are where the change lives. An old yin or old yang line is unstable: it is about to turn into its opposite. The moving lines point at the exact place in the situation where change is happening, and the Becomes hexagram shows where that change leads. Together, the present hexagram and the one it becomes describe a movement, from the situation as it stands to the situation it is heading for. A cast with no moving lines describes a stable moment.

Settings. The gear button opens the panel's settings: cast Automatic or One line per click; a speed of Contemplative, Brisk or Instant; three layouts for the reading (Split, Centered, Ledger); and whether coin values are shown.

Why assessing change matters

Andon's colors record that something changed: a task turns orange, a red task appears. They do not say what kind of change it is. Is the obstacle temporary and worth waiting out, or a sign that the approach is wrong? Is this a moment to push forward or to consolidate?

Under pressure, it is tempting to react to change by reflex, pushing harder on the same plan. A reading interrupts the reflex. It gives you a short, structured pause, an outside image to measure the situation against, and a written trace of how you judged the moment.

Treat a reading as a prompt for reflection, not as a verdict. Its value lies in the questions it makes you ask and in the notes you write afterwards.

When to consult it

• A task turns orange. Before chasing or escalating, ask what the blockage tells you: wait, go around, or rethink?
• Before setting a task to red. Check that you are abandoning the approach for the right reasons, and write them down.
• At a fork in the path. When the diagram reaches a decision, a reading helps you look at each branch with fresh eyes.
• At a milestone or at the end of a project. Take stock of how the situation has changed since the previous reading.
• When you feel stuck and the next step is unclear.

Using it day to day

1. Open the task's 易經 tab and write the question: what has changed, and what you need to decide.
2. Click Cast and let the hexagram build.
3. Read the judgment and the image, and ask how they apply to your situation.
4. If lines are moving, read Moving lines to see where the change sits, then Becomes to see where it leads.
5. Click Save to Notes, then write two or three lines under the reading: what it made you notice, and what you decide.
6. Act on it: update the colors, and redraw the path if the decision changes the route.

Over the life of a task, the past readings and the saved notes form a record of how each turning point was judged: a natural companion to the reasons you write on red tasks.

A worked example

This example uses the server migration from chapter 13: a project to move a service to a new data center, whose first approach, "Approach A: in-place upgrade", upgrades the old server where it stands.

1. The path. In Approach A's Diagram tab, you draw four steps: Back up the data, Upgrade in place, Verify the data, Switch traffic.
2. The change. The upgrade corrupts the test copy, and you set Approach A to orange. Before deciding, you write the question in its notes, "Is this a bug to fix or the wrong approach?", and draw a reading. Suppose it gives hexagram 39, Obstruction, whose traditional counsel is to stop pushing against the obstacle and look for another way round. Its moving lines show where the obstruction sits, and the Becomes page shows the situation it can turn into once you act on it.
3. The assessment. You save the reading to the notes and write beneath it: "The tool has no support and there are two weeks left. Pushing through means betting the deadline on a vendor fix. Go around." You set Approach A to red and fill in its Properties with those reasons.
4. The new path. In Approach B's Diagram tab you draw the new route: Provision the new server, Copy the data, Verify the data, Cut over. The Back up and Verify steps carry over from the old path; the risky step is gone.

A year later, the red Approach A holds the old path in a screenshot, the reading, and the reasons: the whole story of the turning point in one place.