kanbanto

<p align="center"> <img src="apps/web/public/apple-touch-icon.png" width="72" alt="" /> </p> <h1 align="center">Kanbanto</h1> <p align="center"> Plan projects as tasks inside tasks, and see them as a <b>Board</b>, a <b>Timeline</b> or an <b>Outline</b>.<br /> Share boards with your team, comment, attach files, and see every change live.<br /> Connect the AI assistant you already use, so it can read your boards and work on them.<br /> Run it on your own computer or server — your data stays with you. </p> <p align="center"> <a href="#run-it-on-your-computer">Get started</a> · <a href="guides/">Guides</a> · <a href="docs/self-hosting.md">Host it for a team</a> · <a href="docs/troubleshooting.md">Troubleshooting</a> · <a href="#license">License</a> </p>

What you can do

• Tasks inside tasks, as deep as you like. A project, its phases, their tasks and subtasks — all on one board.
• Three views of the same work: a Board with lists you name yourself, a Timeline you drag to reschedule (as bars, or as a month's calendar), and an Outline — a table you can sort, filter, group and rearrange.
• Every card has a name, like WEB-12: say it, search for it, or write it in a text, where it becomes a link. A card can show one of its pictures across its top.
• Work together: make a workspace for your team, so everyone in it can open its boards, or share a board with a link, an access code or an email invite, as an owner, editor or viewer. Changes appear for everyone instantly.
• Plan your people: each workspace has a Planning tab: projects with their planned man-days, and who works on each one, when and how much of their time (25–100%), on a timeline by project or by person, in days, weeks or months. It shows which projects are under or over their plan, who is booked over 100%, and when people are free. Prospects (work that might not happen) are planned apart, and a project linked to a board shows its plan on that board's Timeline.
• Log time: type a card's name and the time it took ("1:30 review"); the cards you worked on that day come first. My week shows your time on every board, a card per row and a day per column. On a board linked to a plan, logged time shows next to each person's planned man-days.
• Write things down properly: a card's description is formatted text (headings you can fold, checklists, tables, callouts, pictures, code with colours, diagrams written as text) with a "/" menu and a full page for long ones. It is saved as you write, several people can write it at once, and earlier versions are kept. A board of such cards is a handbook or a knowledge base.
• Comments and files: discuss each card, @mention people (in comments and descriptions), answer with an emoji, comment on the very words of a description, attach files and screenshots, and point to a file with #.
• Follow cards: hear about comments and changes on the cards you're part of, and stop whenever you like. A page of all your notifications keeps what you want to come back to.
• Rules for a board: limits ("at most 3 cards in Doing", "40 hours a person"), shown where they stand, and rules that tell people when a card arrives in a list or leaves it.
• Capture first, file later: an Inbox of your own beside every board, and a button for your browser that adds the page you're on as a card.
• Start from what you have: bring a board from Trello or cards from a spreadsheet, save a card or a whole board as a template for the next one, and take a board out as a spreadsheet or a file.
• Your own fields: add a client, an amount, a stage or a link to cards. Fields are defined once for a workspace (or for your own boards), and each board picks the ones it uses.
• Dates and reminders: type "fri 2pm" for a due date, set reminders at a time or before it's due, and get them in the app, by email and as desktop notifications, with a morning summary of what's due.
• Find and tidy: search and filters on every view, presets a board's people share, a search across all your boards, several cards changed at once, each card's history, and an archive for finished cards (one at a time, or a done list's older cards in one go).
• In your calendar: due dates and reminders show up in Google Calendar (connected once, updated within seconds), or in Apple Calendar, Outlook and others through a private calendar link.
• Work with your AI assistant: connect Claude, ChatGPT or your own agent by signing in once (or with a token), choose whether it may only read or also make changes, and ask it what needs your attention, to turn notes into tasks, or to work through a list while you approve what's finished. It acts as you, on the boards you can open.
• Connect other things: an API with personal tokens; webhooks for each board, also straight into a Slack, Google Chat, Microsoft Teams or Discord channel; and a Telegram bot for a board, which posts its news in a chat and turns what is written there into cards.
• Your own server, your own data. Files stay on your server, or in your own Cloudflare R2 / Amazon S3 bucket.

| Timeline | Outline | A card | |---|---|---| | | | |

New to it? The guides explain each of these for the people using Kanbanto, with pictures: your first board, sharing, workspaces, assistants, time and planning.

Run it on your computer

About 10 minutes, no programming needed. You'll copy and paste three commands.

1. Install Docker Desktop

Docker runs Kanbanto and its database for you. Download it from docker.com/products/docker-desktop (Mac, Windows or Linux), install it, and open it — wait until it says it's running. On Windows, the installer may set up "WSL 2" and ask you to restart your computer; that's expected.

_{Docker Desktop needs to be running whenever you use Kanbanto. To have it start by itself, turn on Settings → General → Start Docker Desktop when you sign in.}

2. Download Kanbanto

On the Kanbanto GitHub page, click the green Code button → Download ZIP, and unzip it somewhere you'll find again (for example your Documents folder).

_{Comfortable with git? git clone https://github.com/baibao577/kanbanto.git works too, and makes updating easier.}

3. Open a terminal in that folder

• Mac: open the Terminal app, type cd (with a space), drag the Kanbanto folder into the window, press Enter.
• Windows 11: open the Kanbanto folder in File Explorer, right-click an empty space → Open in Terminal.
• Windows 10: open the folder, hold Shift, right-click an empty space → Open PowerShell window here.

4. Start Kanbanto

docker compose up -d --build --wait

The first time takes a few minutes (it's building Kanbanto). When your prompt comes back, it's ready: open http://localhost:3000 in your browser and click Create an account. You'll start with an example board to play with.

5. Make yourself the admin

The admin can change settings for the whole site (email, file storage, who can sign up). Use the email you signed up with:

docker compose exec app node dist/cli.js admin grant you@example.com

Refresh the page: Platform console now appears in the menu under your initials (top right).

That's it. Kanbanto keeps running in the background, even after you close the terminal.

Everyday use

| To… | Run this in the Kanbanto folder | |---|---| | Stop Kanbanto | docker compose stop | | Start it again | docker compose up -d --wait | | See what it's doing | docker compose logs -f app (press Ctrl+C to stop watching) | | Update to a new version | see below |

Your boards, accounts and files are kept safely by Docker between restarts and updates, whatever the folder is called.

Updating: download the new version's ZIP and unzip it. Copy everything from the new folder into your Kanbanto folder, replacing the old files (keep your .env file if you made one). Then, in your Kanbanto folder:

docker compose up -d --build --wait

_{With git: git pull, then the same command. What changed in each version is in the changelog.}

Use it from your phone or another computer on the same Wi-Fi: open http://<your-computer's-IP>:3000 (for example http://192.168.1.20:3000). Anyone on your network can then open it and create an account: once everyone you want has one, choose Nobody without an invite under Who can create an account in Platform console → Accounts.

Keeping a copy of your boards

Every now and then, save a copy somewhere safe (another drive, cloud storage). In your Kanbanto folder:

docker compose exec db pg_dump -U kankan -d kankan -Fc -f /tmp/kanbanto.dump
docker compose cp db:/tmp/kanbanto.dump ./kanbanto-backup.dump
docker compose cp app:/data/uploads ./kanbanto-files

That's your boards and accounts (kanbanto-backup.dump) and attached files (kanbanto-files). If you've set up email or file storage, also keep Kanbanto's encryption key in a password manager: docker compose exec app node dist/cli.js key shows it. Bringing a copy back: see Restore.

Optional: email, file storage and calendars

Kanbanto works without them. Set them up any time in Platform console:

• Email — for password resets, email invites, reminders, and a morning summary of what's due and who mentioned you. Use your organisation's mail server or any email service that offers SMTP, or a free Resend account with a domain name. How to set up email
• File storage — files are kept on your computer by default. You can use Cloudflare R2 or Amazon S3 instead. How to set up storage
• Calendars — let people see their cards' due dates and reminders in Google Calendar or any calendar app. How to set up calendars
• AI assistants and other apps — connecting an assistant, API tokens, webhooks and Telegram bots are off until you turn them on, under Integrations, and so is signing in with Google. How they work

Something not working? See Troubleshooting.

Hosting it for a team

Running Kanbanto on a server for your company or group — with your own domain, HTTPS, backups and upgrades — is covered step by step in the Self-hosting guide.

| Guide | What's in it | |---|---| | Guides | How to use Kanbanto, for the people using it: a page for each thing you'd want to do, with pictures | | Self-hosting | Servers, HTTPS, first admin, file storage, backups, upgrades, security checklist | | Email | Sending email through your mail server (SMTP) or Resend | | Calendar | Cards in Google Calendar (making the Google app) and in other calendar apps (calendar links) | | Configuration | Every setting: .env variables, the Platform console, server commands | | API, webhooks and AI | API tokens, commands, webhooks (answering the address check, checking signatures), connecting AI assistants (MCP) | | Troubleshooting | Problems and fixes, by symptom | | Architecture | How Kanbanto works inside (for developers and curious admins) | | Contributing | Issues are welcome; pull requests are by invitation. Running it for development, tests, conventions | | Security | How to report a vulnerability, and how Kanbanto protects