Kanban Agent

File-based kanban for coding-agent fleets. A PM agent writes markdown work items into work-items/pending/, worker agents claim them with git mv, and the folder a file sits in is its status — no database, no service, no lock server. The repo is the queue, git is the lock, and any agent (Claude Code or otherwise) or any human with a file manager can operate it. On top of the convention sit a zero-dependency live dashboard (the cockpit) and an MCP server that attaches the workflow to any project and drives the queue through tools.

Why

When several coding agents work a backlog in parallel, the coordination layer usually becomes the hard part: a ticket API to integrate, a database to host, credentials to distribute. Kanban Agent removes that layer instead of adding to it:

• Plain files — a work item is a markdown file; its folder is its status. Every agent can read and write files; no SDK required.
• Git is the lock — claiming an item is git mv pending/007-… in-progress/007-…. Two workers cannot both win the move, and history doubles as an audit log.
• Reviewable backlog — items travel with the code. Specs, acceptance criteria and results are diffable, greppable and PR-reviewable.
• Watchable — the cockpit tails every queue on the machine over fs.watch + SSE, so you can watch a fleet burn down a backlog live.

Quickstart

git clone https://github.com/gak4u/kanban-agent.git
cd kanban-agent
npm start            # → http://localhost:4400

Requires Node ≥ 20. Zero npm dependencies, no build step. On first start the server seeds projects.json from projects.example.json, which points at the bundled examples/demo-project — so you get a populated board out of the box. Edit projects.json to track your own projects.

The convention

Each tracked project has a work-items/ directory at its root (full spec: docs/convention.md):

work-items/
  pending/        NNN-slug.md   ← ready to be picked up
  in-progress/    NNN-slug.md   ← claimed by a worker
  blocked/        NNN-slug.md   ← stuck; has a "## Blocked" note
  done/           NNN-slug.md   ← finished + verified
  _TEMPLATE.md  README.md  WORKER_PROMPT.md  _artifacts/   ← not work items

• Folder = status. Files carry a status: frontmatter field but it goes stale; the folder is always authoritative.
• NNN ordering. Items are NNN-slug.md with a zero-padded number that is allocated once across all four folders — it doubles as FIFO/priority order. Workers always claim the lowest-numbered pending item.
• Frontmatter fields (all optional, parsed leniently): id, title, type (feature|bug|chore), priority (P1|P2|P3), created (YYYY-MM-DD), status, depends_on / stacks_on (item number), needs_migration (bool).
• Claim protocol. A worker claims an item by moving it: git mv work-items/pending/NNN-slug.md work-items/in-progress/ — the move is the lock; never touch a file already in in-progress/. Finished items get their ## Result section filled and move to done/; stuck items get a ## Blocked note and move to blocked/.

The cockpit

A read-only web dashboard over every queue on the machine:

• Overview — one card per project: per-status counts, done-vs-total progress, what is in progress right now; blocked counts light up when > 0.
• Board — four kanban columns per project, cards ordered by item number (Done newest-first) with type/priority badges, acceptance-criteria progress, stacks_on/depends_on chips and last-activity time.
• Item drawer — click a card for the rendered markdown, with frontmatter as a key/value header (a stale frontmatter status is flagged).
• Live — the server watches the status folders (fs.watch) and pushes refreshes over SSE; the UI falls back to 10-second polling if SSE fails.

The server binds to 127.0.0.1 only (localhost tool, no auth) and never writes to tracked projects. API: GET /api/projects (all queues, parsed), GET /api/item?project=&status=&file= (one item, raw + rendered), GET /api/events (SSE refresh stream).

The MCP server

mcp/server.js is the write side: it attaches the workflow to any project and operates queues from any MCP client (sole dependency: @modelcontextprotocol/sdk).

cd mcp && npm install        # once
claude mcp add --scope user kanban-agent -- node /path/to/kanban-agent/mcp/server.js

(claude mcp list should then show kanban-agent … ✔ Connected.)

Hosted mode (one server for a team)

The same tool set can be served over the MCP Streamable HTTP transport so a team's agents share one server: per-user Bearer tokens (roles admin / member), server-managed projects operated by name, created_by/claimed_by attribution with completion commits authored as the item's creator (and pushed to the project's origin), an /admin panel for users + projects, and user chips / an active-claims strip on the dashboard.

node server/bootstrap.js     # once — creates the user store, prints the admin token
npm run mcp-http             # serves http://0.0.0.0:4401/mcp (port: KANBAN_MCP_PORT)

Each user registers the server with their own token (stdio one-liner above stays the local single-user path):

claude mcp add --transport http kanban-agent http://<server>:4401/mcp --header "Authorization: Bearer <token>"

Reading the cockpit board stays unauthenticated — tokens gate writes and administration. Architecture, team quickstart, attribution/push flow and ops notes: docs/hosted.md.

Attach the workflow to a project

1. Call attach_workflow with the project's absolute path (optionally verify_command, e.g. npm test && npm run build, and app_url for live checks). It scaffolds work-items/{pending,in-progress,blocked,done,_artifacts}/ with the queue README.md, _TEMPLATE.md and a parameterized WORKER_PROMPT.md, and appends a ## Work-item queue section to the project's CLAUDE.md (or AGENTS.md). Idempotent — a second run skips everything that exists.
2. Commit the scaffold in that project.
3. Have a PM agent write items (create_work_item, or by hand from _TEMPLATE.md — the pm-write-items prompt sets an agent up for this), then spawn workers with the worker-loop prompt: claim → implement → verify → done, polling until idle.
4. Watch it live in the cockpit — the project auto-discovers if it sits under an autoDiscoverRoots entry.

Tools

Tool	What it does
attach_workflow(project_path, project_name?, verify_command?, app_url?)	Scaffold the queue + agent instructions into a project (idempotent).
queue_status(project_path)	Per-status counts + {id, title, file} lists.
create_work_item(project_path, title, type, priority, summary, scope, …)	Allocate the next NNN, write a fully-specified item into pending/.
claim_next_item(project_path)	Move the lowest-NNN pending item to in-progress/ (git mv = the lock) and return its markdown.
complete_item(project_path, id, what_changed, verification, commit?)	Fill ## Result, move to done/.
block_item(project_path, id, reason)	Append a ## Blocked note, move to blocked/.
get_item(project_path, id)	Status + raw markdown, searching all folders.
list_projects()	Every tracked/discovered project with status counts (hosted mode: the server registry).

Queue tools accept project_path (absolute path, local mode) or project (server-managed project name, hosted mode). Admin tools — hosted mode only, admin role required:

Tool	What it does
create_project(name, git_url?)	Clone or init a git tree under data/projects/<name>/ + scaffold the queue.
archive_project(name)	Hide a project from lists; files are never deleted.
create_user(username, email?, role)	Create a user; returns the one-time API token.
revoke_user(username)	Invalidate a user's token immediately.
rotate_token(username)	Issue a new token (returned once), killing the old one.

Prompt	What it returns
worker-loop(project_path)	The project's WORKER_PROMPT.md — the polling worker loop.
pm-write-items(project_path)	PM guidance: verify requests, write fully-specified items.

All writes are confined to <project_path>/work-items/ (plus the one instructions append); filenames are validated against NNN-*.md, ids against \d+ — traversal is rejected.

Configuration

projects.json at the repo root (gitignored; seeded from projects.example.json on first start):

{
  "projects": [
    { "name": "Demo Project", "path": "examples/demo-project" }
  ],
  "autoDiscoverRoots": ["/absolute/path/to/your/projects"]
}

• projects — explicit list; name is what the UI shows. Paths may be absolute or relative to the config file.
• autoDiscoverRoots — every direct child of these directories that contains a work-items/ folder with at least one status subfolder is added automatically (deduped against the explicit list). New projects appear with zero config.
• PROJECTS_CONFIG=/path/to/other.json — point the cockpit and the MCP server at an alternate config. PORT overrides the cockpit's port (4400).

More

• docs/convention.md — the full queue convention.
• docs/design.md — how the cockpit and MCP server are built.
• CONTRIBUTING.md — dev setup and PR guidelines.

License

MIT © 2026 gak4u