Kanbi

A super simple kanban-based project tracker. Think Linear, but small enough to own and tweak yourself. It keeps the parts of Linear that make it pleasant to live in day to day (keyboard-first, fast, realtime) without the enterprise sprawl.

This is a pnpm + Turborepo monorepo:

kanbi/
  apps/web          Next.js 15 app, the product (tRPC, Drizzle/Postgres, Better Auth)
  apps/focus        Expo companion app (pairs over QR, talks to the web tRPC API)
  packages/shared   types shared between web and focus

Features

• Boards with columns, drag-and-drop reordering of columns and tasks, and fractional positions (no integer reshuffles).
• Tasks with priorities, labels, due dates, checklists, assignees, and rich-text descriptions (Tiptap) supporting @mentions and #ticket references.
• Comments on tasks, with mentions that notify project members.
• Realtime updates and online presence over SSE; the UI is optimistic and deletes are undoable.
• Keyboard-first with a command palette and shortcuts throughout.
• Projects with member invites, roles, and per-project settings; plus public read-only shared boards via a share link.
• AI task drafting (optional): paste a client message and let Mistral extract actionable issues with title, description, label, and priority.
• Focus app: an Expo companion that pairs to your account over a QR code and authenticates with per-device tokens.
• MCP server: connect AI agents (Claude Code, opencode) over OAuth so they can read and write your boards. See apps/web/src/server/mcp/README.md.
• Auth: email/password plus Google and GitHub OAuth, via Better Auth.

Tech stack

Next.js 15 (App Router) - tRPC v11 + TanStack Query - Drizzle ORM on Postgres - Better Auth - Tailwind v4 with shadcn/Radix - dnd-kit - Zustand - Tiptap. Turborepo + pnpm; the companion app is Expo / React Native.

Getting started

Prerequisites

• Node 20+
• pnpm 10 (corepack enable picks up the pinned version)
• A Postgres database (local or hosted, e.g. Neon)

Setup

git clone <repo-url> kanbi && cd kanbi
pnpm install

cp apps/web/.env.example apps/web/.env   # then set DATABASE_URL (rest is optional)
pnpm db:push                             # create the schema in your database
pnpm dev:web                             # http://localhost:3333

The web app runs on port 3333.

Environment

apps/web/src/env.js validates env at startup (empty strings count as unset). Only DATABASE_URL is required to boot; BETTER_AUTH_SECRET is additionally required in production (openssl rand -base64 32).

Everything else is optional and gates one feature:

Variable	Enables
BETTER_AUTH_URL	OAuth redirects and the MCP server (your origin, e.g. http://kanbi.localhost:3333).
BETTER_AUTH_GITHUB_* / BETTER_AUTH_GOOGLE_*	Social login (each provider needs both its id and secret).
SMTP_*	Transactional email (password reset, invites, digests); unset means sends are skipped.
R2_*	Task attachments (Cloudflare R2 / S3-compatible).
MISTRAL_API_KEY	The AI task drafter.
CRON_SECRET	Auth for the /api/cron/* endpoints.
MCP_RESOURCE_URL	Override the MCP OAuth audience (defaults to <BETTER_AUTH_URL>/api/mcp).

See apps/web/.env.example for the full list.

Commands

Run from the repo root:

pnpm dev:web        # web app only (port 3333, turbopack)
pnpm dev            # all apps via turbo
pnpm dev:focus      # Expo companion app
pnpm build          # build all apps
pnpm lint           # next lint
pnpm typecheck      # tsc --noEmit
pnpm format:write   # prettier

pnpm db:push        # push the Drizzle schema (the dev workflow)
pnpm db:generate    # generate a migration
pnpm db:migrate     # run migrations
pnpm db:studio      # Drizzle Studio

There is no test suite.

Connect an AI agent

Kanbi ships an MCP server at /api/mcp so agents can manage your boards from an editor or terminal. Quick version for Claude Code:

claude mcp add --transport http kanbi http://kanbi.localhost:3333/api/mcp

Then run a tool and approve the browser consent screen. The full guide (opencode setup, tool/scope reference, troubleshooting) lives in apps/web/src/server/mcp/README.md.

Documentation

• AGENTS.md - architecture and conventions for working in the codebase.
• DESIGN.md - the design language (read before any UI work).
• apps/web/src/server/mcp/README.md - the MCP server: connecting agents, tools, scopes, troubleshooting.
• TODO.md - known gaps and half-finished features.