pkanban

A CLI-first Kanban board for humans and AI agents. (The "p" is silent, like in "pneumonia".)

Most users will connect to our hosted service at pkanban.pearachute.com. If you want to run your own server, see the Self-Hosting section below.

Quick Start

pip install pkanban

The CLI connects to the hosted service at https://pkanban.pearachute.com by default, so you can log in right away:

pkanban login <username>

You'll be prompted for your password (it stays out of your shell history). That's it! You can now manage your boards from the command line.

Self-hosting? Point the CLI at your own server first with pkanban config --url http://localhost:8000 — see Self-Hosting.

Common Commands

# List your boards
pkanban board list

# Create a new board
pkanban board create "My Project"

# View a board with its columns and cards
pkanban board get 1

# Add a column
pkanban column create 1 "To Do" 0

# Add a card
pkanban card create 1 "First task" --description "Getting started"

# Share a board with a team
pkanban share 1 <team-id>

API Keys

For automation, CI/CD, or giving access to agents, use API keys instead of passwords:

# Create a key (shown only once!)
pkanban apikey create "CI Agent"

# Save it once; subsequent commands use it automatically
pkanban apikey save pkanban_abc123...
pkanban board list

# Or pass it per command
pkanban --api-key pkanban_abc123... board list

API keys can be revoked and reactivated at any time. They're stored securely (bcrypt-hashed) and track their last usage.

Scripting: JSON output

--json makes any command print the raw API response instead of formatted text, so scripts never have to scrape prose for values like IDs:

pkanban board create "Roadmap" --json
pkanban board get 1 --json | jq '.columns[] | {id, name}'

PKANBAN_OUTPUT=json does the same for a whole run:

export PKANBAN_OUTPUT=json

The flag works in either position (pkanban --json board list and pkanban board list --json are equivalent). In JSON mode stdout carries only the response, and errors go to stderr as {"error": ..., "status": ...} with a non-zero exit code — so stdout is always safe to pipe into a parser.

pkanban login --json deliberately omits the access token: it is already saved to ~/.pkanban.yaml, and stdout is what CI logs capture.

Command Reference

Self-Hosting

Want to run your own server? Here's how:

1. Clone and setup

git clone https://github.com/japherwocky/pkanban.git
cd pkanban
python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate  # Windows: venv\Scripts\activate
pip install -r backend/requirements.txt
cd frontend && npm install && cd ..

2. Initialize and run

python manage.py init
python manage.py user-create admin mypassword --admin
python manage.py server

The server runs at http://localhost:8000 by default.

3. Connect the CLI

The CLI defaults to the hosted service, so point it at your local server first, then log in (you'll be prompted for the password):

pkanban config --url http://localhost:8000
pkanban login admin

Development

# Run the server with auto-reload
python manage.py server

# Run frontend dev server (hot reload)
cd frontend && npm run dev

# Run tests
python -m pytest backend/tests/

Database commands

python manage.py init          # Create tables
python manage.py wipe          # Drop and recreate tables
python manage.py status        # Check database status
python manage.py user-create <user> <pass> [--admin]

API Reference

The backend exposes a REST API at /api/:

Authentication

• POST /api/token - Login (returns JWT)
• X-API-Key header - Alternative auth via API key

API Keys

• GET /api/api-keys - List your keys
• POST /api/api-keys - Create a key
• DELETE /api/api-keys/{id} - Revoke a key
• POST /api/api-keys/{id}/activate - Reactivate a key

Boards

• GET /api/boards - List accessible boards
• POST /api/boards - Create a board
• GET /api/boards/{id} - Get board details
• POST /api/boards/{id} - Update board
• DELETE /api/boards/{id} - Delete board

Columns

• POST /api/columns - Create column
• PUT /api/columns/{id} - Update column
• DELETE /api/columns/{id} - Delete column

Cards

• GET /api/cards/{id} - Get one card with its description and comments
• POST /api/cards - Create card
• PUT /api/cards/{id} - Update card
• DELETE /api/cards/{id} - Delete card

For multi-tenant organization details, see docs/multi-tenant.md.