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Quick Start

Initialise a Kanbn board in your project#

cd my-project-folder
kanbn init

This will create a .kanbn/ folder containing an index file (.kanbn/index.md) and a folder for tasks (.kanbn/tasks/).

Run kanbn init --help for more information on initialising kanbn.

Start adding tasks#

kanbn add -n "My new task"

This will create a task file .kanbn/tasks/my-new-task.md.

Run kanbn add --help for more information on creating tasks.

View the kanbn board#

kanbn board

This will show a kanbn board, something like this:

╭────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────┬────────────────────────╮
│Todo                    │» In Progress            │✓ Done                  │
├────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼────────────────────────┤
│All tasks               │                         │                        │
├────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼────────────────────────┤
│Notifications           │Database schema          │Initialise framework    │
│27 Nov 20, 12:39        │25 Nov 20, 16:08         │21 Nov 20, 19:35        │
│                        │                         │                        │
│Add entity timestamps   │Basic entities           │User auth               │
│25 Nov 20, 11:42        │25 Nov 20, 16:09         │23 Nov 20, 15:29        │
│                        │                         │                        │
│Implement entity UUIDs  │                         │Groups and permissions  │
│26 Nov 20, 22:00        │                         │23 Nov 20, 18:41        │
│                        │                         │                        │
│My new task             │                         │                        │
│26 Nov 20, 19:31        │                         │                        │
╰────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────┴────────────────────────╯

Edit a task#

kanbn edit "my-new-task" -t "Large"

This will add a "Large" tag to the task and modify the task's updated date. If you're using the default settings, this will also affect the task's workload.

Run kanbn edit --help for more information on editing tasks.

Task ids#

Commands that take a task id accept part of one, as long as it matches a single task on the board: kanbn task invoice finds build-invoice-download-endpoint, and says so. If it matches several tasks they're listed instead. kanbn archive and kanbn remove ask before acting on a partial id. See taskIdResolution to make matching stricter or looser.

Leave the id out altogether and you'll be asked to pick the task from a list:

kanbn move

The list only appears in a terminal - never when output is piped, or with --json or --quiet. Set KANBN_NO_INTERACTIVE=1 to turn it off entirely.

Find tasks#

kanbn find --tag "Large" --column "Todo"

Filters are combined with AND, string filters are case-insensitive regular expressions, and dates and numbers can be given twice to search a range. See filtering and sorting for the full model.

Customise the board#

Define a view in your project options to re-arrange, filter or group the board without moving any tasks:

views:
  - name: 'by-assignee'
    lanes:
      - name: 'Me'
        filters:
          assigned: '^my-username$'
      - name: 'Everyone else'
        filters:
          assigned: '^(?!my-username$).*'
kanbn board -v by-assignee

See views for columns, lanes, filters and sorters.

Multiple boards#

A workspace can hold more than one board, all sharing the same pool of tasks:

kanbn init -b design -n "Design Pipeline" -c Ideas -c Designing -c "Signed Off"
kanbn boards

Every board-scoped command takes -b, so a task can sit in In Progress on the main board and Designing on the design board at the same time:

kanbn move my-new-task -b design -c Designing
kanbn board -b design
kanbn boards --tasks

See multiple boards for membership, per-board options and per-board sprints.

Next steps#

Found a mistake? Edit this page on GitHub.