kanzo

Kanzo is a kanban board in your browser and an MCP server in one 4.7 MB program, so you and your coding agents work on the same tasks: on one computer, or on one board shared by all of them. No account, no server, no setup: run kanzo and it works.

You never edit a file. Everything is done in one of three places:

• the board, in your browser, for you;
• MCP, for your agents: they take tasks, move cards and comment;
• the kanzo command, for the terminal and scripts.

Install

[!TIP] Just ask your agent: "install Kanzo from github.com/emanuele-em/kanzo."

curl -LsSf https://github.com/emanuele-em/kanzo/releases/latest/download/kanzo-installer.sh | sh

For macOS and Linux, including every Raspberry Pi. On Windows, in PowerShell:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -c "irm https://github.com/emanuele-em/kanzo/releases/latest/download/kanzo-installer.ps1 | iex"

Both add Kanzo to your PATH, for terminals you open from then on. To use it in the one you installed from, run source $HOME/.cargo/env (env.fish in fish), or open a new one.

Or download the Windows zip from the latest release and put kanzo.exe in a folder named bin on your PATH, like %USERPROFILE%\.cargo\bin: the board updates itself only there.

Every release is signed by GitHub: check a download with gh attestation verify <file> --repo emanuele-em/kanzo. Or with Cargo:

cargo install kanzo

Start

[!TIP] Just ask your agent: "start Kanzo and keep it running at login."

kanzo

The board opens at http://localhost:4242. That's all the setup there is: the first run creates ~/kanzo, and the whole board lives in it.

Key	Does
n	New task
/ or ⌘K	Search every project
f	Filter the board; ↵ keeps the filter
Tab	Move to the description
⌘↵	Save and close
Esc	Keep what you typed in a description or tags; cancel other fields

Use the board

[!TIP] Just ask your agent: "mark kanzo#12 as human, and set its URL to github.com/acme/api/pull/482."

• Select tasks: ⌘-click them, or drag on empty board space, then move, tag or delete them together. Drag one and the rest follow.
• List view: the list icon shows the same tasks as rows to sort and group.
• Human tasks: mark a task Human and agents leave it to you. The person icon shows only those.
• Images: paste or drop one into a task or a comment.
• Links: give a task a URL, like its pull request, and open it from its card. Agents set it with url.
• Files: [name](file:///path) in a description or comment opens in your editor.
• Task panel: drag its left edge to resize it, or expand it to the whole window. Double-click the edge to reset it.
• Sidebar: the panel button beside search folds it to its icons. Drag a project to reorder the list, for everyone on a shared board.
• App: in Chrome or Edge, Install app at the bottom of the sidebar makes the board an app of its own. ⌘1–⌘8 pick a project, ⌘9 the last one, ⌘0 all of them. On macOS, kanzo then opens it instead of a tab, on the default port.
• Updates: when a new version is out, the sidebar offers it. One click installs it.

Connect your agents

[!TIP] Just ask your agent: "add Kanzo as your MCP server," then restart it.

claude mcp add kanzo --scope user -- kanzo mcp   # Claude Code
codex mcp add kanzo -- kanzo mcp                 # Codex

Other MCP clients: run kanzo mcp (apps like Raycast need the full path, from which kanzo), or use the running board at http://localhost:4242/mcp.

Then ask: "take the next task from kanzo and do it." The agent:

• finds the project from the git remote of its repo; link more repos from the project's ⋯ menu;
• moves the card to doing and comments as it works;
• on review, comments how to resume its session.

Park ideas in a backlog

Turn on Backlog in Settings for a column agents leave alone, until you move its tasks to todo.

Make a task wait on others

[!TIP] Just ask your agent: "make kanzo#12 wait on #10 and #11."

• Set it: type in Waits on, in a task's panel, to find tasks in its project and pick them. Agents pass waits_on.
• Until those tasks are done: next_task skips it, and its card is dimmed and says what it waits on. You can still move it yourself.
• What counts: only done. A task in review still blocks.
• Find them: filter by is:waiting.

Filter and search

[!TIP] Just ask your agent: "take the next kanzo task tagged billing," or "list what's left in kanzo with tag:billing."

The board's filter (f), search (/) and the filter of list_tasks and next_task all understand the same words, like on GitHub:

• Every part must match.
• - negates a qualifier: tag:billing -status:done.
• Qualifiers turn blue as you type them.

Qualifier	Finds	Example
tag:	that exact tag	tag:bug, tag:"needs review"
status:	a column	status:doing
project:	a project	project:api
title:, description:, url:, comment:	text in that field	title:login, comment:"on hold"
id:, comments:, images:	a number, or a range	id:12, comments:>2, images:1..3
created:, updated:	a date, or a range	created:2026-11-05, updated:<2026-01-31
is:human	tasks for you, not agents	-is:human
is:waiting	tasks waiting on unfinished ones	-is:waiting
has:, no:	description, tags, url, comments or images	has:url, no:tags

Anything else is plain text. Use quotes for a phrase, "on hold", or to look for text that reads like a qualifier, "tag:bug". Agents can't filter through a property you've hidden in Settings.

Use it on several computers

Two ways, neither with any setup: share one board live, or sync it between machines.

This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗