Hunch Board

One free board for planning a project: boxes and arrows, UML, decisions, flowcharts, event storming, C4, screens, checklists, tables, code, images and any other file, with the logos of 200+ technologies. It is one text file, board.hunch, so you and the AI you already use read and change the same thing.

The board itself runs at https://www.hunchboard.dev/board, with no account. This repository is the CLI, the skill and an example board an assistant can read without opening the site.

Run it

Node 20 or newer. Nothing else to install.

npx hunch-board init
npx hunch-board check --json

init writes board.hunch, copies the skill to .claude/skills/hunch/SKILL.md, and adds a note to AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md, so the next assistant that opens the folder finds the board.

The same file, with no package registry:

node hunch.mjs init
node hunch.mjs check --json
node hunch.mjs render
node hunch.mjs render --mermaid
node hunch.mjs drift
node hunch.mjs search telegram
node hunch.mjs clone ride-hailing-like-uber
node hunch.mjs mcp

What is in this repository

File	What it is
hunch.mjs	The CLI. One file. check --json prints { ok, issues } for an assistant to correct the lines.
SKILL.md	How to read and write a .hunch file.
HUNCH.md	The short note init leaves in a project.
examples/shop/	A project: a board with a decision, a UML class, a checklist and a file, and a board inside one of its boxes.
src/	The source of the CLI. npm ci && npm run build makes hunch.mjs, and the CI checks they match.
action.yml	The GitHub Action for hunch drift.
CHANGELOG.md	What changed in each version.

The one-page grammar is https://www.hunchboard.dev/grammar. Files on a board live in assets/ next to it, and the board keeps their path.

Any box can open into a board of its own: inside api boards/api.hunch on the outer file is the link. Any technology works as a type: alerts: Telegram "Alerts".

Keep the board true

hunch drift names the services the code depends on that no board shows. It reads package.json, requirements*.txt, pyproject.toml, go.mod, Gemfile, composer.json, pom.xml, build.gradle and compose files, so it works across languages. It reads manifests, not the code, so a raw HTTP call is not seen, and it knows a fixed list of 22 services.

To hear about it on each pull request, add .github/workflows/hunch.yml:

name: Hunch Board
on: pull_request
permissions:
  contents: read
  pull-requests: write
jobs:
  drift:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: Chyper00/hunch-board@v1

It comments only when the pull request adds such a service. Set fail-on-drift: "true" under with: to fail the check too.

Community

People share boards at https://www.hunchboard.dev/community: Uber, WhatsApp, Netflix, RAG pipelines, SaaS starters and practice for system design interviews. hunch search finds them and hunch clone copies one into a new folder.

MCP

The server runs on your machine and reads the board.hunch in the folder you opened.

claude mcp add hunch-board -- npx hunch-board mcp

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "hunch-board": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["hunch-board", "mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Tools: read_board, write_board, check_board (json: true for { ok, issues }), render_board, search_community, clone_board.

Names

Search for Hunch Board and board.hunch. The npm package name is hunch-board. Other projects named Hunch are not this one.