kanban-ai

A Markdown-based Kanban board plugin for Claude Code.

Cards live as .md files in a kanban/ directory in your project. The board is derived at read-time — no database, no server. Status is tracked in YAML frontmatter.

Install

Requires Claude Code v1.0.33+ (claude --version to check).

From a marketplace

If this plugin is available in a marketplace you've added:

/plugin install kanban@marketplace-name

From a local clone

Clone the repo and load it directly during development or personal use:

BASH

git clone https://github.com/mattjoyce/kanban-skill.git
claude --plugin-dir ./kanban-skill

You can also load multiple plugins at once:

BASH

claude --plugin-dir ./kanban-skill --plugin-dir ./other-plugin

Verify installation

Once loaded, run /help inside Claude Code. You should see kanban:kanban-ai listed. The skill is model-invoked, so Claude will use it automatically when you discuss tasks or kanban boards.

Usage

The skill is model-invoked — Claude will use it automatically when you ask about tasks, cards, or your kanban board. You can also trigger it explicitly:

> create a new kanban card for implementing user auth
> show me the board
> move card 3 to doing
> what cards are blocked?

The plugin stores cards in a kanban/ directory in your project root. Create it if it doesn't exist — or Claude will create it for you.

Card Fields

Field	Required	Description
`id`	Yes	Auto-increment integer. Max existing + 1, start at 1.
`status`	Yes	`backlog` · `todo` · `doing` · `done` · `archive`
`priority`	No	`High` or `Normal` (default)
`blocked_by`	No	List of card IDs that must be `done` first. e.g. `[2, 5]`
`assignee`	No	Who owns the card
`due_date`	No	Target date (YYYY-MM-DD)
`tags`	No	List of labels

Example Card

kanban/setup-ci.md:

MARKDOWN

---
id: 3
status: todo
priority: High
blocked_by: [1, 2]
tags: [devops]
---

# Set Up CI Pipeline

Configure GitHub Actions for automated testing.

Rules

A card cannot move to doing until all cards in its blocked_by list are done.
IDs are assigned by scanning existing cards and incrementing the highest.
Cards maintain a ## Narrative section — a durable log of decisions, discoveries, and outcomes.

Plugin Structure

kanban-skill/
├── .claude-plugin/
│   └── plugin.json          # Plugin manifest
├── skills/
│   └── kanban-ai/
│       ├── SKILL.md          # Skill definition and instructions
│       └── scripts/          # Board view and search utilities
├── kanban/                   # Example card storage (per-project)
├── README.md
└── LICENSE

Bundled Scripts

The plugin includes helper scripts for board operations. Claude uses these automatically, but you can also run them directly:

Script	Purpose
`view_board.sh`	Display board grouped by status
`search_by_tag.sh`	Find cards by tag
`search_content.sh`	Full-text search across cards
`show_blocked.sh`	List blocked cards and their blockers
`list_tags.sh`	Show tag usage with counts

Scripts are located at skills/kanban-ai/scripts/ within the plugin directory.

License

Apache-2.0

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md.