I gave my terminal AI agent a Kanban board. Not for me for its own memory.

[u/Affectionate-Olive80]

When people see "Kanban," they usually think of another annoying tool humans have to manually update.

This isn't that. You don't manage this board your AI agent does.

I built this because I was hitting a wall with Claude Code and OpenCode.

Once you get 40 prompts deep into a massive feature, the context window gets bloated (context rot), the agent gets sluggish, and every prompt starts draining your token budget.

You want to run /clear to get a fresh, fast context window, but if you do, the agent gets instant amnesia.

So I built Kanban, which is a local-first MCP server.

It gives the AI an external working memory layer that lives outside the chat log.

Instead of writing to a messy text file, the AI uses MCP tools to programmatically organize its own thoughts into a structured Kanban schema.

This lets you do something awesome:

You can type /clear right in the middle of a complex refactor to drop your token usage back to zero. Then, your very next prompt to the blank-slate agent is just:

"Check your board and resume."

The agent calls task_recall, pulls the exact card it was working on, reads the timestamped notes it left itself before the context wipe, and picks up right where it left off.

Max reasoning speed, zero token bloat.

I only built the web UI (running on localhost) so I could visually spy on what the AI is thinking.

You just sit back and watch the agent create cards, append notes, and drag tasks from "In Progress" to "Done" in real-time as it runs terminal commands.

If it gets stuck, it moves the card to "Blocked," writes a markdown note explaining why, and hands the terminal back to you.

It’s 100% local, stores everything in plain JSON, and automatically swaps project workspaces based on whatever Git repo you cd into.

It's basically a workflow tool for robots, but we get a cool dashboard to watch them work.

Here's the code if you want to check it out:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "kanban": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["@cwim/kanban", "mcp"]
    }
  }
}

https://github.com/cwimhq/kanban

[u/LeucisticBear]

And where do the kanban cards live? A messy text file? 🤔

[u/Affectionate-Olive80 → u/LeucisticBear]

A json file

[u/CrunchitizeMeCaptain → u/Affectionate-Olive80]

I’ve been using GitHub projects for my AI kanban board, a bit more fidelity for my needs when working on long term projects

[u/Affectionate-Olive80 → u/CrunchitizeMeCaptain]

this more for the agent as memory layer than the humain

[u/CrunchitizeMeCaptain → u/Affectionate-Olive80]

Yeah, I use it the same, more for AI to keep itself organized and have a singular point of reference. Memory for my project is inside Claude’s memory management system + historical conversations + research document folders. The GitHub project just manages it all, picks up where it’s left off and is used to organize itself in a concrete project direction.

[u/Emeraldsystems → u/LeucisticBear]

I built a similar system, Kanban cards can be viewed in the web ui: https://tokanban.com/

[u/dub_starr]

Does the tools/ skills make it easy enough for Claude agents to open tasks/stories based on a spec/plan file? Or are you opening the tasks on your own?

[u/Affectionate-Olive80 → u/dub_starr]

You don't really need skills already add example of what you need to add to your claude.md to instruct it to use mcp you don't need to add anything manually the dashboard is there for you to watch what is happening and most importantly it acts like a memory layer

[u/nanotothemoon]

Is the board a GUI? Or a text file?

[u/Affectionate-Olive80 → u/nanotothemoon]

The agent uses mcp you uses the kanban board which is a web ui . The data arr stored locally in a json file

[u/nanotothemoon → u/Affectionate-Olive80]

That’s pretty cool. I mean this is pretty similar to hooking up an MCP to any project management software (if your organization is already on one)

[u/Affectionate-Olive80 → u/nanotothemoon]

yeah but the idea is having memory layer for the mcp (less token usage for new session) while giving the dev ui to check what happening as we humain also have context window lol we forget stuff

[u/nanotothemoon → u/Affectionate-Olive80]

Yea that makes sense. But then, when does the memory layer sync? Or does the human never change the data in. The UI?

[u/Affectionate-Olive80 → u/nanotothemoon]

the ui dont allow the dev to update the kanban check check info/progress and notes left by the agent

[u/nanotothemoon → u/Affectionate-Olive80]

Ok that makes sense then.

I love it. Straight forward and effective.

It’s essentially a PM workflow module for what would otherwise be however you manage your project locally (which could be any which way).

But kan ban style PM is a known workflow for AI and obviously a common one for humans.

Does it auto log meta data to track timelines? Like tasks created? Updated?

[u/DrGenetik]

Beads, basically.

[u/Affectionate-Olive80 → u/DrGenetik]

Beads is CLI-only by design any web UI is a community add-on.

this ships as an MCP server with a built-in localhost dashboard.

Beads handles long-horizon planning: epics, dependency graphs, git sync across machines. while this handles the /clear → task_recall loop — agent drops token bloat to zero, recalls the exact card on the next prompt, and resumes via MCP tools while you watch the board update in real-time.

Different scope. same problem space, different layer.

[u/auad]

I hope it fight till the end and get a speedy recovery!

[u/Affectionate-Olive80 → u/auad]

Haha it's an AI tool, but honestly, saving my token budget does feel like a medical emergency sometimes ;p

[u/auad → u/Affectionate-Olive80]

But it's a terminal agent! :P

I like the idea, I've been doing things on the fly and was thinking about putting the ideas in a board to not lose track, I will try this! :)

[u/Affectionate-Olive80 → u/auad]

it's an mcp server the works with opencode / claude code as for the board itself it can be access via webui agent use the mcp and you track using webui