kanban-tui

kanban-tui is a customizable task manager in the terminal.

Demo GIF

If you want to test kanban-tui you can directly run this demo yourself with the help of uv using uvx with

uvx kanban-tui demo

Features

Expand for more detailed information

Following the XDG basedir convention

kanban-tui utilizes xdg-base-dirs user_config_dir to save the config file and user_data_dir for the sqlite database.

Customizable Board

kanban-tui comes with four default columns (Ready, Doing, Done, Archive) but can be customized to your needs. More columns can be created via the Settings-Tab. Also the visibility of columns can be toggled. Deletion of existing columns is only possible, if no task is present in the column you want to delete.

Multi Board Support

With version v0.4.0 kanban-tui allows the creation of multiple boards. Use B on the Kanban Board-Tab to get an overview over all Boards including the amount of columns, tasks and the closest Due Date. Each Board starts with the default columns, but the columns are individual for each board.

Task Management

When on the Kanban Board-Tab you can create (n), edit (e), delete (d) or move (H, L) tasks between columns.

Database Information

The current database schema looks as follows. The Audit table is filled automatically based on triggers.

erDiagram
    tasks }|--o| categories: have
    tasks }|--|| audits: updates
    tasks {
        INTEGER task_id PK
        INTEGER board_id FK
        INTEGER column FK
        INTEGER category FK
        TEXT title
        TEXT description
        DATETIME creation_date
        DATETIME start_date
        DATETIME finish_date
        DATETIME due_date
    }
    boards }|--o{ columns: contains
    boards }|--|| audits: updates
    boards {
        INTEGER board_id PK
        INTEGER reset_column FK
        INTEGER start_column FK
        INTEGER finish_column FK
        TEXT name
        TEXT icon
        DATETIME creation_date
    }
    columns ||--|{ tasks: contains
    columns }|--|| audits: updates
    columns {
        INTEGER column_id PK
        INTEGER board_id FK
        TEXT name
        BOOLEAN visible
        INTEGER position
    }
    categories {
        INTEGER category_id PK
        TEXT name
        TEXT color
    }
    audits {
        INTEGER event_id PK
        DATETIME event_timestamp
        TEXT event_type
        TEXT object_type
        INTEGER object_id
        TEXT object_field
        TEXT value_old
        TEXT value_new
    }

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Visual Summary

To give you an overview over the amount of tasks you created, started or finished, kanban-tui provides an Overview-Tab to show you a bar-chart on a monthly, weekly or daily scale. It also can be changed to a stacked bar chart per category. This feature is powered by the plotext library with help of textual-plotext.

Installation

You can install kanban-tui with one of the following options:

# not recommended
pip install kanban-tui

pipx install kanban-tui

uv tool install kanban-tui

I recommend using pipx or uv to install CLI Tools into an isolated environment.

To be able to use kanban-tui in your browser with the --web-flag, the optional dependency textual-serve is needed. You can add this to kanban-tui by installing the optional web-dependency with the installer of your choice, for example with uv:

uv tool install 'kanban-tui[web]'

Usage

Normal Mode

Starts kanban-tui with a starting board. The application can be closed by pressing ctrl+q. Pass the --web flag and follow the shown link to open kanban-tui in your browser.

ktui

Demo Mode

Creates a temporary Config and Database which is populated with example Tasks to play around. Kanban-Tui will delete the temporary Config and Database after closing the application. Pass the --clean flag to start with an empty demo app. Pass the --keep flag to tell kanban-tui not to delete the temporary Database and Config. Pass the --web flag and follow the shown link to open kanban-tui in your browser.

ktui demo

Clear Database and Configuration

If you want to start with a fresh database and configuration file, you can use this command to delete your current database and configuration file.

ktui clear

Show Location of Data and Config Files

kanban-tui follows the XDG basedir-spec and uses the xdg-base-dirs package to get the locations for data and config files. You can use this command to check where the files are, that kanban-tui creates on your system.

ktui info

Feedback and Issues

Feel free to reach out and share your feedback, or open an Issue, if something doesn't work as expected. Also check the Changelog for new updates.