Kaneo

Kaneo is an open-source project management platform built for teams who want a clean, fast tool they actually own. It provides kanban and list views, task assignments, priorities, labels, due dates, and time tracking — the essentials for running a sprint or a backlog — without the layers of unnecessary configuration that slow teams down in tools like Jira or ClickUp.

Under the hood, Kaneo is a full-stack TypeScript monorepo: a Hono API backed by PostgreSQL via Drizzle ORM, a React frontend using TanStack Router and React Query, and a plugin architecture that connects task events to Slack, Discord, Telegram, GitHub, Gitea, and generic webhooks. Real-time collaboration is handled through WebSockets, and the entire system ships as a single Docker image for straightforward self-hosting.

Kaneo has grown into a serious team collaboration tool, now featuring workspace-level RBAC with editable roles, MCP server integration for AI assistant access, workflow automation rules, global search, i18n support, and a cloud option for teams that want a managed instance. The project releases multiple times per week and has an active Discord community and contributor base.

What You Get

• Kanban and List Views - Tasks move between customizable columns on a drag-and-drop board, with synchronized list view for teams that prefer a flat backlog over visual cards.
• GitHub and Gitea Issue Sync - Connect repositories to import issues with labels, assignees, and status, then map commit events to column transitions via configurable workflow rules.
• Multi-Channel Notifications - Plugin architecture dispatches task events to Slack, Discord, Telegram, and generic webhooks, so your team gets notified wherever they already work.
• Role-Based Access Control - Workspaces ship with viewer, member, admin, and owner roles whose permissions are editable in the UI, with fine-grained control over project, task, label, and workspace operations.
• Time Tracking - Log start and end times against tasks with duration calculation, giving teams a lightweight record of effort without a separate time tool.
• MCP Server Integration - Exposes a Model Context Protocol server so AI assistants can read and create tasks directly through the API using standard bearer auth and device authorization flow.
• Workflow Automation Rules - Define rules that automatically move tasks to target columns when integration events fire, connecting external developer workflows to project state.
• Global Search - Query across tasks, projects, comments, and activities in a single request, returning ranked results scoped to the authenticated user’s workspaces.

Common Use Cases

• Engineering team sprint planning - A small startup tracks feature tasks and bugs in a Kaneo board, links the project to their GitHub repo so new issues appear automatically, and receives status-change notifications in their team Slack channel.
• Open-source project maintenance - A maintainer syncs their GitHub issue backlog into Kaneo, assigns priorities and labels, and uses workflow rules to move tasks to ‘In Review’ when pull request events arrive from the integration webhook.
• Freelancer client project tracking - An independent developer self-hosts Kaneo on a VPS, creates separate workspaces per client, and shares read-only project links with clients who want visibility without a full account.
• Internal IT ticketing - An ops team replaces a spreadsheet with Kaneo boards for incident and change request tracking, using time entries to log resolution effort and Discord notifications for on-call awareness.
• AI-assisted task management - A developer connects their Kaneo instance to an MCP-compatible AI assistant, letting the assistant query open tasks and create new ones from natural language descriptions during a planning session.

Under The Hood

Architecture Kaneo is structured as a Turbo monorepo containing a Hono HTTP API, a React single-page application, shared permissions and email packages, and a plugin registry that decouples integration logic from core domain operations. The API is organized into feature modules — each with its own controllers, validation schemas, and database access — wired together in a single Hono app factory. An AsyncLocalStorage-based event context threads the originating user identity through async operations, while an in-process EventEmitter bus drives the plugin system so integrations receive task lifecycle events without coupling to controller code. WebSocket connections are managed per-project in a separate adapter layer, and a cron scheduler handles periodic jobs like due date reminders.

Tech Stack The API runs on Node.js with Hono as the HTTP framework, extended by hono-openapi for automatic OpenAPI 3.0 spec generation and valibot for request validation. Drizzle ORM provides type-safe PostgreSQL access with explicit schema definitions, Drizzle Kit for migrations, and pg as the database client. Authentication is handled by Better Auth with API key and organization plugins, and S3-compatible object storage via the AWS SDK is used for file uploads. The frontend is built with React 19, Vite 7, TanStack Router, TanStack Query, Zustand for local state, and Tiptap as a rich-text editor with syntax highlighting extensions. Tailwind CSS v4 handles styling. The entire stack is TypeScript throughout, with Biome enforcing formatting and lint rules across all packages.

Code Quality Kaneo has a solid testing foundation with Vitest used for both unit and integration tests across the monorepo. The integration test suite runs against a real database and validates authentication flows, RBAC enforcement, task creation, project access, and OpenAPI spec shape. Unit tests cover database URL resolution, database startup sequencing, and permissions logic. Error handling is explicit — HTTP exceptions with typed status codes are thrown at controller boundaries, and the event bus catches and logs handler failures without crashing the server. Biome with Husky pre-commit hooks enforces code style, and commitlint enforces conventional commits. Some modules have thinner test coverage than others, and the test suite does not yet include end-to-end browser tests.

What Makes It Unique Kaneo ships an MCP server alongside the REST API, making it one of the few self-hosted project management tools natively accessible to AI coding assistants via the Model Context Protocol. The workspace RBAC system is built on Better Auth’s organization plugin but extends it with database-persisted, UI-editable role definitions, so admins can adjust permissions without redeploying. Workflow automation rules create a declarative bridge between external integration events and project board state, letting teams automate column transitions from GitHub or Gitea without writing code. The plugin registry’s event-subscription pattern allows new integrations to be added without touching core task logic, and the single-image Docker build bundles both API and frontend into one container for deployments that need minimal operational surface.

Self-Hosting

Kaneo is released under the MIT License, which is one of the most permissive open-source licenses available. You can use it commercially, modify the source, redistribute it, and embed it in proprietary systems without any obligation to publish your changes or pay royalties. The only requirement is preserving the copyright notice. There are no contributor license agreements that transfer rights to the project maintainers, and no dual-licensing restrictions that limit self-hosted deployments.

Running Kaneo yourself means taking ownership of the full stack: a Node.js API process, a PostgreSQL database, and optionally an S3-compatible object store for file uploads. The recommended path is Docker Compose with the bundled single-image deployment, or the drim CLI for one-command setups including automatic HTTPS. Kubernetes users can deploy via the included Helm chart. You are responsible for database backups, version upgrades, SSL certificate renewal, and scaling — Kaneo does not bundle any HA tooling, though Drizzle Kit handles schema migrations on startup automatically.

Kaneo also offers a managed cloud tier at cloud.kaneo.app for teams that prefer not to operate their own infrastructure. The cloud version removes the burden of upgrades, backups, and uptime monitoring. Self-hosters do not get SLA guarantees, priority support, or managed disaster recovery, and the community Discord is the primary support channel. For teams evaluating whether to self-host, the operational overhead is modest for small to medium deployments, but teams that need enterprise SLAs or single sign-on with a corporate identity provider should weigh the cloud option or budget for the Better Auth OAuth configuration work.