How it works

From the first card to the terminal

Kanban Planner needs no setup, no assistant and no account. Open it, create a plan, get going. If you want, hang Claude Code on the same board afterwards.

First steps

Three moves and the board is standing

There are three levels — plan, bucket, card. There is no more structure than that, and none is needed.

Create a plan

A plan is an undertaking: “Projects”, “Household”, “Taxes 2026”. The free tier comes with one; Pro gives you as many as you like.

Cut your buckets and colour them

Buckets are your columns. Whether Backlog → In progress → Done or Monday to Friday is your call. New cards take on the colour of their bucket, so the board stays readable at a glance.

Fill the cards

A title is enough. Checklist, dates, priority, labels, attachments and a goal come along when you need them. Dragging changes more than the position: move a card to “Done” and it closes.

Day to day

The day, the week, the goal

Morning: fill My Day

You decide once what counts today. The rest stays on the board and keeps out of it. By evening the day’s list is empty again — the board is exactly as it was.

In between: tick off from the widget

On the Home and Lock Screen and in Notification Center, the checklist is tappable. One tap does it; the app can stay closed.

Sunday: let the week lay itself out

The week plan takes due date, goal, priority and size and builds a week that fits the capacity you set. You correct instead of sort.

Model Context Protocol

Hang Claude on the same board

The MCP helper is a small program for the Mac. It opens the same data store as the Mac app — nothing travels through anyone else’s server, because there is none. Whatever Claude changes is on your iPhone seconds later, through iCloud.

Install the Mac app and open it once

On first launch the app creates its data store and signs in to iCloud. Only then does the helper have anything to read.

Download the MCP helper

The helper is downloaded separately from the app — Developer ID signed and notarised by Apple. macOS 15 or later.

Register it with Claude Code

One command in the terminal, and Claude knows your plans. For Claude Desktop and other MCP clients, put the same path into their configuration.

$ curl -fsSL https://kanban.kristmanntechnologies.de/install.sh | bash

Talk instead of type

From here on Claude reads and writes straight into your plans — no export, no clipboard, nothing copied out of a chat window.

~/development/kanban-plannerMCP
Tick off “Write the pricing page” and add “Store screenshots” for Thursday.update_card “Write the pricing page” → Donecreate_card “Store screenshots”    Bucket “This week” · Thu 4 Sep · High✓ Done. It is already on your iPhone.

Claude cannot delete. The helper has no tool for removing or archiving cards — that stays with you. An assistant that tidies up is an assistant that loses things.

Where data lives

Where all of this sits

On your device and — if you use syncing — in your own private iCloud database. There is no point along the way where your cards would pass us.

iPhoneiCloud · privateMacour server
No accountNo trackingFully usable offline

Get it. Open your terminal.

The free tier needs no account — your first board can be standing in two minutes.