Flux: A Kanban Board That Speaks MCP

AI coding agents are good at writing code. They’re bad at knowing what to work on next.

Give Claude Code a well-scoped task and it executes. But ask it to “work on the project” and it flounders. There’s no shared understanding of priorities, dependencies, or what’s actually ready to be worked on.

My mate Steve had an idea: a Kanban board designed for AI agents. I loved it so much I chipped in. The result is Flux.

What Flux Does

Flux is task management with first-class AI integration:

• MCP server - Claude Code (and other MCP clients) can read tasks, update status, add comments
• CLI-first - flux ready shows unblocked tasks sorted by priority. Pipe it to your agent.
• Git-native sync - Tasks sync via flux pull / flux push on a dedicated branch. JSON or SQLite storage - your choice.
• Dependencies - Tasks can depend on other tasks. Blocked tasks don’t show up in flux ready.
• Priorities - P0/P1/P2 levels. Agents work on P0s first.
• Web dashboard - View the board, drag tasks, manage projects. Public users get readonly, authenticated users get full access.
• Agent-friendly - Agents can work the board too. Momentum, a companion TUI, lets agents pick tasks reactively. More on that soon.

Flux isn’t just another Kanban board - it’s the open-source engine for the future of work.

— Steve, Flux creator

Why Not Linear/Jira/GitHub Issues?

Those tools are designed for humans coordinating with humans. They have:

• Complex UIs with lots of features agents don’t need
• OAuth flows and API tokens that are painful to configure
• No native MCP support
• Sync models that don’t map to local-first development

Flux is deliberately minimal. A CLI that works offline, stores to a local database, syncs via git or a remote server, and exposes tasks via MCP.

The CLI

# Initialize in a repo
flux init

# Show unblocked tasks sorted by priority
flux ready

# Create a task
flux task create "Fix login bug" -P 0

# Mark it in progress
flux task start abc123

# Mark it done
flux task done abc123 --note "Fixed null check in auth handler"

# Sync with team
flux pull && flux push "Completed auth fixes"

The --note flag is useful for agent memory. Comments persist on tasks, so context survives across sessions.

Infra? Your Call

Flux adapts to how you want to work:

• Git-only - No server needed. flux pull / flux push syncs via a flux-data branch. Zero infra.
• Self-hosted - Run the server for a web dashboard and SSE updates. Your machine, your data.

Storage is similarly unopinionated - JSON for simplicity, SQLite for concurrency. Pick what fits.

Tasks live here, but how they get done? That’s up to you.

— Steve

What Flux Doesn’t Do

Being honest about scope:

• Not a full PM tool - No sprints, story points, or burndown charts
• No user accounts - Single API key auth, no team permissions (yet)
• No mobile app - CLI and web only
• Early stage - We’re actively building this

Dogfooding

We’re using Flux to build Flux. The public board is at app.getflux.dev.

Current tasks include multi-API key support, web authentication, and publishing workflows. All managed in Flux, executed by AI agents, visible on the board.

It’s a good test of whether the tool actually works for AI-assisted development.

Try It

Docker/Podman (quickest):

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sirsjg/flux/main/scripts/quickstart.sh | bash

Starts the web UI at localhost:3000 and MCP server. Add to Claude Code:

claude mcp add flux -- docker run -i --rm -v flux-data:/app/packages/data sirsjg/flux-mcp

npm (CLI-first):

npm install -g flux-tasks  # or: bun install -g flux-tasks
flux init  # in your project

From source:

git clone https://github.com/sirsjg/flux && cd flux
bun install && bun run build
cd packages/cli && bun link

Check the installation docs for more options.

Links

• GitHub: github.com/sirsjg/flux
• Live board: app.getflux.dev
• Docs: github.com/sirsjg/flux/tree/main/docs