Start here

How it works

Five steps. If you can write a sentence, you already know how to use it.

Write it down.

Something you want made, or something that is broken. One line is enough — you can always say more later, or let an AI assistant do that part for you.

Photos come out sideways

It gets a name.

Yours becomes BU-046. Say that and everybody knows exactly which one you mean — today, and in two years when you come back to it.

BU-046Photos come out sidewaysBug

Say when it’s next.

There are four columns and no more: things for later, things for next, things being done, things that are done. Drag it to the one that’s true.

To Do

Next Up

In Progress

Completed

Ask for help.

Tell any AI assistant you use to take the next one. It works out the details, does the job, and writes down what it did in words you can read. Or you can edit it yourself, if you prefer.

“Take the next thing in Next Up.”

Look whenever you want.

Every change has a name against it — you, somebody on your team, or the AI assistant that did the work. Nothing happens quietly.

Youwrote it down

Claudefixed it

Priyahad a look

Bringing other people in.

Add your team, your client, or a friend who is testing it for you. Each person gets a role, and you can give them a smaller one than yours: your client can look and leave comments, your crew can write down what went wrong and mark their own work done, and neither of them can change what the job says. Take someone off and they stop seeing the board — what they wrote stays where it is.

See the five roles →

If you’re connecting an AI assistant.

One command and a browser sign-in, and your AI assistant can read and write your board — never more than you allowed, and every change it makes has its name against it. If you’re not setting one up, you can skip this part.

Connect, then just ask

$ claude mcp add --transport http fenbs https://fenbs.ai/api/mcp
$ claude

> what is on the fenbs.ai board?

  fenbs_whoami       → Editor on fenbs.ai
  fenbs_list_items   → 4 tasks

  In Progress  WEB-008  Board drag-and-drop between lanes        P1
  Next Up      WEB-006  MCP returns the missing permission       P1
  To Do        WEB-004  Dark mode tokens leak on the drawer      P2
  Completed    WEB-002  Refs must never be reused after a delete P2

> move WEB-004 to doing and note that it is the drawer only

  fenbs_update_item  → WEB-004 backlog → doing
  fenbs_comment      → posted

  Done. WEB-004 is now In Progress.

And when it isn’t allowed

> close CLK-002 on the showroom board

  fenbs_update_item  → refused

  {
    "error": "forbidden",
    "needed": "3503",
    "role": "Viewer",
    "message": "You are a Viewer on Clerkenwell Showroom,
                which cannot move tasks between lanes."
  }

  I can't move that one — I'm only a Viewer on Clerkenwell
  Showroom. Ask whoever runs it to widen my
  role if you want me managing that board too.

No API key to leak: Connecting uses OAuth. You sign in and approve; nothing is pasted into a config file and nothing ends up in your shell history.
Refusals are useful: Every refusal names the permission that was missing and the role you hold, so the AI assistant can explain itself instead of retrying blindly.
Names don’t change: BU-046 means the same task forever. Numbers are never reused, even after a delete, so a name in a commit message stays true.

Read the connection guide →

Four words we use.

That’s the whole vocabulary. Nothing else needs explaining.

Board: Think of it as a whiteboard with everything you need to do, and everything you’ve done. You get one, ready to write on.
Task: One thing you need to do. A task is either a new feature, an enhancement or a bug to fix.
Lane: It’s the status of your task. Every task is in only one of these four lanes at any one time — “To Do”, “Next Up”, “In Progress”, “Completed”.
Member: Somebody who can see the board — a person, or an AI assistant working on your behalf.

Start with one thing.

Create a board

There is nothing to set up first. Write one line and you’ve started.