Open source. Local-first. No account.
Signboard is a kanban app that writes Markdown files.
Your work stays portable, scriptable, and yours.
Why build Signboard?
I built Signboard to help me get more done, locally, and not be dependent on the cloud.
Inspired by the “file over app” philosophy, and my love of kanban, Signboard needed to exist.
Each card in Signboard is a Markdown file in a folder on your computer. As you move cards from one list to another the Markdown file moves between folders.
In this modern world of LLMs, agents, CLI, and MCP servers you can directly interact with all of your Signboard data seamlessly on any desktop platform.
Turn cards into executables.
Click to zoom
Calendar and This Week
In addition to the default kanban view, Signboard also has a Calendar and a unique “This Week” view that displays cards and tasks that are due on a specific day.
A slew of features
You won’t believe everything Signboard already does.
Due Dates
Cards and tasks on cards can have due dates.
Custom Labels
Add as many labels, each with their own color, as you’d like.
Multiple Boards
Open multiple boards in tabs to manage more than one project at once.
Custom Themes
Each board can have a personality all its own.
MCP Server
Interact with your boards, lists, and cards using the LLM of your choice.
CLI
Try signboard help to get started.
Notifications
Get notified when cards or tasks are due.
Keyboard Shortcuts
For those that like to keep their hands in one place.
Duplicate cards
Create card templates and quickly duplicate them.
Archive cards
Clean up the clutter by archiving cards you no longer need.
Dark Mode
Yes. It has dark mode. Oh, and you can customize it.
Search & Sort
Quickly find the cards you’re looking for.
Get it free
No sign up. No hassle. Just start using Signboard.
Signboard is free for personal use.
For commercial use I kindly ask that you pay per seat.
devlog
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Signboard 1.0.0 is available now. Free for personal use. One-time payment if you use it commercially. I hope people like it. I’ll write more about it soon.
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Just released Signboard 0.4.0 that adds due dates to cards and lays the foundation for labels and other card metadata. I’m so happy to have due dates since Signboard is now my daily driver. The next build will be a code refactor and bug fixes from this release.
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Signboard – A kanban app that writes Markdown files
Update March 2026: Signboard 1.0 is available now! I’ve wanted this for a long time – a kanban style productivity desktop app that writes Markdown files to disk. And that is what Signboard is. It looks like this. And here is this board represented on disk as directories and files. You can grab a copy
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If you’re like me; you like files, you like web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, you like markdown, you like kanban, you like pomodoro, and you like apps. If this sounds like you reach out. I’ll be open sourcing something in the coming weeks and I’d like some early testers.