The task board

Every workspace gets a kanban board that lives beside your code — one small file per card in .swarmdesk/tasks/. The cofounder tracks its work there, and any agent you run outside SwarmDesk can read and write the same board.

How it gets set up

There is no setup. Opening a repo as a workspace wires everything: the board store, an entry in the repo's .mcp.json registering the swarmdesk MCP server, and a short section in CLAUDE.md that teaches agents the board habit — create a card before starting work, close it with a comment when done.

Private by default

The board is local-only: SwarmDesk adds .swarmdesk/ to the repo's .gitignore, so your task list never lands in commits, pull requests, or public repos. Prefer a board that travels with the repo through git? Delete that ignore line and commit .swarmdesk/ — SwarmDesk detects the choice and respects it.

Using the board from Claude Code

Start claude in the repo. The first time, it asks to enable the swarmdesk MCP server from .mcp.json — approve it. From then on, plain English works:

> what's on the board?
> add a card for the login bug and mark it in progress
> move #12 to done with a note about the fix

Because of the CLAUDE.md section, agents also do this unprompted — planning work as cards and closing them with commit references.

Statuses

Cards move through backlog, todo, in_progress, in_review, done, and cancelled. Epics nest child cards, and every card carries a #number you can reference in commits and chat.

Troubleshooting