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Product Overview ​

What is Kendo? ​

Kendo is a streamlined project management tool for development teams. It's a modern alternative to Jira, Linear, and Asana — the issue tracker that lives in your terminal.

Website: kendo.dev

Core Proposition ​

Project management tools are either bloated (Jira) or pretty but limited (Linear). Kendo sits in the sweet spot: powerful enough for real teams, simple enough that you don't need a Jira admin. With 29 MCP tools, your AI coding assistant can read issues, log time, move cards, and plan sprints — all from the terminal.

Key Features ​

  • Issue tracking — Board, backlog, and overview views with statuses, priorities, epics, blocking relations, and assignees
  • Sprint planning — Scope sprints, assign work, unfinished issues carry over automatically
  • Epics — Group related issues, set dates, track progress across sprints. Epics have Open, In Progress, and Completed status tracking.
  • GitHub integration — Branch linking, PR sync, webhook-driven lane transitions. Code merges — card moves to Done.
  • OAuth login — Sign in with Google or GitHub. Link/unlink providers in profile settings.
  • Two-factor authentication — TOTP-based 2FA with QR code setup and recovery codes. Tenants can enforce 2FA for admins, members, or both.
  • BYOK AI keys — Tenants and projects can bring their own Anthropic or OpenAI API keys instead of using shared keys.
  • Issue templates — Reusable templates for issue creation, managed per project in settings.
  • Real-time updates — WebSocket-powered live updates via Laravel Reverb. Issues and announcements update in real time without page refresh.
  • MCP server — 29 MCP tools that connect to Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex. Read issues, log time, move cards, plan sprints — without leaving the terminal. An interactive MCP App widget for Claude Desktop is in pilot scope (read-only "Today" card first, interactive board later). (See research/mcp-apps-kendo-pilot.md and the 2026 improvement roadmap in research/mcp-tools-improvement-roadmap-2026.md)
  • Time tracking — Built-in, not a plugin. Log per issue, filter by project or date range, export to XLSX.
  • Audit logging — Hash-chained, tamper-proof logs with point-in-time user snapshots. Every action recorded.
  • Teams & roles — Multi-project support with custom role-based access. Tenants define their own roles with granular per-permission scopes (None, Own, All). Admin and Member are the default system roles. Two-tier authorization. See ADR-002 for the design rationale.
  • CLI — Go-based command-line tool for managing issues, sprints, and time entries outside the browser.
  • Reports — Triage inbox for incoming feedback, requests, and bugs. Team members submit lightweight reports; team leads review, reorder (drag-drop), and filter by status (Pending, Promoted, Dismissed). Pending reports can be promoted into real issues — optionally using AI story generation to draft the title, description, type, and priority from the report content — or dismissed. (AI story generation is internal-only — not for external messaging yet.)
  • Notifications — In-app notification system with per-user preferences, mark read/unread, and unsubscribe options.
  • File attachments — Upload files to issues and comments.
  • EU hosting — Amsterdam-hosted, database-per-tenant isolation. GDPR-compliant by architecture.

Tech Stack ​

  • Dark-themed UI with light mode support
  • Design system with kendo-red (#c8553a) as accent color
  • Sora for all UI text and headings, JetBrains Mono for code/labels
  • Compact, dense interface — collapsed sidebar at 64px, expanded at 230px
  • Vue 3.5 + TypeScript 5.9 + UnoCSS frontend
  • Laravel 12 + PHP 8.4 backend, MySQL database
  • Multi-tenant (database-per-tenant, subdomain routing)

What Makes Kendo Different ​

  1. Terminal-first — The MCP server means your AI assistant manages your board directly. No browser tab, no context switch. Developers lose 4.5 hours/day to context switching — Kendo eliminates the PM tool switch entirely. (See research/developer-pm-sentiment-2026.md)
  2. Developer-first — Built by a developer, for developers. No enterprise bloat, no certification programs, no consultants needed. Fast, keyboard-driven, dark-themed.
  3. Nothing extra — Time tracking, audit logging, AI, MCP — built into every tier. No Toggl subscription, no Tempo add-on, no enterprise upsell for compliance features.
  4. European by default — Amsterdam-hosted, Dutch-owned, database-per-tenant. Your data stays in the EU — no upgrade required. No competitor in the developer PM segment offers EU hosting at this price point. (See research/eu-data-sovereignty-demand-2026.md)
  5. Opinionated simplicity — Fewer features, better defaults. No custom workflows with 47 status types. Ship software, don't configure tools.

Target Users ​

See user-personas.md for detailed profiles.

  • Small to mid-size development teams (3-20 developers)
  • Solo developers and indie hackers who want structure without overhead
  • Teams already using AI coding tools who want their project management to keep up
  • Teams migrating away from Jira who want something lighter but not too minimal

Current Stage ​

In active development. Core project management is functional: issues, board, backlog, sprints, epics, time tracking, GitHub integration, MCP server, audit logging, multi-tenancy, teams & roles. Built in the Netherlands, hosted in Amsterdam.