Fjord

Fjord

Local-first project management — Linux first, also on Windows & macOS. Built for the keyboard, friendly to the mouse, and open to AI agents.

Fjord keeps your projects, kanban boards, files and notes in a single SQLite database on your own machine. No account, no cloud, no telemetry. It's a lightweight native desktop app (Tauri), a scriptable CLI, and an MCP server — so you and your AI assistant can work in the same projects, and you can always see who did what.

Features

• Projects & kanban boards — drag and drop, or move tasks with H/L. Rename, recolor, reorder and add columns, and mark one or more as done columns (e.g. Resolved and Done). Right-click a project to change its icon and colour.
• Tasks — markdown descriptions, priority, due dates, overdue warnings, archive & restore. Move a task to another project with its subtasks and files, or pop it out into its own window to keep beside the board or on another monitor. The Overview lists everything due this week across your projects, overdue first.
• Standup and Waiting on you (beta) — on your standup days the Overview drafts the standup for one project (done, in progress, your PRs, where you were mentioned) to copy as text, and lists pull requests waiting for your review or with failed checks. Both are off by default; turn them on in Settings → Overview, where every Overview section can be switched on or off.
• Files — drop files onto the window to attach them to a project or task. Stored content-addressed (deduplicated) with image previews.
• Themes — five built-in themes (Fjord Dark/Light, Nord, Solarized Light, High Contrast), follow the OS with separate light/dark picks, or build your own with live preview: colours, text size, rounding and density; share themes as JSON. Space T cycles themes.
• Pending — mark a task as waiting on someone else, such as a reply from the client (w, right-click, or the task panel). It stays in its column with a “pending 3d” badge, can be filtered on, is listed on the Overview with the longest waiting first, and shows up as a blocker in the standup. Tasks from Azure Boards follow their work item both ways: a work item set to *Pending* in Azure becomes pending in Fjord, and marking it pending in Fjord moves the work item there (and back when you clear it).
• Subtasks — break a task into subtasks (one level) with their own status, priority and branch, or make an existing task a subtask of another (and back); cards show progress (2/5), the task panel lists them with check-off, drag to reorder and A to add.
• Notespace — Obsidian-style markdown notes, inside a project or free-floating, in folders and subfolders (drag a note onto a folder, sort by name or date), with pins and notes you can lock to read-only. Link anything with [[Project]], [[#12]] (a task) or [[Another note]] — type [[ for autocomplete — and see backlinks (“mentioned in”) on tasks, projects and notes. Tables, task lists and Mermaid diagrams render in notes and task descriptions; web links open in your browser.
• Full-text search across tasks, notes and file names (Space f).
• Keyboard-first — a leader key with a which-key popup, vim motions on the board, a Ctrl+K command palette, and every binding configurable. The mouse works for everything too.
• Git, GitHub & Azure DevOps — link a project to a repo, start a branch with a conventional name from any task (B, e.g. feat/12-add-login) or link an existing one, see pull requests with CI status, open PRs from a task, and let merged PRs move tasks to done.
• Azure Boards import — work items assigned to you show up as tasks in the project you choose, with their state mapped to your columns, child items as subtasks, attachments and screenshots, and the discussion readable in the task. Optional (beta): send a story analysis's acceptance criteria and risk back to the work item, and reply in its discussion. Work items where someone @mentions you show up in the Overview.
• VS Code extension — Fjord for VS Code shows the board next to your code and the current branch's task in the status bar. See VS Code.
• AI-agent ready — fjord mcp exposes 28 tools to MCP clients such as Claude Code and Cursor, and an Agent Skill teaches agents how to use them. Agents can create, edit, move and archive but never hard-delete, and every change is tagged with its author.
• Activity log — what changed, when, and by whom (you or an agent).
• Live updates — changes from the CLI or an agent appear in the open app within a second or two.
• English and Norwegian — English by default; adding a language is one file.
• Updates itself — signed in-app updates; Settings shows the installed version.

Install

Fjord is Linux first: that's where it's developed and used daily. Windows and macOS builds come from the same code and are tested in CI on every pull request.

Download

Grab the installer for your system from Releases:

On macOS (and for the CLI on Linux) you can also use Homebrew:

brew install --cask jhtjernsmo/fjord/fjord   # the app

brew install jhtjernsmo/fjord/fjord-cli # the fjord command-line tool

The CLI is attached separately as fjord-cli- . From 0.2.9 the macOS app is signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized, so it opens normally. Windows builds aren't code-signed yet and may show a SmartScreen warning (More info → Run anyway).

Build from source

Requirements: Rust (stable), Node.js 20+. On Linux also WebKitGTK 4.1; Windows uses the built-in WebView2, and macOS needs the Xcode command line tools.

# Arch

sudo pacman -S --needed webkit2gtk-4.1 base-devel

Debian / Ubuntu

sudo apt install libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev build-essential libssl-dev librsvg2-dev

Fedora

sudo dnf install webkit2gtk4.1-devel openssl-devel librsvg2-devel

git clone https://github.com/jhtjernsmo/fjord.git

cd fjord npm --prefix ui install npx --prefix ui tauri build # installers for your OS in target/release/bundle ./target/release/fjord-app # run it

cargo install --path crates/fjord-cli # optional: puts fjord on your PATH

For development with hot reload: npx --prefix ui tauri dev.

Updates

From 0.2.1 on, Fjord checks GitHub Releases on startup and offers Update & restart (Windows, macOS and the Linux AppImage; .deb/.rpm update via your package manager). Updates are signed and verified before installing; the check can be turned off in Settings. Settings → Updates shows the installed version and has a *Check now* button. Versions before 0.2.1 have no updater, so install the latest release once by hand.

Keyboard

Press ? in the app to see every shortcut. Press the leader key (Space) and wait a moment to see what comes next.

On the Overview: j / k move through due tasks, mentions and projects, Enter opens, a adds a mention as a task and x dismisses it. Space G creates a GitHub repository for the current project. Ctrl+B collapses the sidebar to icons, like in VS Code.

In an open task: [ / ] move it to the previous/next column, e edits, A adds a subtask, B starts a branch, L links an existing one, P opens a pull request, m moves it to another project, o pops it out into its own window and N makes it a subtask of another task (or a regular task again).

On macOS, Ctrl shortcuts use ⌘ instead. Remap anything in keymap.json (see Data for where it lives):

{

"leader": "space", "bindings": { "task.archive": "D", "search.open": " /" } }

Action ids are listed in ui/src/keymap.ts.

Command line

fjord project add "Bokost" --icon '$'

fjord task add bokost "Fix push notifications" -p 3 --due 2026-10-10 fjord column add bokost Review fjord task move 1 review fjord task done 1 fjord task nest 3 1 # make #3 a subtask of #1 (unnest to undo) fjord project show bokost # board in the terminal fjord search push fjord log bokost # activity fjord --json project ls # JSON for scripts

Run fjord --help for everything. Changes are recorded with an actor: --actor, $FJORD_ACTOR or $USER.

Git & GitHub

Link a project to a repository in the Git tab (or fjord git link ). No repository yet? Tick Also create a repository on GitHub when you make a project, or use the Git tab: Fjord creates it (private or public, under you or an organization, with an optional README, .gitignore and license), clones it and links it in one step. A local repository without a remote can be published the same way. If you aren't signed in to GitHub, you can sign in right there.

Once a project is linked, Fjord:

• starts a branch for a task with a conventional name — fix/12-fix-push-notifications. Pick the type (feat, fix, chore, docs, refactor, test, perf, ci, ho