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planka-mcp

An MCP server that lets an AI agent autonomously pick up and complete work on a Planka board.

It is not a wrapper around the Planka REST API. The tool surface is shaped around what an autonomous worker actually does — find ready work, claim it, report on it — and the guardrails are enforced in code, not in prompt text.

Vocabulary

The tools speak your words, not Planka's schema:

You say

Planka calls it

What it is

board

project

the container (a tab strip)

project

board

the tab you actually work in: lists, cards, members

task

card

one piece of work

Related MCP server: kanban-mcp

What the agent sees

Doing work

Tool

Purpose

list_actionable_tasks

Pre-filtered queue of genuinely ready work, most urgent first

find_tasks

Search every project — other people's work included — by text, assignee, status, label or overdue. A person's results cover task assignment, checklist items and comment mentions

claim_task / release_task

Atomic claim; already_taken on a race

get_task

Full detail of a chosen task

update_status

todo → in_progress → review → done, illegal jumps rejected

add_result / add_comment / attach_link

Report output, context, deliverables

Shaping work

Tool

Purpose

create_task / update_task_details

File and refine work: title, description, deadline, kind, target column

update_checklist

Add steps, tick, reopen, assign items to people, link dependencies

set_task_labels

Change priority/size (both are labels in Planka)

move_task

Move to any list, including stages outside the status flow, or to another project

Structure

Tool

Purpose

list_boards / list_projects / get_project

Discover containers, tabs, and your role on each

create_board / update_board

The container: create, rename, describe, hide, favourite

create_project / update_project

New tab with workflow lists (names, or {name, type}); rename

copy_project_structure

Clone a project's columns with their exact types, plus labels and members — never cards

create_list / update_list / delete_list

Columns: name, type, colour, reorder; retire via inactive; delete only when empty

manage_labels

Create, rename, delete-if-unused

People

Tool

Purpose

whoami

What this server may do, and under what ceiling

list_people

Project members with roles, or the whole directory

assign_people / unassign_people

Put people on a task, adding them to the project first

set_project_members

Add, re-role (worker/editor/guest) or remove members

find_informal_assignments

Work handed over in a comment but never actually assigned

admin_manage_person

Instance roles, board managers, API key minting and revocation — off unless enabled

Plus one prompt, “Work through my task queue”, as a one-click entry point.

Roles

Planka 2.4.1 has two role axes, and the swagger documents neither correctly: instance role (admin, projectOwner, boardUser, guestOnly) and board membership role (editor, worker, guest). This server folds them into one effective role per project:

Condition

Effective role

Can

instance admin, or manager of the parent board

admin

everything, incl. membership

board membership editor

editor

work, author, assign, structure

board membership worker

worker

work on tasks; no structure, no assigning others

guest or no membership

guest

read only

PLANKA_ACT_AS=worker|editor|admin lowers that ceiling but never raises it — one admin credential can still run a deliberately limited agent. Every refusal names the role, where it came from, and what was attempted.

How Planka concepts are mapped

Planka has no status, priority or effort field, so the server derives them:

  • Status = which list the card is in. List names are matched by heuristic (backlog/todo/ready → todo, doing/in progress/wip → in_progress, review/qa → review, done/closed → done). Lists of type waiting/inactive, and Planka's own system lists, are outside the flow; type closed counts as done. Override the mapping with PLANKA_STATUS_LISTS (see .env.example).

  • Priority comes from label conventions (p0/urgent/critical → urgent, p1/high, p2/medium, p3/low), defaulting to medium.

  • Effort comes from size labels (size: M, small, XL) or point labels (sp: 3), falling back to the subtask count.

  • Dependencies come from checklist tasks that link to another card (linkedCardId). Reported as waiting_on in get_task; only used as a filter when PLANKA_REQUIRE_DEPS_MET=true.

What counts as actionable

A card is returned by list_actionable_tasks when all of these hold:

  1. it sits in a list mapped to todo, and that list is of type active;

  2. the card is not closed;

  3. it has no assignees, or the agent's own account is one of them;

  4. it is on a project board — library and collection boards hold documents, not work (PLANKA_BOARD_TYPES);

  5. its board is inside PLANKA_BOARD_IDS, when that allowlist is set.

Two further filters exist but are off by default: PLANKA_BLOCKED_LABELS (hide cards carrying e.g. a blocked label) and PLANKA_REQUIRE_DEPS_MET (hide cards whose linked dependency cards are unfinished).

How claiming is made safe

Planka has no compare-and-swap on card fields, but card assignment is a unique row (cardId + userId), and the API answers 409 when it already exists. So:

  1. read the card fresh; if someone else is assigned → already_taken;

  2. POST the assignment — 200 = claimed, 409 = you already held it (idempotent, so a retried call is harmless);

  3. re-read and compare assignment timestamps; if another worker's row is older, the server removes its own row and reports already_taken.

Caveat, stated plainly: step 1→2 is a read-then-write. Two different accounts writing inside the same few milliseconds are resolved by the step-3 reconcile, not prevented outright. Two runs of the same agent account cannot double-claim — the 409 makes that path genuinely atomic.

Guardrails enforced in code

  • Nothing that holds work is deleted. delete_list refuses a list containing cards; manage_labels refuses a label still on a card; there is no tool to delete a task, comment, project or board. Retiring a stage is a type change to inactive, which is reversible.

  • Credentials are handled explicitly. Minting an API key requires PLANKA_ALLOW_USER_ADMIN=true plus an instance-admin account, reports whether it replaced an existing key, and refuses to touch the key this server is itself authenticating with.

  • Other people's work is untouchable. Editing, moving, relabelling or releasing a task claimed by someone else is refused.

  • Claims are only ever for yourself. claim_task/release_task take no user parameter; assigning others is a separate, higher-privileged tool.

  • Role is checked per project, per action, and a refusal explains why.

  • Escalation is blocked. admin_manage_person is off unless PLANKA_ALLOW_USER_ADMIN=true, and even then it will not change its own account's role, grant instance admin, or create an account (that needs a password, which this server never handles). set_project_members will not remove its own access.

  • Status transitions are validated; done is terminal unless PLANKA_ALLOW_REOPEN=true.

  • add_result takes an idempotency key, so a retry cannot double-post.

  • attach_link accepts http/https only.

  • PLANKA_BOARD_IDS hard-scopes every tool to specific projects.

Tests

.venv/bin/python -m pytest tests -q

79 offline tests run against an in-memory fake that reproduces Planka's semantics — assignment unique on card+user with 409 on re-insert, cards in a closed list finished by the server, board role separate from instance role. They cover: claim → idempotent re-claim → lost-race rollback; illegal transitions and done terminality; ownership checks on status/result/release/ edit/move; the board allowlist; role folding across both axes and the PLANKA_ACT_AS cap; worker-vs-editor-vs-admin gating; the assign-and-add-as- worker flow with ambiguity refusal; refusal to delete non-empty lists or in-use labels; refusal to self-remove or self-promote.

Setup

Nothing to install or clone. Add this to your MCP client config, fill in three values, restart:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "planka": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["--refresh-package", "planka-mcp", "--from", "https://github.com/KT-SPARKS/planka-mcp/releases/latest/download/planka_mcp-latest.tar.gz", "planka-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "PLANKA_BASE_URL": "https://planka.example.com",
        "PLANKA_EMAIL": "you@example.com",
        "PLANKA_PASSWORD": "your-password"
      }
    }
  }
}

That URL always resolves to the newest release, and --refresh-package makes uv check for a new build on every launch — so restarting your client is the whole update process. Drop the flag and you stay on whatever version you first downloaded, because uv caches by URL.

Prefer an API key over a password (Planka: user settings → API key):

      "env": {
        "PLANKA_BASE_URL": "https://planka.example.com",
        "PLANKA_API_KEY": "your-api-key"
      }

Claude Code, one line:

claude mcp add planka --env PLANKA_BASE_URL=https://planka.example.com --env PLANKA_API_KEY=your-api-key -- uvx --refresh-package planka-mcp --from https://github.com/KT-SPARKS/planka-mcp/releases/latest/download/planka_mcp-latest.tar.gz planka-mcp

To pin a version instead, point at that release's wheel and drop the refresh flag:

      "args": ["--from", "https://github.com/KT-SPARKS/planka-mcp/releases/download/v0.3.0/planka_mcp-0.3.0-py3-none-any.whl", "planka-mcp"]

That is the whole setup. Everything below is optional.

Two things trip up the Windows desktop app:

  • uvx not found — the app spawns the command directly, so give the full path, with doubled backslashes: "command": "C:\\Users\\You\\AppData\\Local\\hermes\\bin\\uvx.exe". Find it with where uvx.

  • Git executable not found — an env block replaces the process environment, so a git+https://... source cannot run git. The release URLs above need no git and avoid this entirely. If you do want to install from source on Windows, add "PATH" to the env block.

Config lives at %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json. Quit from the tray icon and reopen — closing the window does not restart the app.

The setup above gives the agent whatever the account can do. To narrow it:

      "env": {
        "PLANKA_BASE_URL": "https://planka.example.com",
        "PLANKA_API_KEY": "your-api-key",
        "PLANKA_BOARD_IDS": "1234567890123456789",
        "PLANKA_ACT_AS": "worker"
      }
  • PLANKA_BOARD_IDS — every tool refuses anything outside these projects.

  • PLANKA_ACT_AS — ceiling of guest, worker, editor or admin, applied on top of the account's real rights.

Better still, create a dedicated Planka user for the agent, add it to just the boards it should touch as a worker, and use its API key — rather than pointing this at an admin account.

From source (needs git available to the process):

uvx --from git+https://github.com/KT-SPARKS/planka-mcp planka-mcp

For development:

git clone https://github.com/KT-SPARKS/planka-mcp.git
cd planka-mcp
uv venv && uv pip install -e .
cp .env.example .env       # only read in this mode
.venv/bin/planka-mcp

Full configuration reference — every environment variable, status mapping, HTTP transport — is in docs/configuration.md. Coverage map — every Planka endpoint and field, exposed or not and why — is in docs/api-coverage.md.

Notes on the live API

Developed and verified against Planka 2.4.1, whose published swagger (2.0.1) lags the server in several places — different role names, different list types, undocumented routes. Everything learned from the live instance — spec drift, permission rules, the private→shared conversion, the claim/CAS semantics, the Cloudflare WAF gotcha — is written up in docs/planka-api-notes.md.

Errors from Planka are returned to the model as clean {"ok": false, "error": "..."} results rather than raised as exceptions.

Available Tools

33 tools
add_commentA

Leave a comment on a task - a question, a blocker, or progress context for the humans watching the board. Use add_result for the actual deliverable.

Inputs: text (required), task_id (required). Returns: object

add_resultA

Attach your output to a task: what you did, what you produced, where it lives. Post this before moving the task to done, so the work is auditable. Requires that you hold the claim.

Inputs: note (required), task_id (required), idempotency_key. Returns: object

admin_manage_personA

Instance-level administration: change someone's instance role, make someone a manager of a board, or mint and revoke API keys. Off unless the operator sets PLANKA_ALLOW_USER_ADMIN, and this server will never raise its own account's role or hand out admin.

create_api_key returns the key once - Planka cannot show it again, and it replaces any key that account already had, breaking whatever was using it. A key is a long-lived credential that acts as that person, and the value will pass through this conversation and any transcript of it, so treat the output as a secret and hand it over out of band. revoke_api_key clears one.

Inputs: action (required), name, email, person, +2 more. Returns: object

assign_peopleA

Assign people to a task, adding them to the project first if they are not members yet. Each name is resolved against the project's members and the user directory; an ambiguous name is reported rather than guessed. Granting project membership needs membership rights, so a worker can assign existing members but cannot pull new people onto the project.

Inputs: people (required), task_id (required), add_to_project_as. Returns: object

claim_taskA
Idempotent

Claim a task for yourself before working on it. This is atomic: the claim is a unique assignment row in Planka, so a second worker racing for the same task gets already_taken back and should simply pick another task. Claiming a task you already hold succeeds again without side effects. You can only ever claim a task for yourself, never for another user.

Inputs: task_id (required). Returns: object

copy_project_structureA

Clone a project's layout: its columns with their exact types and order, and optionally its labels and members. No cards are copied - this produces an empty project shaped like the original.

Prefer this over create_project when an existing project is the template. Naming a column 'Done' is not the same as copying it: a list's type decides whether Planka marks cards dropped there as finished, and only a copy carries that across.

Inputs: name (required), source_project_id (required), board_id, include_labels, +1 more. Returns: object

create_boardA

Create a board - the container that holds projects (tabs).

Needs an admin or projectOwner account; Planka refuses project creation for anyone else. Create the board first, then fill it with create_project or copy_project_structure.

Inputs: name (required), shared, description. Returns: object

create_listA

Add a workflow stage to a project. Note that Planka closes any card placed in a closed list, so use that type only for a genuine done stage.

Inputs: name (required), project_id (required), after, color, +1 more. Returns: object

create_projectA

Create a new project (tab) inside a board, pre-populated with workflow lists so it is immediately usable. Requires admin rights on that board.

To reproduce an existing project's layout, use copy_project_structure instead - it carries the exact list types across, which naming alone cannot.

Inputs: name (required), board_id (required), lists, default_view, +3 more. Returns: object

create_taskA

Create a new task in the todo stage of a board - follow-up work you discovered, or a task you were asked to file. It lands unclaimed, so claim it before working on it. Labels must already exist on the board; this tool never invents board structure.

Inputs: title (required), labels, board_id, due_date, +4 more. Returns: object

delete_listA

Delete an empty list. A list holding cards is never deleted - move the cards out first, or retire the stage with update_list(list_type='inactive').

Inputs: project_id (required), list_name_or_id (required). Returns: object

find_informal_assignmentsA
Read-only

Find work handed out in comments but never actually assigned.

Teams often hand off by writing "Assigned to: @Name" in a comment. In Planka that is just text: the person is not a member of the task, so it never reaches their queue, no board view shows them as owner, and it is invisible to reporting. This reports every such comment where the mentioned person is not a member of the task, and gives you the exact assign_people call that would make it real. Read-only - it changes nothing on its own. Confirm with a human before acting on findings; a mention is not always a hand-off.

Inputs: limit, board_id, project_id, include_done, +1 more. Returns: object

find_tasksA
Read-only

Search tasks across every project you can see - including other people's.

Unlike list_actionable_tasks, which is your own ready-to-work queue, this answers questions about the whole workspace: what is Ada working on, what is overdue, where did that card about the login bug go.

Searching for a person finds all three ways work reaches them: tasks they are assigned to, tasks holding a checklist item assigned to them, and tasks where they were mentioned in a comment. Each result says which, in matched_by, and carries the specific checklist items and mentions. Results are read-only context; claiming and editing still go through the usual tools, and other people's tasks remain off limits to edit.

Inputs: text, label, limit, status, +6 more. Returns: object

get_projectA
Read-only

Full structure of one project: its lists and what status each maps to, its labels and how heavily they are used, its members and their roles, and your own role. Read this before changing structure or assigning people.

Inputs: project_id (required). Returns: object

get_taskA
Read-only

Full detail for one task: description, labels, subtasks, assignees, comments and anything it is waiting on. Use it after you claim a task, to understand what has to be done.

Inputs: task_id (required). Returns: object

list_actionable_tasksA
Read-only

List tasks that are genuinely ready to be worked on, most urgent first.

Call this first, before any other tool. The filtering happens on the server: only cards sitting in a 'todo' stage of an active list, not closed, and either unassigned or already assigned to you are returned. Each entry carries what you need to choose: title, priority, due date, effort, labels, subtask counts and a description excerpt. Pick one, then call claim_task.

Inputs: limit, search, board_id. Returns: object

list_boardsA
Read-only

List the boards you can reach - the containers that hold projects. Use it to find where a project lives, or before creating a new project.

Inputs: no named parameters. Returns: object

list_peopleA
Read-only

List people and their roles - members of one project, or the whole directory. Use it to resolve a partial name before assigning work.

Inputs: project_id. Returns: object

list_projectsA
Read-only

List the projects (tabs) you can work in, with the role you hold on each. Start here when you are asked to do something on a named project.

Inputs: board_id. Returns: object

manage_labelsA

Create, rename or remove the labels a project uses for priority, size and state. A label still applied to cards is never deleted.

Inputs: project_id (required), colors, create, rename, +1 more. Returns: object

move_taskA

Move a task to another list, or to a different project entirely. Use this for stages that are not part of the todo/in_progress/review/done flow - a 'Blocked' or 'Icebox' list, say - where update_status does not apply.

Inputs: task_id (required), to_list, to_project_id. Returns: object

release_taskA
Idempotent

Give up your claim on a task so another worker can take it. Only your own claim is ever removed - other people's assignments are untouched. Nothing is deleted; the task and its history stay on the board.

Inputs: task_id (required), reason, move_back_to_todo. Returns: object

set_project_membersA

Add people to a project, change the role they hold, or remove them from it. Requires membership rights on that project. Removing a member does not delete anything they created, and never touches their account.

Inputs: people (required), project_id (required), role. Returns: object

set_task_labelsA

Apply or take labels off a task - how you change its priority or size, since Planka stores both as labels. Labels themselves are untouched; only their link to this task changes.

Inputs: task_id (required), add, remove. Returns: object

unassign_peopleA

Take people off a task. Their project membership is untouched - this only removes the assignment.

Inputs: people (required), task_id (required). Returns: object

update_boardA

Rename a board (container), describe it, hide it or favourite it. Requires managing that board - instance admin, or one of its managers.

Inputs: board_id (required), name, hidden, favorite, +1 more. Returns: object

update_checklistA

Break a task into checklist steps and tick them off as you go, so progress is visible on the board while you work. Only tasks you hold, or unclaimed ones, can be changed. Items are never deleted - reopen them instead.

Inputs: task_id (required), add_items, assign_items, reopen_items, +2 more. Returns: object

update_listA

Rename a list or change its type. Retiring a stage is a type change to inactive, which keeps every card intact and reversible.

Inputs: project_id (required), list_name_or_id (required), name, after, +2 more. Returns: object

update_projectA

Rename a project (tab) or change how it behaves: default view, the kind of task it creates, whether checklists open expanded. Requires structure rights.

Inputs: project_id (required), name, default_view, default_card_type, +3 more. Returns: object

update_statusA
Idempotent

Move a task you have claimed to a new status. Legal moves are todo -> in_progress -> review -> done (plus in_progress -> todo to hand work back). Illegal jumps are rejected. You must hold the claim on the task, and the board must have a list for the target status.

Inputs: status (required), task_id (required). Returns: object

update_task_detailsA

Refine a task's title, description, deadline or labels - for example after investigating and learning what the work actually involves. Only tasks you hold, or tasks nobody has claimed, can be edited; another worker's task is never touched.

Inputs: task_id (required), title, labels, due_date, +3 more. Returns: object

whoamiA
Read-only

Who this server is acting as, and what it is allowed to do. Call it when a request might exceed your rights, so you can say so instead of failing.

Inputs: no named parameters. Returns: object

Tool Schema Changelog

Recent tool additions, removals, and schema changes observed during successful MCP inspections.

Loading tool schema changelog…

    TDQS

    A3.9/5.0

    Scored across 33 tools

    Disambiguation4/5

    Tools generally map to distinct resource/action pairs (boards, projects, lists, tasks, labels, people), and the descriptions explicitly differentiate close pairs like move_task vs update_status and create_project vs copy_project_structure. A few genuine overlaps remain—update_task_details and set_task_labels both change labels, and attach_link vs add_result both attach output—but they are unlikely to cause frequent misselection.

    Naming Consistency4/5

    Almost every tool follows a verb_noun snake_case pattern (list_boards, create_task, update_status, assign_people), which makes the set predictable. Minor deviations like whoami and admin_manage_person, plus compound names like find_informal_assignments, keep it from being perfectly uniform.

    Tool Count2/5

    33 tools is beyond the 25-tool threshold and feels heavy for a single server, even for a rich project-management domain. Several tools bundle multiple operations (admin_manage_person) and label-related behavior is split across three tools, so the surface could be consolidated.

    Completeness4/5

    The lifecycle is well covered: boards/projects/lists can be created and updated, tasks have claim/status/assignment/result/comment flows, and search/audit tools expose informal assignments. Missing destructive or cleanup operations (delete/archive task, delete board/project, remove attachment/comment) are notable but mostly work-aroundable.

    Maintenance

    ActivityNo data
    ResponsivenessNo recent community issues

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