Projects

Overview

A project is the container for a kanban board, its tasks, milestones, tags, members, and project-level memory. Each project has its own settings page where managers configure how the board looks and who can change it. Create one project per stream of work — a product team, a launch, a client engagement — and move between them from the workspace switcher.

Use it for: keeping work for different streams separated, controlling who can edit a board, setting deadlines through milestones, and giving Kenny project-specific context.

How it works

  1. Anyone in the workspace can create a project from the + menu in the left sidebar.
  2. A new project starts with a default set of board columns, each already given a workflow role.
  3. The creator is the first project manager. Managers can change project settings; regular members can move cards and add comments but can’t change columns, tags, or settings.
  4. Members are added from the project settings page. Members get notifications about activity on tasks they’re part of.
  5. The project’s settings page is split into sections — Information, Members, Tags, Milestones, Columns, Memory, Preferences, Dev Agent, and a Danger Zone — each covering one part of how the project behaves.

Setup

Creating a project takes one click — no setup is required to start using the default board. Visit Project settings if you want to rename it, change the icon, set up tags, or invite teammates beyond the workspace defaults.

Usage

Create a project. Click the + in the left sidebar and choose New project. Give it a name and an icon. The project appears in the sidebar and opens to a fresh board.

Rename a project or change its icon. Open Project settings → Information. Edit the name, pick a new emoji, and set the Project key — the short uppercase code used in task IDs (for example KANV-1234). Changing the key only affects new tasks; existing tasks keep their IDs. Changes are saved as you make them.

Manage members. Open Project settings → Members. Add members from the workspace, remove members, and grant or remove the manager role. Project managers see additional settings sections and can make changes that regular members can’t.

Set up tags. Open Project settings → Tags. Add tags with custom colours, rename them inline, and remove ones you no longer use. Tags show up on cards and in the board filter.

Create milestones. Open Project settings → Milestones. Add a milestone with a name and an optional target date. Assign tasks to a milestone from the task detail view. Milestones help group work into a deadline.

Edit columns. Open Project settings → Columns, or open the Edit action on a column’s menu directly from the board. Rename columns, change the icon and colour, assign a workflow role, add new columns, reorder them, or delete ones you don’t need.

Write project memory. Open Project settings → Memory. Type free-form notes about the project — goals, conventions, who decides what. Kenny reads this on every project-scoped request, so anything you write here shapes its answers. See Memory.

Choose project preferences. Open Project settings → Preferences. Toggle project-level behaviours — whether the project agent is allowed to run automated work, which task events post updates to the project channel, and whether the project chat is hidden from the channels list (it stays reachable from the board header).

Set up a dev agent. Open Project settings → Dev Agent. Enable an AI dev agent (Claude/Kenny or Devin) that can be assigned to tasks in this project. For Claude, connect a GitHub repository and complete the setup steps, then mark the connection complete.

Dev infrastructure (GitHub / Local)

Once Claude is connected (a GitHub repo is linked and the connection shows as connected), a Dev infrastructure choice appears under the Dev Agent section. It decides where Kenny’s automated coding runs when you assign a task to Kenny in the Kanvas UI:

  • GitHub (default) — Kenny runs via a GitHub Actions workflow. Assigning Kenny to a task moves it to In Progress, posts a “Started working” comment, and the workflow opens a pull request.
  • Local — Kenny skips the GitHub Actions kickoff. Assigning Kenny to a task does not start a remote run; instead you drive Kenny from a local Claude Code session (the /kenny loop on your machine), which produces the same task timeline — the task still moves to In Progress, gets the “Started working” comment, and lands a pull request.

Pick Local when you’d rather run Kenny on your own machine (for example to use local tooling or avoid the Actions runner), and GitHub when you want assignments to kick off automatically in CI. The choice only applies to Claude — Devin is unaffected — and is saved with the rest of your project settings.

Delete a project. Open Project settings → Danger Zone. Delete is permanent and removes the board, tasks, and history. Only a manager can do this.

Edge cases & limits

  • Permission split. Project managers see and can change every project setting. Members can use the board normally but can’t change tags, columns, or settings.
  • Default columns include roles. New projects start with the standard columns already given workflow roles, so PR merges and other automations route tasks correctly out of the box.
  • Members vs. workspace members. Workspace members aren’t automatically project members — add them explicitly so they get notifications and can join the project’s channels.
  • The sidebar caps long project lists. The Projects section shows up to ten projects. Click Show all (N) to expand the list, Show less to collapse it again.
  • Tag colours. Tag colours follow the workspace palette so the same colour means the same thing across projects.
  • Deletion is permanent. Deleting a project removes its board, tasks, comments, milestones, and tags. Restore is not available — export anything you need first.
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