FocusBoard - Yet Another Kanban Board

A lightweight, file-backed Kanban board that lives right in your editor. No more switching to Trello, no more scattered todo.txt files. Just a clean visual board, synced to a markdown file.

Highlights

Visual Kanban Board Drag-and-drop cards and columns with smooth animations. Add, rename, or remove columns to match your workflow. Everything updates in real time.

Card Details Click any card to open a detail modal with:

• Description — rich text notes for each card
• Checklist — track subtasks with drag-and-drop reordering
• Comments — add, edit, and delete comments

Done Checkbox Each card has a circular checkbox. Click it to mark the card as done — the circle fills green with a white checkmark, and the card text gets a strikethrough.

Backed by Markdown Your board is a .focusboard.md file — human-readable, git-friendly, and yours to keep. Open it as raw text anytime, or let FocusBoard render the visual board.

Built-in Notes Panel A free-text area alongside your board for quick notes, links, and context. No need for a separate file.

Zero Configuration Open the command palette, run "FocusBoard: Open Board", and start working. A default board is created automatically if one doesn't exist.

Theme-Aware Looks great in light, dark, and high-contrast themes — automatically adapts to your VSCode settings.

How to use

Open your board

• Command Palette: Ctrl+Shift+P → "FocusBoard: Open Board"
• Status Bar: click the "FocusBoard" button (bottom left)
• Activity Bar: click the FocusBoard icon in the sidebar, then "Open Board"
• File Explorer: click any .focusboard.md file

Manage cards

• Click + Add card at the bottom of any column
• Double-click a card to edit its text inline
• Click a card to open it and add a description, checklist, or comments
• Use the circular checkbox to mark a card as done (green fill + strikethrough)
• Click × to delete a card
• Drag and drop cards between columns or reorder within a column

Manage columns

• Click + Add Column to create a new column
• Double-click a column title to rename it
• Click × on a column header to delete it

Notes

The notes panel on the right side is a free-text area. Write anything — meeting notes, links, reminders. Everything syncs to the ## Notes section of your .focusboard.md file.

File format

The .focusboard.md file is standard markdown, readable and editable without FocusBoard:

<!-- FOCUSBOARD v1 -->

## Backlog

- Design landing page
  > Mockups needed for mobile and desktop
  - [ ] Mobile layout
  - [x] Desktop layout
- [x] Set up CI/CD

## In Progress

- Implement auth
  % Started OAuth flow yesterday

---

## Notes

Ship MVP by end of month.

• Cards: - text (undone) or - [x] text (done)
• Descriptions: indented > blockquotes
• Checklist items: indented - [ ] / - [x] checkboxes
• Comments: indented % lines

Getting Started

1. Install FocusBoard from the VSCode Marketplace
2. Open any folder in VSCode
3. Ctrl+Shift+P → "FocusBoard: Open Board"
4. Start organizing

Feedback

Have a bug report, feature request, or suggestion? I'd love to hear from you! You can:

• Leave a review or comment on the VS Code Marketplace
• Email me at stgoddv@gmail.com

License

MIT

Built for developers who live in their editor.