Orbit # Orbit **A free, realtime, keyboard-first task manager.** Issues, boards, sprints, projects and docs that update the moment anyone changes anything. The polish you expect from a paid task manager, with no per-seat bill at the end of the month. **No pricing. No billing. No paid tiers. Not now, not later.** [![CI](https://github.com/Noveum/orbit/actions/workflows/ci.yml/badge.svg)](https://github.com/Noveum/orbit/actions/workflows/ci.yml) [![Release](https://img.shields.io/github/v/release/Noveum/orbit?label=source%20release&color=5a63c8)](https://github.com/Noveum/orbit/releases/latest) [![License](https://img.shields.io/badge/license-Apache%202.0-blue.svg)](LICENSE) [![Stars](https://img.shields.io/github/stars/Noveum/orbit?style=flat&color=5a63c8)](https://github.com/Noveum/orbit/stargazers) [![Commits](https://img.shields.io/github/commit-activity/t/Noveum/orbit?color=5a63c8)](https://github.com/Noveum/orbit/commits/main) [![Last commit](https://img.shields.io/github/last-commit/Noveum/orbit?color=5a63c8)](https://github.com/Noveum/orbit/commits/main) [![Good first issues](https://img.shields.io/github/issues/Noveum/orbit/good%20first%20issue?label=good%20first%20issues&color=7057ff)](https://github.com/Noveum/orbit/labels/good%20first%20issue) [![PRs welcome](https://img.shields.io/badge/PRs-welcome-0e8a16.svg)](CONTRIBUTING.md) [![Bun](https://img.shields.io/badge/built%20with-Bun-000000?logo=bun)](https://bun.sh) [![Sponsored by Noveum AI](https://img.shields.io/badge/sponsored%20by-Noveum%20AI-5a63c8)](https://noveum.ai) [**Live demo**](https://orbit.noveum.ai) · [**Documentation**](https://noveum.github.io/orbit/) · [**Quick start**](#quick-start) · [**Releases**](https://github.com/Noveum/orbit/releases) · [**Changelog**](CHANGELOG.md) · [**Self-host**](docs/self-hosting.md) · [**Contribute**](CONTRIBUTING.md)
> **Self-hosting status: Preview.** The repository supports local evaluation, > but it is not yet a supported production release. Review the current > limitations in [the readiness tracker](docs/open-source-readiness.md).
The Orbit board, dark theme
--- ## Latest source release **2026.09.08** adds similar-issue suggestions during creation, a workspace project updates feed, and comment moderation for members and admins. It also updates dependencies, preview deployment controls, documentation, and screenshots. Read the [full changelog](CHANGELOG.md) and [upgrade guide](docs/releases.md) before updating an existing installation. Releases use dated source tags; self-hosting remains Preview. ## Why Orbit exists A task manager costs around 18 dollars per person per month. For a team of twenty that is over four thousand dollars a year to keep a list of tasks in order. The alternatives were not a real answer. The free ones are slow and feel like filling in a form. The self-hosted ones are heavy to run. The cheap ones are cheap for a reason, and every one of them eventually asks for a card. So we built the task manager we wanted, made it free and open-sourced it. Not free-with-an-asterisk, not free-for-three-users, not free-until-we-raise. There is no billing code in this repository and there is no plan to add any. Orbit is sponsored by [Noveum AI](https://noveum.ai), who pay for the hosted instance and the engineering time. Everything is Apache-2.0, so you can run it yourself and never depend on us at all. ## Screenshots
Issue list
Issues, as a fast list or a board. Every property changes from the keyboard.		 Command palette
Command palette. Cmd K, then go anywhere or do anything.
Sprints
Sprints with scope, points, burndown and carryover.		 Docs
Docs with a rich editor, living beside the issues they describe.
HTML page
HTML pages as one self-contained file, with a live preview and their own URL.		 HTML page, light theme
Source, split, or preview. CSS and script stay in the file.
Standup
Standup: the whole workspace as a Kanban, filtered to one person with a click.		 Analytics
Analytics: scope, throughput, churn and distributions.
Workspace project updates with health reports, dark theme
Project updates: health reports from across the workspace in one feed.		 Similar existing issues suggested while drafting a new issue, light theme
Similar issues: review an existing task before creating another.
More in [`docs/assets/screenshots`](docs/assets/screenshots), every screen in both themes. ## What it does | | | | --- | --- | | **Issues** | Priorities, labels, states, estimates, assignees, multiple reviewers and relations. Similar-issue suggestions during creation. Fast list or keyboard-accessible drag-and-drop board | | **Sprints and cycles** | Timeboxed planning with scope, points, burndown and carryover | | **Projects and milestones** | Group work across teams and sprints, track health, and read workspace project updates | | **Docs** | Rich editor, collections, comments, public share links, self-contained HTML pages | | **Standup** | The whole workspace as a Kanban, filtered to work a person owns or reviews by clicking their tile | | **Analytics** | Scope, throughput, churn, and distribution by assignee, project, label and estimate | | **Search and views** | Filters over everything, saved and shared or kept private | | **Realtime** | Every change fans out over a websocket to exactly the people allowed to see it | | **Keyboard first** | Cmd K for everything, `g` to navigate, single keys to act. Press `?` | | **MCP server** | AI agents read the board and file work, with your permissions, over OAuth | | **Notifications** | In-app inbox, with per-event preferences and quiet hours | | **Slack (gated)** | Personal notification DMs, mapped-channel issue unfurls, and member sync after an operator completes the [Slack rollout](docs/integrations.md#launch-order) | | **GitHub** | Pull requests linked to the issues they close | | **Auth** | Passkeys, Google, GitHub, email OTP. Password optional and off by default | | **Roles** | Admin, member, contributor and guest, enforced on the server | | **Themes** | Light and dark, both first class | ## Quick start You need [Bun](https://bun.sh) 1.3 or newer and Docker. That is the whole list. ```bash git clone https://github.com/Noveum/orbit.git cd orbit bun install cp .env.example .env bun run infra:up # postgres, redis and minio bun run db:push # create the schema bun run db:test-setup # create the test databases bun run db:seed # load a demo workspace bun run dev # http://localhost:3000 ``` Sign in as **`alex@orbit.example`**. The seed loads three teams, seven people, thirty two issues, projects, sprints and docs, so there is something to click on straight away. Then press Cmd K, and open a second tab and change something in one to watch the other update. | Service | Port | | --- | --- | | web | 3000 | | realtime (development only) | 3100 | | postgres | 5434 | | redis | 6380 | | minio | 9010 | Full walkthrough in [docs/getting-started.md](docs/getting-started.md). ## Reference deployment (Preview) The setup below describes the Noveum AI deployment profile. It is not a provider-neutral production support commitment. Orbit is one Next.js app. It needs Postgres, Redis and an S3-compatible bucket, all of which have free tiers, so a small team can run it for nothing. [![Deploy with Vercel](https://vercel.com/button)](https://vercel.com/new/clone?repository-url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2FNoveum%2Forbit&root-directory=apps%2Fweb&env=DATABASE_URL,REDIS_URL,BETTER_AUTH_SECRET,BETTER_AUTH_URL,NEXT_PUBLIC_APP_URL,RESEND_API_KEY,EMAIL_FROM&project-name=orbit&repository-name=orbit) The button prompts for Resend so a fresh deployment can send sign-in codes. You can instead configure password, Google or GitHub sign-in. Production refuses to build or start without one complete method; see [Authentication](docs/configuration.md#authentication). Two things that are not optional and produce confusing failures if you get them wrong: - **Root directory is `apps/web`, and functions run on node.** Do not set `bunVersion` in `apps/web/vercel.json`. It moves every function to the Bun runtime, where the websocket upgrade at `/api/ws` silently never happens and the browser retries forever against a socket that never opens. - **Never set `NEXT_PUBLIC_REALTIME_URL` in production.** The socket is served from the page's own origin, and Orbit ignores this variable in production. Leaving it set only makes the deployment configuration misleading. Supabase for Postgres, Upstash for Redis, Cloudflare R2 for files and Resend for email is the combination we run. Other providers have not yet been certified by this project. Full guide, including running it on your own server behind nginx: [docs/self-hosting.md](docs/self-hosting.md). ## For AI agents Orbit ships an MCP server, so Claude, Cursor, VS Code or anything else that speaks MCP can read your board and do work in it. ```bash claude mcp add --transport http orbit https://orbit.example.com/mcp ``` OAuth only, no API keys. You pick the workspace, re-verify a passkey and approve the scopes, and the grant is revocable from settings. **An agent never has more permission than the person who authorised it**, because the tools run through the same policy as everything else. A token with only `orbit.read` is not shown the write tools at all. Sixty odd tools covering issues, sprints, projects and docs. Things that work today: > "What is blocking the Realtime Sync Engine project?" > > "File a bug on Engineering: passkey sign-in fails on Safari when no credential > is registered. High priority, assign it to me." > > "Summarise what each person closed yesterday." [docs/mcp.md](docs/mcp.md) has the setup and the full tool list. ## Documentation | | | | --- | --- | | [Getting started](docs/getting-started.md) | Run it locally in five minutes | | [Concepts](docs/concepts.md) | Workspaces, teams, issues, sprints, projects, docs, views | | [Self-hosting](docs/self-hosting.md) | Vercel, Supabase, Upstash, R2, or your own server | | [Configuration](docs/configuration.md) | Every environment variable | | [Keyboard shortcuts](docs/keyboard-shortcuts.md) | All of them | | [MCP server](docs/mcp.md) | Connect an AI assistant | | [Integrations](docs/integrations.md) | GitHub and gated Slack setup | | [Changelog](CHANGELOG.md) | Features, fixes and upgrade notes for every source release | | [Releases and upgrades](docs/releases.md) | Versioning, publishing, deployment checks and rollback | | [Architecture](docs/architecture.md) | How a change reaches every screen | | [Testing](docs/testing.md) | Running and writing tests | | [Troubleshooting](docs/troubleshooting.md) | The failures we actually hit | | [Roadmap](docs/roadmap.md) | What is next, and what we will not do | ## How it is built ``` apps/web Next.js 16: UI, REST handlers, auth, /api/ws, /mcp apps/realtime Websocket host, local development only, never deployed packages/realtime-server Connection hub: tickets, scopes, presence, Redis fan-out packages/realtime-client Browser client: subscribe, patch, reconnect packages/mcp-server MCP tools and the handler behind /mcp packages/core Domain operations shared by REST, MCP and the hub packages/services Markdown, storage, email, notifications, Slack, GitHub packages/db Drizzle schema, migrations, client, seed packages/shared Zod validators, domain types, event contracts, policy ``` TypeScript throughout, in strict mode with `any` as a lint error. Next.js 16 and React 19. Postgres through Drizzle. Redis for realtime fan-out. Bun as the toolchain, node as the runtime, because a Vercel function can only upgrade a websocket on node. A change writes to Postgres, bumps a monotonic `sync_id`, publishes to Redis, and the hub fans it out to the connections whose scope entitles them to see it. The client patches its cache rather than refetching, so your scroll position and selection survive. [docs/architecture.md](docs/architecture.md) has the detail. ## Contributing Contributions are wanted, and not only code. Docs, bug reports, translations, accessibility and design all count. ```bash bun run verify # lint, comment policy, types, tests. The same four CI runs ``` Good places to start: - [**Good first issues**](https://github.com/Noveum/orbit/labels/good%20first%20issue), scoped small with the file paths written into the description - [**Help wanted**](https://github.com/Noveum/orbit/labels/help%20wanted), everything we would like a hand with - [**The roadmap**](docs/roadmap.md), for the bigger pieces A few house rules that will otherwise surprise you in review: **Bun only**, no npm or pnpm. **No comments in code**, the build fails on them, so put the meaning in names and the prose in the pull request. **No `any`**, no non-null assertions. **No em-dashes.** And a feature is not done until it has a test that would fail if the feature broke. Full guide in [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md). The repository carries its own context files, [`CLAUDE.md`](CLAUDE.md) and [`AGENTS.md`](AGENTS.md), so your editor picks up the conventions without you explaining them each time. ## Contributors Contributors Your face goes here. Genuinely, even for a typo fix. ## Community - [**Discussions**](https://github.com/Noveum/orbit/discussions) for questions and ideas - [**Issues**](https://github.com/Noveum/orbit/issues) for bugs and concrete work - [**Security**](SECURITY.md) for anything that should not be public If Orbit is useful to you, a star helps other people find it. ## Sponsor
Sponsored by Noveum AI
[Noveum AI](https://noveum.ai) builds evaluation and observability tooling for AI systems, and pays for Orbit's hosting and engineering time. Orbit is not a funnel for it. There is no upsell, no "contact sales" and no gated feature. We needed a task manager, we could not find a free one that was good, so we built one and gave it away. ## License [Apache License 2.0](LICENSE). Use it, run it, change it, ship it, commercially or otherwise. The patent grant protects you, and the [NOTICE](NOTICE) asks only that a public fork picks its own name so nobody confuses your build with this one.
Built by Noveum AI and everyone who has contributed.