pinto: A Git-Native Scrum Backlog and Kanban Board for Your Terminal

pinto lets teams manage Scrum backlogs as plain text. Every backlog change can be inspected with git diff , carried across a branch, merged, and reviewed in a pull request—just like source code. The backlog follows the same lifecycle as the product it describes. pinto is local-first: no server, account, or hosted database is required. It works with AI agents, but never depends on them. And unlike a generic CLI to-do list, its core model is Scrum: Product Backlog Items (PBIs), Sprints, Kanban, and the metrics teams use to inspect and adapt. Why pinto exists Jira, Asana, and Notion are capable products. But as more features accumulate, the process can start serving the tool instead of the other way around: Creating one ticket means navigating required fields and workflow settings. Running a Sprint begins with configuring permissions, automations, or dashboards. Even a small status change feels expensive when the tool is slow to open. Scrum is meant to be a lightweight framework for rapid inspection and adaptation . When maintaining the board becomes work in its own right, the tooling has lost sight of that goal. The name pinto comes from the Japanese word ピント “focus.” That is also the design intent: keep the team's attention on the Product Backlog, the Sprint, and the work flowing across the board. pinto deliberately stays small. It starts quickly, keeps dependencies and vocabulary limited, stores durable data as readable files, and excludes project-suite features such as Gantt charts and CRM. Your backlog belongs in the repository Running pinto init creates a .pinto/ directory beside your code. Each PBI is a Markdown file with TOML frontmatter. Here is a real item from pinto's own backlog: +++ id = "P-2" title = "Investigate and fix Windows CI while retaining Windows support" status = "done" rank = "j" labels = ["ci", "windows"] created = "2026-07-15T06:24:58.731847Z" updated = "2026-07-15T09:34:50.653786Z" +++ # Summary Investigate, verify, and fix the current Windo