Kanban Action Planner plugin for Obsidian

Canonical version: Kanban Action Planner plugin for Obsidian.

Plan, track, and schedule any set of notes visually, straight from a Obsidian Base. This plugin adds a Kanban board view to Bases, so your tasks, projects, content ideas, or anything else you keep as notes can move across columns instead of sitting in a flat list.

This is a plugin that I have created. The idea is simple: your notes stay the source of truth. Statuses become columns, you drag cards around, and every change (status, order, dates, relationships) gets written back to your frontmatter. Nothing lives in a hidden database.

You define the note types yourself (by tag, folder, or regex), or you let the Obsidian Starter Kit plugin configure them for you when it is installed.

Requires Obsidian 1.13+ (the Bases view API). Works on desktop (mobile isn't supported yet).

Screenshots

A board, with a configurable status property driving the columns:

The same idea applied to a large task base, with collapsed columns keeping the backlog out of the way:

Swimlanes, here grouping the board by priority:

Calendar mode, plotting scheduled dates and deadlines together, with an Unplanned panel on the side:

Filter as you type, with a compact query language:

Timeline mode, a Gantt-style view that places each card by its start date and estimate, with milestones, per-row deadline lines, and drag-to-reschedule:

The Unplanned panel groups cards by note type, then status, so a big backlog stays navigable in calendar and timeline modes:

Triage mode, clarifying a backlog one card at a time:

In the settings, you just have to configure the key fields that need to be defined, and the triage mode lists all the notes that don't respect the rules, then let's you easily update those:

Per-type configuration, synced from the Obsidian Starter Kit when it is present:

Relationships and statuses, edited straight from the card menu:

Cards carry a due countdown and color-coded properties:

Full keyboard support for moving and reordering cards:

What it does

• Kanban view in Bases: add one or more boards to any Base. The Base's own filters decide which notes show up.
• Status to columns, defined not guessed: a status property places each card into a column you define, so a typo can't spawn a stray column. Unmapped notes land in an "Unmapped" column that hides itself when empty.
• Move, reorder, sort: drag a card to another column to change its status, reorder within a column, or auto-sort by name, by any property, or even by a base formula like a priority_score. Full keyboard support too.
• Filter as you type: a compact, Jira-like search box (e.g., status:active OR due:overdue, parent:"PKM" -tag:archived), saved per view.
• Triage mode: when a backlog gets overwhelming, work through it one card at a time, setting priority, urgency, and the rest from quick one-click controls. It also doubles as a spaced-repetition review queue.
• Relationships you can see and edit: parent, sibling, child, and blocked_by links. Navigate them, add or remove them from the card menu, and flag blocked items. An archived blocker stops blocking.
• Swimlanes: split the board into collapsible lanes by note type or any property. Drag across lanes to rewrite the grouping.
• Calendar mode: flip the same board into a scheduling calendar (day, week, month, quarter, year) that plots scheduled dates and deadlines together. Drag cards onto days to set date_scheduled or date_due.
• Timeline mode: a Gantt-style view that places each card by its start date plus an estimate in days (no end date), with milestone diamonds, a today line, per-row deadline lines, and drag or resize to reschedule. The Unplanned panel groups cards by note type, then status.
• Archiving: move finished cards into a placeholder-driven folder (e.g., Archive/{{year}}), manually or automatically when they reach a given status. Links are preserved.
• Color-coded cards: cards show the properties you picked in the Bases view, including base formulas. Enum values are color-coded by rank, so the board reads like a heatmap.
• Reusable note types: per-type config for statuses, colors, relationships, archiving, and swimlanes. Define your own, or mirror them from the Obsidian Starter Kit.

References

• Community: https://community.obsidian.md/plugins/kanban-action-planner
• Documentation: https://dsebastien.github.io/obsidian-kanban-action-planner
• Source code: https://github.com/dsebastien/obsidian-kanban-action-planner
• Releases: https://github.com/dsebastien/obsidian-kanban-action-planner/releases

Related

• Obsidian Bases
• Journal Bases plugin for Obsidian
• Timeline for Bases plugin for Obsidian
• Obsidian Starter Kit
• Kanban plugin for Obsidian

About Sébastien

I'm Sébastien Dubois, and I'm on a mission to help knowledge workers escape information overload. After 20+ years in IT and seeing too many brilliant minds drowning in digital chaos, I've decided to help people build systems that actually work. Through the Knowii Community, my courses, products & services and my Website/Newsletter, I share practical and battle-tested systems.

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