Trello-style board that reads and writes plain markdown files on your local disk.

• 100% local, no server, no database.
• folders are columns, .md files are cards, frontmatter is metadata.
• Uses the Filesystem API, requires a Chromium-based browser
• Designed to share your personal TODOs with AI agents - No MCP, tools or auth needed.
• 🍻 Pronounced like the beer

Try it out at https://subdavis.github.io/mdello/

User Guide

Your files	Your board

Mdello can be installed as a PWA.

Recommend creating the folder at ~/Documents/mdello

Open the app, click Open folder…, pick your folder. The folder handle is cached in IndexedDB, so later visits only need a single Reconnect click to re-grant write permission.

Switching boards

Every folder you open is remembered. Press ⌘P (Ctrl+P) or click the board name in the toolbar to bring up the switcher: arrow keys to move, Enter to switch, Esc to dismiss. Because the handles are cached, swapping boards never re-opens the file picker. Boards are listed by their path from mdello.yml where one is set, since every board folder tends to be called content. The × on a row drops it from the list and leaves the files alone.

Agent Skills

The purpose of the filesystem-based approach is to give AI agents complete access to your board without any external tools, MCP, or auth. It's just files! You can tell your agent about your board with a simple skill.

npx skills add https://github.com/subdavis/mdello/blob/main/skills/mdello-board

Board layout

content/
  mdello.yml                # Local config file
  1-todo/card.md            # numeric prefix sets column order
  2-doing/card.md
  3-done/card.md
  archive/2026-08/card.md   # never scanned, never shown

Frontmatter

• title is editable
• order is managed by drag order
• tags, assignee and created are read-only
• modification time comes from the file itself.

Editing: click a card to open it, double-click the description for a raw markdown editor. Changes autosave after a short pause; Save exits edit mode and re-renders.

Configuration & Customization

See mdello.yml in your mdello board folder to configure additional features

• Open-in-editor setup
• Tag customization

Drag any image onto the window to set the background image.

Local development

mise install
yarn install
yarn dev