No database, no SaaS, no login!

Project management that lives in your repo as folders and markdown files. No databases, no apps, no syncing — just git and a text editor. Humans and AI agents work from the same files, so nothing falls out of sync when you switch tools, add teammates, or hand work to an agent. A task's status is which folder it's in:

docs/tasks/backlog/   Planned, not started
docs/tasks/next/      Queued for current sprint
docs/tasks/doing/     In progress
docs/tasks/blocked/   Waiting on a decision
docs/tasks/review/    Done, awaiting approval
docs/tasks/done/      Shipped

AI coding tools have their own task tracking — /goal, /plan, task lists, loops. These are session-scoped: they exist inside one conversation and vanish when it ends. That works for staying focused within a session, but it's not project management. Rename a variable across three files and the context is gone. Come back tomorrow and there's no trail.

Files in your repo survive sessions, tools, and people. A task in docs/tasks/doing/ is visible to every AI agent, every IDE, every teammate, and every git log — without anyone needing to be in the right conversation at the right time. More importantly, it's in the source code. If project state lives in someone's session or loop, the rest of the team can't see it — they can't participate in planning, can't pick up where someone left off, and can't review what's in flight. Agentic loops have the same problem: a loop can poll, retry, and iterate, but it's still anchored to a single session. When the loop ends, the work it tracked disappears unless something was written down.

Files checked into the repo are the one communication layer that every tool, every person, and every agent already knows how to read. As distributed agents become more common, file-based project state becomes a shared coordination surface — multiple agents working on the same codebase can read the board, claim tasks, and leave progress behind without needing to share a session.

Session tools and loops are useful within a work session. Files are how the work persists between them. 5DayDocs is the second part.

cd 5daydocs
./setup.sh
# enter your project path when prompted

This creates the folder structure, CLI, templates, and docs in your project. You now have ./5day.sh and a docs/ folder ready to go.

./5day.sh profile

An AI-guided interview about your stack, conventions, and goals. The answers are saved to docs/5day/project.md so every command that follows already knows what you're building and how.

./5day.sh newfeature                       # AI-guided Q&A — builds a complete spec through conversation
./5day.sh newfeature "User authentication" # quick mode — creates a template you fill in yourself

Without a name, newfeature starts an interactive session that asks about users, requirements, and success criteria, then writes a complete feature spec to docs/features/. With a name, it creates a blank template for you to fill in manually. Features describe what the system does — they're the big picture that tasks break down into.

./5day.sh newtask "Add login endpoint"
./5day.sh newtask "Set up Stripe integration"
./5day.sh newtask "Write auth middleware"

Tasks land in docs/tasks/backlog/ with an auto-assigned ID. Each file is built from a battle-tested template, and AI guides you through defining success criteria, dependencies, and scope. Also: ./5day.sh newbug "description" and ./5day.sh newidea "description".

Move tasks through folders as you work. The folder a task is in is its status.

# Queue a task for your current sprint
git mv docs/tasks/backlog/1-add-login-endpoint.md docs/tasks/next/

# Start working on it
git mv docs/tasks/next/1-add-login-endpoint.md docs/tasks/doing/

# Finished — send to review
git mv docs/tasks/doing/1-add-login-endpoint.md docs/tasks/review/

# Approved — done
git mv docs/tasks/review/1-add-login-endpoint.md docs/tasks/done/

Check where things stand at any time:

./5day.sh status

For the full workflow reference — task format, feature specs, bug reports, and conventions — see DOCUMENTATION.md.

Once you have tasks in your backlog, AI can help plan, validate, and execute them.

# Plan a sprint — pick tasks from backlog into next/
./5day.sh sprint 5

# Validate — catch done, underspecified, or blocked tasks before execution
./5day.sh define

# Execute — one fresh AI context per task
./5day.sh tasks

./5day.sh tasks runs everything in next/. Start with --assist to choose a mode interactively, or pick your own:

./5day.sh tasks --assist               # interactive mode picker
./5day.sh tasks --fast                 # 4 concurrent jobs
./5day.sh tasks --parallel --jobs N    # set concurrency explicitly
./5day.sh tasks --max                  # remove per-task turn/budget limits
./5day.sh tasks --audit                # code audit after each task
./5day.sh tasks --drift                # skip done tasks, fix stale ones
./5day.sh tasks --claude               # also --openai, --gemini, --mistral

Flags combine: ./5day.sh tasks --max --audit --fast

Run tasks continuously with crash recovery. Each task gets a fresh context.

./5day.sh loop                         # drain next/
./5day.sh loop --hours 2 --refill      # run for 2h, refill from backlog when empty
./5day.sh loop --refill --retry        # full autopilot

./5day.sh find <id> --work             # analyze, move, and work a single task
./5day.sh triage [limit]               # walk through the task pipeline interactively
./5day.sh plan <task-id>               # interactive Q&A to define a blank task
./5day.sh talk <task-id>               # discuss a task with AI to make it well-defined and workable
./5day.sh split <path>                 # break a large task into subtasks
./5day.sh audit [folder] [limit]       # audit tasks for quality
./5day.sh review-code <file> [passes]  # code audit on changed files
./5day.sh review-sprint                # dual-persona sprint review
./5day.sh validate [--fix]             # validate task files against template
./5day.sh sync [--all]                 # push task changes to GitHub

Start with DOCUMENTATION.md — it's the complete reference. Use ./5day.sh commands to create work items, never create files manually, and don't edit anything under docs/5day/. Folder = status.

See CONTRIBUTING.md.