Board

TIP

Wondering how to organize your weekend chores or a large project? See the Projects & Tasks Guide.

A Board is Mottainai's visual task manager — similar to Trello or Kanban boards you may have seen at work. You organize tasks as cards arranged in columns, and move them from column to column as work progresses. Changes appear for all members in real time.

How it works

Think of a board as a wall covered in sticky notes. Each sticky note is a card (a task), and the wall is divided into vertical sections called columns — for example "To Do", "In Progress", and "Done". When you finish a task, you drag its card to the next column. Everyone on the board sees the update instantly.

Getting started: Create a board from your dashboard. Once open, add columns to represent your stages, then start adding cards.

Columns

Columns define the stages of your workflow. You can have as many as you like.

• Create a column by clicking the "+" button at the right edge of the board
• Rename a column by clicking its name
• Reorder columns by dragging them left or right
• Collapse a column to save space — the number of hidden cards is shown; this is your personal preference and does not affect other members
• Archive all cards in a column at once to clear it without losing the tasks

Deleting a column also deletes all the cards inside it. If you want to keep the cards, use "Archive all cards" first, or delete with the archive option from the column menu.

Cards (tasks)

Each card represents a task or item to track.

• Create a card with the "+" button inside any column — a title is all you need
• Add an optional description for more detail
• Set a due date to track deadlines
• Attach labels (colored tags) to categorize the card
• Drag a card to a different column or position within the same column
• Archive a card when done — it disappears from the board but stays in history and can be restored at any time from the archived-cards panel
• Delete a card to remove it permanently — you will be asked to confirm; hold Shift and click the delete button to skip the confirmation

Due dates

Cards with a due date display a small badge:

• Red — the due date has passed (overdue)
• Orange — the due date is today
• Green — the due date is in the future

Board due dates can also appear in the Calendar's aggregate view. Enable this under Calendar Settings → Other Sources → Board due dates.

Labels

Labels are color tags you create for each board. Use them to group cards by topic, priority, team, or anything that makes sense for you.

• 8 colors to choose from (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, gray)
• Each label can have a name in English, German, and Japanese
• Click a label on the board to filter and show only cards with that label
• Creating and deleting labels requires admin or owner access

Sorting

You can control the order of cards within each column independently. Sort preferences are yours alone — they do not change how other members see the board.

Available sort options:

• Due date — overdue first, then today, then upcoming
• Label priority — cards with a specific label float to the top
• Creation date — oldest or newest first
• Date entered column — by when the card last moved here
• Title — alphabetical
• Due within window — cards due within a chosen time range

Multiple sort rules can be chained together.

Customizing the board

• Choose a background color or upload a background image
• Set separate crop positions for mobile and desktop so the image looks right on both
• Adjust blur and darkness overlay to keep text readable over the image

Sharing

Share a board with teammates or family members via an invite link from the share panel.

Role	What they can do
Owner	Full control — manage members, delete the board
Admin	Manage settings, columns, and members
Member	Create and edit cards and columns
Guest	View only — cannot make changes

You can also link a contact group to add all group members to the board at once.

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For developers

The following sections are for programmatic access via CLI, AI assistants (MCP), or direct API. See MCP setup and CLI docs for how to connect.

CLI

# Boards
mo board list
mo board create --name "Sprint 1"
mo board get BOARD_ID
mo board update BOARD_ID --name "Sprint 1 (revised)" --bg-color "#e0e7ff"
mo board delete BOARD_ID --yes

# Columns
mo board column create BOARD_ID --name "To do"
mo board column update BOARD_ID COLUMN_ID --name "In progress"
mo board column reorder BOARD_ID --column-ids COL1,COL2,COL3
mo board column delete BOARD_ID COLUMN_ID --yes

# Cards
mo board card create BOARD_ID --column-id COLUMN_ID --title "Write tests"
mo board card update CARD_ID --title "Write unit tests" --due-date 2026-03-15
mo board card update CARD_ID --label-ids LABEL1,LABEL2
mo board card move BOARD_ID --item-id CARD_ID --column-id COLUMN_ID --position 0
mo board card delete CARD_ID --yes

# Labels
mo board label create BOARD_ID --name "Urgent" --color "#ef4444"
mo board label update LABEL_ID --name "Critical" --color "#dc2626"
mo board label delete LABEL_ID --yes

# Members and groups
mo board member list BOARD_ID
mo board member add BOARD_ID --email user@example.com --role member
mo board member update-role BOARD_ID USER_ID --role admin
mo board member remove BOARD_ID USER_ID --yes
mo board group list BOARD_ID
mo board group link BOARD_ID --group-id GROUP_ID

# Invite link
mo board invite-token BOARD_ID

MCP tools

• list_boards — list all boards
• create_board — create a new board
• get_board — fetch a board with its columns and cards
• update_board / delete_board
• list_all_board_columns — list columns for a board
• create_board_column / update_board_column / delete_board_column
• reorder_board_columns — set column order
• list_board_cards — list cards, optionally filtered by column
• create_board_card — add a card to a column
• update_board_card / delete_board_card
• move_board_card — move a card to a column at a position
• batch_move_board_cards — move up to 50 cards to a target column
• batch_update_items — apply the same field update to up to 50 cards
• batch_delete_items — delete up to 50 cards
• create_board_label / update_board_label / delete_board_label
• list_board_members / add_board_member / remove_board_member
• update_board_member_role

API endpoints

Method	Path	Description
GET	/api/containers?type=board	List boards
POST	/api/containers	Create board (type=board)
GET	/api/containers/{boardId}	Get board with columns and cards
PUT	/api/containers/{boardId}	Update board settings
DELETE	/api/containers/{boardId}	Delete board
GET	/api/containers/{boardId}/columns	List columns
POST	/api/containers/{boardId}/columns	Create column
PUT	/api/containers/{boardId}/columns/{columnId}	Rename column
DELETE	/api/containers/{boardId}/columns/{columnId}	Delete column
POST	/api/containers/{boardId}/columns/reorder	Reorder columns
POST	/api/containers/{boardId}/columns/{columnId}/archive-cards	Archive all cards in column
GET	/api/containers/{boardId}/items	List cards (paginated)
POST	/api/containers/{boardId}/items	Create card
PUT	/api/items/{itemId}	Update card
DELETE	/api/items/{itemId}	Delete card
POST	/api/containers/{boardId}/items/move	Move card
POST	/api/containers/{boardId}/items/batch-move	Batch move cards
POST	/api/containers/{boardId}/items/batch-update	Batch update cards
POST	/api/containers/{boardId}/items/batch-delete	Batch delete cards
POST	/api/items/{itemId}/archive	Archive card
POST	/api/items/{itemId}/unarchive	Restore card
GET	/api/containers/{boardId}/archived-items	List archived cards
GET	/api/containers/{boardId}/labels	List labels
POST	/api/containers/{boardId}/labels	Create label
PUT	/api/labels/{labelId}	Update label
DELETE	/api/labels/{labelId}	Delete label
GET	/api/containers/{boardId}/members/users	List members
POST	/api/containers/{boardId}/members/users	Add member
PUT	/api/containers/{boardId}/members/users/{memberId}	Update member role
DELETE	/api/containers/{boardId}/members/users/{memberId}	Remove member
PUT	/api/containers/{boardId}/my-prefs	Update column collapse prefs
PUT	/api/containers/{boardId}/my-prefs/sort	Update column sort rules

See the full API reference at /api/docs.