Show HN: Paca – Lightweight Jira alternative for human-AI collaboration

AI-native. Free. Lightweight. Open-source.The fully customizable alternative to Jira, Trello, ClickUp, and Monday.

Getting Started · MCP Server · Claude Code Skill · Architecture · Contributing · Roadmap

Paca is a self-hosted project management platform where AI agents and humans collaborate as equal teammates inside a Scrum team — not as chatbots bolted on the side.

Jira gives you a backlog. ClickUp gives you automations. Monday gives you dashboards. Paca gives your AI agents a seat at the table. They join sprint planning, pick up tasks from the board, write BDD specs, and adapt alongside humans in real time.

Everything about Paca — its workflow, its data model, its UI — is configurable and extendable via plugins.

| Jira / Trello / ClickUp / Monday | Paca | | |---|---|---| AI integration | Chatbot add-ons, peripheral automation | AI agents as first-class Scrum teammates | Collaboration model | Human-only by default | Human + AI, side by side on the same board | Hosting | Vendor cloud (your data, their servers) | Self-hosted, you own everything | Cost | $8–$20+ per seat/month | Free forever | Customization | Limited; locked behind enterprise tiers | Fully open: configuration + plugins | Weight | Bloated feature sprawl | Lightweight core; extend only what you need | Source | Closed / proprietary | 100% open-source (Apache 2.0) |

The central insight behind Paca is that AI agents should participate in the Scrum process, not just generate output in isolation.

In Paca, AI agents:

• Are assigned to sprints and appear on the Scrumban board alongside human teammates Pick up tasks from the backlog and update their status in real timeCollaborate on BDD specs— helping Product Owners and BAs write Gherkin scenarios** Contribute to System Design Documents**— keeping the architecture visible to the whole team** Probe, sense, and respond**to emerging complexity, just like a human would

This is not automation. It is genuine collaboration — rooted in the Cynefin / Stacey framework's recognition that complex domains require teams, not pipelines.

Paca ships as a small, focused core. Everything else is optional.

Configuration-driven: workflows, statuses, field definitions, board layouts, sprint rules, and agent behavior are all driven by project-level configuration files. No code needed to adapt Paca to your team's process.

Plugin system: extend or replace any part of Paca via plugins. Plugins are compiled to WebAssembly (WASM) for the backend (write in Go, Rust, AssemblyScript — anything with a WASM target) and standard module bundles for the frontend. Plugins run in a sandboxed environment with a capability-based permission model; they declare exactly what host functions they need, and nothing more.

plugins/
├── backend/        # WASM modules — add custom routes, logic, data models
└── frontend/       # UI modules — add custom pages, board views, widgets

Browse and install community plugins directly from the Plugin Marketplace inside the Paca UI — no command line required. Go to Settings → Plugins → Marketplace, find a plugin, and click Install.

For local development or custom plugins, you can also install from the filesystem:

./scripts/install-local-plugin.sh ./my-plugin --api-key <your-api-key>

Paca structures team collaboration around four phases that mirror both Scrum and the scientific method:

Plan  →  Act  →  Check  →  Adapt
  ↑                             |
  └─────────────────────────────┘

In-app AI chat— chat with AI agents at the project level to plan work, create or update epics, stories, tasks, and documentation — all in plain English without leaving Paca

Activity diff & revert— every field change in the activity pane now shows a before/after diff; one click reverts a change to its previous value

Unified Scrumban Board— humans and AI agents share a single real-time board; no separate "AI workspace"** In-app AI chat**— chat with AI agents at the project level to plan work, create or update epics, stories, tasks, and documentation in plain EnglishActivity diff & revert— see a visual diff for every field change in the activity pane and revert any change with one click** BDD Collaboration**— Gherkin scenario editor co-authored by POs, BAs, and AI agents** System Design Documents (SDD)— living architecture docs that keep AI agents contextually grounded MCP Server**— connect Claude, custom agents, or any MCP-compatible tool directly into Paca's data layer** Claude Code skill**—/paca

slash command for Claude Code; manage tasks, docs, and sprints in plain English without leaving your editorReal-time updates— Socket.IO delivery; everyone sees changes the moment they happen** OpenHands-powered agents**— AI agents run on theOpenHandsSDK; each agent executes inside its own isolated sandbox container so your host environment is never touchedWASM plugin sandbox— extend Paca safely; plugins cannot escape their declared permissions** Self-hosted**— runs on a single Docker Compose command; your data never leaves your infrastructure** Lightweight by default**— minimal core, no feature bloat; add only what your team actually needs

Runs on any Linux server with Docker. No repository clone required.

curl -fsSL https://github.com/Paca-AI/paca/releases/latest/download/install.sh | bash

The script walks you through configuration interactively and starts the full stack. Open http://your-server-ip

when it finishes.

mkdir paca && cd paca
curl -fsSL https://github.com/Paca-AI/paca/releases/latest/download/docker-compose.yml -o docker-compose.yml
mkdir -p nginx
curl -fsSL https://github.com/Paca-AI/paca/releases/latest/download/gateway.conf -o nginx/gateway.conf

cat > .env <<'EOF'
JWT_SECRET=<run: openssl rand -hex 32>
ADMIN_PASSWORD=<your-admin-password>
POSTGRES_PASSWORD=<run: openssl rand -hex 32>
AGENT_API_KEY=<run: openssl rand -hex 32>
INTERNAL_API_KEY=<run: openssl rand -hex 32>
ENCRYPTION_KEY=<run: openssl rand -hex 32>
PUBLIC_URL=http://localhost
EOF

docker compose --env-file .env up -d

Open http://localhost

— log in with admin

and the password you set.

Customizing the stack:scale down services you don't need.

docker compose --env-file .env up -d --scale postgres=0

docker compose --env-file .env up -d --scale minio=0

docker compose --env-file .env up -d --scale ai-agent=0
git clone https://github.com/Paca-AI/paca.git && cd paca

docker compose -f deploy/docker-compose.dev.yml up -d postgres valkey

docker compose -f deploy/docker-compose.dev.yml up -d

See docs/guides/local-development.md for running services on the host for active development.

Paca ships an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that gives any compatible AI agent direct, structured access to your workspace — projects, tasks, sprints, documents, members, and more. No scraping, no custom APIs to wire up.

The server is published as ** @paca-ai/paca-mcp** on npm. You run it with

npx

; your MCP client handles the rest.- Open (or create) the Claude Desktop config file:

macOS:~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Windows:%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

Add the

paca

entry:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "paca": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@paca-ai/paca-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "PACA_API_KEY": "your-api-key-here",
        "PACA_API_URL": "http://localhost:8080"
      }
    }
  }
}

• Restart Claude Desktop. Claude now has access to all Paca tools and can answer requests like: "List all active sprints in project X""Create a task for implementing OAuth and assign it to sprint 3""Add a comment to task #42 with my progress update"

Any client that speaks MCP works. Typical configuration:

{
  "name": "paca",
  "command": "npx",
  "args": ["-y", "@paca-ai/paca-mcp"],
  "env": {
    "PACA_API_KEY": "your-api-key-here",
    "PACA_API_URL": "http://your-paca-instance:8080"
  }
}

The server exposes tools across these categories:

For a complete reference and advanced configuration (agent-mode, plugin tools, programmatic usage), see docs/guides/mcp-server-setup.md.

If you use Claude Code, install the Paca skill set and manage your entire Paca workspace through natural-language slash commands — without leaving your editor and without creating local files. Every command reads your Paca documentation first to understand the project before acting.

Skills are defined in the skills/ directory using the

Agent Skillsformat — one subdirectory per skill, each with a

SKILL.md

containing YAML frontmatter and instructions. The install script strips the frontmatter and writes the body to ~/.claude/commands/

for use as Claude Code slash commands.Run this once in your terminal to install all skills globally:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Paca-AI/paca/master/scripts/install-claude-skill.sh | bash

Then connect the Paca MCP server to Claude Code:

claude mcp add paca \
  --env PACA_API_KEY=<your-api-key> \
  --env PACA_API_URL=<your-paca-url> \
  -- npx -y @paca-ai/paca-mcp

Run /paca-setup

inside a Claude Code session for a guided interactive walkthrough instead.

For full setup options and command reference, see docs/guides/claude-code-skill.md.

apps/web          React + TanStack Start + shadcn/ui — user interface
apps/mcp          @paca-ai/paca-mcp — MCP server for AI agent integration
services/api      Go + Gin — core business logic and REST API
services/realtime Node.js + Socket.IO — real-time event fan-out
services/ai-agent Python + FastAPI + OpenHands SDK — AI agent orchestration
apps/e2e          Playwright — end-to-end test suite

skills/           Agent Skills — /paca slash commands for Claude Code

PostgreSQL        Persistent store
Valkey            Cache + async event streams between services

See docs/architecture/overview.md for detail.

The name is a small pun on the Japanese word "Baka" (ばか) — "silly."

In the early days, we jokingly called our AI assistants "silly" when they hallucinated. And building a serious project management platform as a free, open-source alternative to multi-billion-dollar tools might also seem a bit silly.

But Paca is built from conviction: human-AI collaboration in a real Scrum team should be accessible to every team, everywhere — not locked behind a vendor's pricing model. We think that's worth being a little foolish about. 🦙✨

docs/guides/getting-started.mddocs/guides/local-development.mddocs/guides/mcp-server-setup.mddocs/guides/claude-code-skill.md/paca

skill for Claude Code — manage Paca from your editordocs/plugins/deploy/README.mdCHANGELOG.mdCONTRIBUTING.mdSECURITY.mdDistributed under the Apache License 2.0. See LICENSE for details.