I’ve been a solo developer for most of my side projects, and I’ve spent too much time wrestling with backlogs that feel like overhead rather than help. Tools like Jira or Linear are great for teams with PMs and sprint rituals, but they don’t fit how solo developers actually work.
So I built OpenBacklog, a lightweight, AI-assisted backlog manager designed specifically for solo developers. It integrates directly with Claude Code through the Model Context Protocol (MCP), keeping product planning and implementation in sync.
GitHub: https://github.com/samboyd/OpenBacklog
Why I built it
In larger teams, I’ve seen backlogs turn into graveyards of half-finished tickets and lost ideas. As a solo developer, I wanted a system that actually helps plan, manage dependencies, and understand progress over time, not just record it.
LLMs make that possible. OpenBacklog uses them to connect related work, summarize progress, and maintain a sense of direction, what’s done, what’s next, and why it matters. It’s about long-term product thinking, not just task tracking.
It’s open source, simple to self-audit, and priced transparently: $7/month, which includes $7 in AI credit, with any extra usage billed at-cost (roughly OpenAI/Anthropic API rates).
Would love feedback from anyone who’s building solo or frustrated with traditional backlog tools. What would make this genuinely useful for you?
Sam