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Ask HN: What tools do you use to manage projects as a solo dev?

by nbbaier on 4/17/25, 5:31 PM with 8 comments

• by OhMeadhbh on 4/17/25, 5:37 PM

  So... by "manage projects" you mean all the metadata related to tasks, bugs, todos, features, deadlines and milestones? (I've heard some people use "manage projects" to mean "how do I build the source? make? cmake? etc.")

  To be honest, I just save all that stuff in text files in the same repo as the code (though usually in a specific directory at the root of the project.) I have some tools that pull meta-data out of text files so I can query them for things like "give me a list of open items" or "give me a list of items tagged with a specific release target."

  It takes some getting used to if you like HTML interfaces, but I grew up on the command line so it works for me.

• by PaulHoule on 4/17/25, 5:46 PM

  Mostly paper kanban boards. From time to time I tear down the old one and make a new one. I broke mine down into two sheets in order of long-term vs short-term speculativeness then wrote some overflow ideas onto a third sheet.

  Paper is my ‘killer app’ when I am having any difficulty with a project. The last thing I need is another window on my virtual desktops to navigate to, if I want to knock down tasks like a beast I print them down and cross them out.

• by mmarian on 4/18/25, 5:26 AM

  Everything is in Notion for me.

• by mubou on 4/17/25, 5:41 PM

  File explorer. I put them in separate folders so their files aren't all jumbled together /s

  Can you clarify what you mean by "manage projects"? If you mean issue tracking / notes, I sometimes use github issues, but most often I simply use a markdown file in the gitignored directory where I keep assets that shouldn't be checked in (psds, db backups, and so on). The mermaid extension for vscode makes it easy to throw together flowcharts in that same file. Sometimes I use google tasks for checklists, since my other todo's are in there too.