Your First Day¶

This walks through a realistic work day to show how the pieces fit together. Follow along or read through to build a mental model.

Morning: Plan¶

Start the server if it's not running:

kai serve

Open the dashboard. Check what's on your plate:

kai briefing

The briefing shows your active timer (if any), top open tasks, inbox items, and budget status for all customers.

Pick a task and start the clock:

kai clock start "Acme Corp" "Working on landing page"

Or use the UI: open the clock widget, select the customer, and press Start. The menu bar tray (desktop app) shows the running timer too.

While working, capture thoughts without breaking flow:

kai inbox add "Check if SSL cert expires this month"
kai inbox add "Idea: automate the deploy script" --type IDEA

Stop the current timer and start a new one:

kai clock stop
kai clock start "Beta Inc" "Code review for PR #42"

Book a meeting you forgot to track:

kai clock book 30min "Acme Corp" "Standup call"

Process your inbox. In the UI, open Inbox and decide for each item: promote to task, move to notes, or delete.

kai inbox list

Add notes from a client call:

kai notes add "Acme deployment timeline" \
    --customer "Acme Corp" \
    --body "Go-live planned for June 15. Need staging by June 1."

Check your hours:

kai clock summary

See all entries for today:

kai clock list --today

The dashboard shows cumulative hours per customer with budget bars. Click any bar to see the entries behind it.

Keyboard shortcuts make the UI fast. Press D for dashboard, B for board, I for inbox. Press Cmd+J to open the command bar for CLI commands right inside the UI.
Command bar (Cmd+J) supports autocomplete for 25+ commands. Type clock start or task add without leaving the browser.
Everything is a file. Your data lives in ~/.kaisho/. Open the org-mode or Markdown files in any editor. Changes sync back to the UI automatically via file watching.