§ 01 · Form BC-01 · INTAKE
Meet the cat.
Requests, sign-offs and to-dos pile up. BureauCat files every one of them as a task, so nothing stays loose on someone's desk.
Self-hosted · Open-source task manager Bureaucracy
That Actually Moves
Requests, sign-offs and to-dos, turned into tasks that move, with approval workflows, kanban boards and a tamper-evident audit log.
§ 08 · Also in the drawer
The rest of the paperwork.
Single sign-on
Google and Zitadel, alongside passwords.
Tokens & CLI
Read-only or read-write API tokens, plus a CLI.
API docs
Every endpoint, documented.
Saved views
Filter, group and sort. Keep it private or share it.
Pages
Rich-text docs that live next to the project.
Search & quick create
Ctrl K to find anything. Shift C to file a task.
Your branding
Rename the app for your organisation.
Graph view
See who is on what and how tasks connect.
Pomodoro
A focus timer. The forms won't fill themselves.
Admin tools
Merge users, restore projects, instance stats.
§ 09 · Questions on file
Frequently asked questions
What is BureauCat?
BureauCat is an open-source, self-hosted task manager built around approval workflows. Requests and sign-offs become numbered tasks that move through states such as Approval Pending, and every change is recorded in a tamper-evident audit log.
Is BureauCat free?
Yes. BureauCat is free and open source under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (AGPL-3.0). You host it yourself.
How do I self-host BureauCat?
Run the single bureaucat binary or the codingcoffee/bureaucat Docker image with a PostgreSQL database. Set DATABASE_URL and JWT_SECRET, then start it with bureaucat serve --migrate. The web app and API are served from one port.
How do approvals work?
Approval is a task state. The default workflow includes Approval Pending, so a request waiting for sign-off sits in its own column on the board, with assignees, followers and a full history, instead of in an email thread.
What makes the audit log tamper-evident?
The audit log is append-only and each entry is hash-chained (SHA-256) to the one before it. Rewriting any past entry breaks the chain, and one click verifies the whole log.
Does BureauCat have an API?
Yes. Every endpoint is documented with an OpenAPI spec and interactive docs. API tokens can be read-only or read-write, and the bureaucat binary doubles as a CLI.
Ready to make bureaucracy
work for you?
Sign up, create a project, file your first task.