Zeta

The open-source, self-hosted project management platform built for modern engineering teams.

Sprints · Kanban · Real-time Chat · Wiki Docs — all in one beautiful app.

View on GitHub · Report a Bug · Request a Feature · Discussions

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Why Zeta?

Most project management tools are either too simple or locked behind expensive SaaS subscriptions. Zeta is fully self-hosted, open source, and free — giving your team complete ownership of their data and workflow.

	Zeta	Jira	Linear
Self-hosted	✅	❌	❌
Open source	✅	❌	❌
Real-time collaboration	✅	⚠️	⚠️
Built-in chat	✅	❌	❌
Wiki & Docs	✅	✅	⚠️
AI summaries	🚧	💰	💰
Free forever	✅	❌	❌

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Zeta in Action

Sprint Analytics Dashboard

Unified cockpit for sprint health — velocity trends, workload distribution, and real-time task metrics.

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Project & Sprint Lifecycle

Spin up new projects, establish multiple active and planned sprints, map tasks, and track team activity updates.

Key Walkthrough Highlights:

• Dynamic Project Setup: Seamlessly spin up separate workspace boards with custom scopes.
• Sprint Sequencing: Spin up multiple sprints (active and upcoming) to plan deliverables.
• Task Alignment: Create and map tasks to sprint backlogs directly from task creation modals.
• Dashboard Activity Feed: Monitor real-time audit trails of workspace actions on the cockpit.

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Drag-and-Drop Kanban Board

Move tasks across Backlog → In Progress → Review → Done with live Socket.io updates.

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Collaborative Wiki & Docs

Rich TipTap editor with @mention support, real-time viewer presence, and per-project documentation spaces.

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Real-time Team Chat

1-to-1 and group messaging with typing indicators, read receipts, file attachments, and deep-link notifications.

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Features

📊 Sprint Analytics Dashboard

• Personalized overview: completed tasks, active tasks, total count, sprint count
• Bar charts, area charts, and pie charts powered by Recharts
• Filter by project and sprint for focused metrics
• Velocity trend indicators showing week-over-week changes
• Task completion chart over the last 30 days
• Per-user workload and assignment distribution

📁 Project Management

• Create and manage multiple projects with descriptions
• Role-based project membership: Viewer / Contributor / Admin
• Invite members by email or user ID
• Per-project settings, member management, and deletion
• Project-level activity and audit trail

🗂 Kanban Board

• Drag-and-drop task cards across fully customizable stages (add, rename, or remove columns)
• Default stages: Backlog → In Progress → Review → Done — extend with your own workflow steps
• Create, edit, and delete tasks inline
• Task cards display assignees, priority, due dates, and complexity points
• Supports infinite subtask hierarchy via a closure table model
• Sprint selector with start & end date indicators
• Interactive sidebar panel with detailed audit logs per task

🏃 Sprint Management

• Create sprints with start and end dates
• Move tasks in and out of sprints (full backlog support)
• Sprint-level activity feed and comments
• Sprint analytics and burndown indicators
• Mark sprints complete and archive them

📜 Activity Feed & Audit Trails

• Main dashboard live activity feed aggregating workspace events
• Comprehensive task-level audit timelines capturing ownership changes, status updates, description edits, and comment threads
• Sprint-specific activity logs tracking scope additions and removals
• Live user presence events (real-time indicators in docs and chat)

✅ Task Detail

• Rich TipTap editor for descriptions (bold, italic, headings, lists, images, links)
• @mention users directly in descriptions and comments
• Multiple assignees with roles: Owner / Secondary Owner / POC / Assignee
• Set due dates, complexity points, sprint, reporter, GitHub link, branch name, and repo
• Threaded comments with nested replies
• File attachments (images, PDFs, docs, spreadsheets — up to 50 MB)
• Full audit log — every change recorded with optional comment

📝 Wiki & Documentation

• Per-project rich-text documentation with full TipTap editor
• Headings, blockquotes, highlights, alignment, images, and links
• Link docs to specific tasks for full traceability
• Real-time viewer indicator showing active user avatars
• @username autocomplete mentions
• Author/admin-only editing and deletion controls

💬 Real-time Chat

• 1-to-1 direct messages and group chats
• Live typing indicators, online status, and read receipts
• Rich message editor with formatting, @mentions, and file attachments
• Message edit and soft-delete
• Paginated message history with lazy scroll loading
• Search messages across all chats from the command palette
• Deep-link to any message — click a notification and jump directly with highlight animation
• Group admin controls: rename, add/remove members, mute, toggle permissions
• Unread message count badges per chat

🔔 Notifications

• Types: Mention / Assigned / Project Added / Task Changed / Due Soon
• Auto-generated Due Soon alerts within 3 days of due date
• Real-time notification bell with badge count
• Click any notification to deep-link to the relevant task, sprint, or message

🔍 Global Search — Command Palette (`Ctrl+K` / `Cmd+K`)

• Searches across: Projects, Tasks, Sprints, Docs, People, Chats, Files, Notifications
• Filter by category for focused results
• Timestamp shown for chat message results (12-hour format)
• Instant DM creation from People search results

📎 File Storage

• Upload attachments to tasks, comments, sprints, and chat messages
• 50 MB per-file limit with allowlisted MIME types
• Global storage search — find any file you've uploaded or have access to
• Files served with authentication — no public URLs

⚙️ Admin Panel (Owner/Admin only)

• SMTP configuration — host, port, auth, TLS, and test connection
• AI configuration — enable/disable Gemini, choose model, set API key
• User invitations — invite by email with role assignment; revoke pending invites
• Privilege management — promote/demote users (owner only)
• Background email queue with retry logic (up to 3 attempts)

🔐 Authentication

• Credentials login (email + password, min 8 characters)
• GitHub OAuth (optional)
• Email verification flow (when SMTP is configured)
• Forgot password / reset password via secure token email
• Invite-only registration option
• First registered user is automatically Owner + Admin
• Session-based auth via NextAuth.js v5

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Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Framework	Next.js 16 (App Router)
Language	TypeScript 5
UI	Tailwind CSS v4, Radix UI, Lucide Icons
Rich Text	Tiptap v3
Database	PostgreSQL via Prisma 7
Real-time	Socket.io 4
Auth	NextAuth.js v5
Charts	Recharts
Drag & Drop	@hello-pangea/dnd
AI	Google Gemini API
Email	Nodemailer
Command Palette	cmdk
Notifications	Sonner
Passwords	bcryptjs

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Self-Hosting with Docker (Recommended)

The fastest way to get Zeta running is with Docker Compose. It spins up the app, PostgreSQL, pgAdmin (database UI), and Dozzle (log viewer) with a single command.

Step 1 — Clone the Repository

git clone https://github.com/codeterrayt/Zeta.git
cd Zeta

Step 2 — Configure Environment

Copy the example env file:

cp .env.example .env

Open .env and fill in the required values:

# Database (auto-configured by Docker Compose)
DATABASE_URL="postgresql://postgres:postgres@localhost:5432/Zeta?schema=public"

# NextAuth — required for session encryption
AUTH_SECRET="your-auth-secret"
NEXTAUTH_URL="http://localhost:3000"
AUTH_TRUST_HOST=true

# Cron endpoint protection — generate with the command below
CRON_SECRET="your-cron-secret"

Generate your secrets using Node.js crypto (no extra packages needed):

# Generate AUTH_SECRET
node -e "console.log(require('crypto').randomBytes(48).toString('base64url'))"

# Generate CRON_SECRET
node -e "console.log(require('crypto').randomBytes(32).toString('hex'))"

Copy the output values into your .env file.

Step 3 — Build & Start

docker compose up --build -d

That's it. Zeta starts with default configurations. Once running:

Service	URL	Notes
Zeta App	http://localhost:3000	Main application
pgAdmin	http://localhost:5050	DB admin UI (admin@gmail.com / admin)
Dozzle Logs	http://localhost:8888	Container log viewer

The first account you register automatically becomes the Owner account. Register immediately after first boot to claim ownership.

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Local Development Setup

If you'd prefer to run without Docker:

Prerequisites

• Node.js >= 18
• PostgreSQL >= 14
• npm or pnpm

Steps

# 1. Clone
git clone https://github.com/codeterrayt/Zeta.git
cd Zeta

# 2. Install dependencies
npm install

# 3. Configure environment
cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env with your database URL and secrets (see above)

# 4. Run migrations
npx prisma migrate deploy
npx prisma generate

# 5. Start the dev server
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:3000. The first user to register becomes the Owner and Admin.

Useful Dev Commands

# Lint the codebase
npm run lint

# Type-check without building
npx tsc --noEmit

# Explore the database visually
npx prisma studio

# Reset the database (destroys all data)
npx prisma migrate reset

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Environment Variables Reference

Variable	Required	Description
DATABASE_URL	✅	PostgreSQL connection string
AUTH_SECRET	✅	NextAuth session encryption secret
NEXTAUTH_URL	✅	Full URL of your deployment (e.g. http://localhost:3000)
AUTH_TRUST_HOST	✅	Set to true when behind a proxy or in Docker
CRON_SECRET	✅	Secret to protect the /api/cron endpoint

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Project Structure

Zeta/
├── src/
│   ├── actions/          # Server Actions (auth, chat, tasks, notifications, search…)
│   ├── app/
│   │   ├── (auth)/       # Login, Register, Verify Email, Reset Password
│   │   ├── (dashboard)/  # Dashboard, Projects, Sprints, Kanban, Chat, Docs, Settings
│   │   └── api/          # REST API routes (upload, tasks PATCH, cron)
│   ├── components/
│   │   ├── chat/         # Chat window, message list, composer, group info panel
│   │   ├── editor/       # TipTap editor + mention extension
│   │   ├── kanban/       # Kanban board and cards
│   │   ├── layout/       # Sidebar, navbar, command palette, notification panel
│   │   ├── projects/     # Project list, task detail modal, sprint views
│   │   ├── settings/     # User settings, admin panel
│   │   └── sprints/      # Sprint dashboard, activity feed
│   ├── lib/              # Prisma client, mail queue, utility helpers
│   └── auth.ts           # NextAuth configuration
├── prisma/
│   └── schema.prisma     # Full database schema
├── server.js             # Custom Node.js server (Next.js + Socket.io)
├── docker-compose.yml    # Docker Compose with Postgres, pgAdmin, Dozzle
└── .env.example          # Environment variable template

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Roadmap

• AI-powered thread summaries via Gemini API
• Github Integration with Tasks

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Contributing

We warmly welcome contributions from the community! Whether it's fixing a bug, improving docs, adding a feature, or sharing feedback — every contribution matters.

How to Contribute

1. Fork this repository
2. Create a branch for your change

   git checkout -b feat/your-feature-name

3. Make your changes — keep commits focused and atomic
4. Test your changes locally
5. Open a Pull Request against main with a clear description

Guidelines

• Follow the existing code style (TypeScript strict, Tailwind CSS v4, server actions)
• Keep PRs small and focused — one feature or fix per PR
• Use Conventional Commits for commit messages
• If adding a new feature, update the relevant documentation
• For security issues, open a private security advisory instead of a public issue

Good First Issues

Issues tagged good first issue are well-scoped and beginner-friendly.

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Security

Zeta takes security seriously. If you discover a vulnerability, please do not open a public issue. Instead, open a private security advisory.

Security hardening includes: authenticated file serving, per-project authorization on all write operations, MIME type allowlisting, prompt injection mitigation, and cryptographically generated secrets.

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License

Zeta is open source, released under the MIT License.

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Acknowledgements

Built with these amazing open-source projects:

Next.js · Prisma · Socket.io · Tiptap · Tailwind CSS · NextAuth.js · Recharts · Radix UI · Lucide · hello-pangea/dnd

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⭐ If Zeta is useful to you, please star the repository — it helps others find the project!

⭐ Star on GitHub · 🐛 Report Bug · 💡 Request Feature · 💬 Discussions