Quick Start

Get started with Flanner in 5 minutes. This guide walks you through creating your first plan file and using it with Claude.

Step 1: Initialize Flanner

Make sure you're in a git repository, then initialize Flanner:

cd your-project flanner init

When prompted, enter a project name:

Enter project name [your-project]: my-awesome-project

✨ You should see:

✓ Initialized Flanner at C:\Users\YourName\.flanner ✓ Database created at C:\Users\YourName\.flanner\data.db ✓ Detected git repository at: C:\path\to\your-project ✓ Created project: my-awesome-project ✓ Plan directory: C:\path\to\your-project\.plans ✓ Updated .gitignore to exclude plan files 🔌 Registering MCP server with Claude Code... ✓ MCP server registered in Claude Code

Step 2: Verify Installation

flanner status

This shows your project setup and Claude Code integration status.

Step 3: Create Your First Plan File

Option A: Using Claude (Recommended)

Restart Claude Code, then ask Claude to create a plan:

User: "Claude, create a new architecture plan for my project"

Claude will use the MCP tools to create a plan file with automatic frontmatter and version tracking.

Option B: Using Web Interface

flanner web --open-browser

Then:

1. Navigate to your project
2. Click "New Plan File"
3. Enter name and content
4. Submit

Option C: Manual Creation

Create a file in .plans/ with frontmatter:

--- mcp_plan_file: true plan_manager_version: '1.0' project_id: your-project-uuid project_name: my-awesome-project plan_file_id: unique-plan-uuid plan_name: architecture version: 1 created_at: '2025-12-29T10:00:00Z' created_by: user --- # Architecture Plan ## Overview This is my architecture plan...

Then sync it:

flanner sync

Step 4: View Your Plans

Via CLI

# List all plan files flanner list --project my-awesome-project

Via Web Interface

flanner web --open-browser

Navigate to: Projects → my-awesome-project → View plans

Via Claude

User: "Claude, show me all plan files in my project" User: "Claude, show version history for the architecture plan"

Step 5: Update a Plan File

Via Claude

User: "Claude, update the architecture plan to add a new microservice"

Claude will automatically create version 2 with updated content.

Via Web Interface

1. Open plan in web UI
2. Click "Edit"
3. Make changes
4. Add version notes
5. Save (creates new version)

Common Workflows

Linking to JIRA

# Configure JIRA for project flanner jira config my-awesome-project \ --url https://company.atlassian.net \ --project-key PROJ # Link plan to JIRA issue flanner jira link architecture \ --issue PROJ-123 \ --type Epic \ --notes "Main architecture epic" \ --project my-awesome-project

Viewing Version History

flanner web --open-browser # Navigate to plan → Click "History"

Syncing Existing Files

If you have existing .md files in .plans/:

# Preview what will be synced flanner sync --dry-run # Actually sync the files flanner sync

Next Steps

• Explore all CLI commands
• Learn about MCP integration
• Discover web interface features
• Set up JIRA integration