Installation

Install

Prebuilt binaries for macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel) and Linux (x64 and arm64), by any of three routes. All three install the same binary: the one attached to the latest release, verified against its SHA256SUMS.

Homebrew

brew install candril/tap/lane

The tap is candril/homebrew-tap; brew upgrade picks up new releases.

Nix

nix run github:candril/lane                 # run it once
nix profile install github:candril/lane     # keep it

Or as a flake input — inputs.lane.url = "github:candril/lane", then inputs.lane.packages.${system}.default. The flake packages the release binary; the release workflow writes its release.json, so nix run and nix flake update land on the newest release.

Installer script

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/candril/lane/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

The installer detects your platform, downloads the latest release, verifies its SHA256 against the release’s SHA256SUMS, and puts lane in /usr/local/bin. Two variables change that:

LANE_INSTALL_DIR=~/.local/bin …   # somewhere else on your PATH
LANE_VERSION=0.1.0 …              # a specific release

Or download lane-<os>-<arch>.gz from the releases page by hand, gunzip it, and put it on your PATH.

From source

lane is a Bun application, so a clone runs as it is:

git clone https://github.com/candril/lane.git
cd lane
bun install
bun scripts/build.ts   # → dist/lane, a standalone binary

With just: just build, or just install-bin to build and copy it to ~/.local/bin. just dev runs from source with hot reload, just mock the same against the demo board.

Requirements

• A Jira Cloud account and an API token.
• A terminal with truecolor and a decent Unicode set. Anything modern (WezTerm, Ghostty, kitty, iTerm2, Alacritty) is fine.
• Bun 1.x only if you build from source.

Try it first

lane --mock

opens an offline demo board — a fictional web shop’s sprint, with sub-tasks, epics, sprints, a backlog, and seeded descriptions and history — so you can learn the keymap before touching a real board. Press ? for the shortcut dialog, q to quit.

Credentials

lane needs three things: the instance URL, your account email, and an API token.

The token comes from the environment, and only from there — it is never read from or written to a config file:

export JIRA_API_TOKEN="…"    # https://id.atlassian.com/manage-profile/security/api-tokens

The server URL and account email are read from the jira CLI YAML, so if you already use that tool there is nothing new to set up:

~/.config/.jira/.config.yml

server: https://acme.atlassian.net
login: you@acme.com

Point elsewhere with JIRA_CONFIG_FILE, or per board with jira_config — which is how a single lane session can span two Jira instances.

Caution

The token lives in memory for the process lifetime and is sent only to the configured server: host, as the Basic-auth password. It is never logged, never included in an error message, and never written to the cache.

First run

lane always starts, whatever the state of your credentials. If Jira is unreachable — no token, no server:, no network — it says so on the normal screen and opens the demo board instead of dying. With Jira reachable but no config.toml, it says that too: there is nothing to build tabs from until you describe a board.

To see your own work, write a config.toml — start from Getting Started.

Files lane writes

Path	What
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/lane/config.toml	Your config. lane only reads this.
$XDG_CACHE_HOME/lane/cache.json	Last snapshot per board, for instant boot.
$XDG_CACHE_HOME/lane/state.json	Active tab and each tab’s view/filter/grouping.
$XDG_STATE_HOME/lane/tabs.json	The tabs you made yourself.

XDG_CONFIG_HOME defaults to ~/.config, XDG_CACHE_HOME to ~/.cache, XDG_STATE_HOME to ~/.local/state. The cache and state files are best-effort: deleting them costs you one refresh and your restored session, nothing more.