Product Guide

Sally is a project management system built for teams that want a clean operational surface instead of a bloated collaboration suite.

The core idea is simple: keep the web UI low-noise, keep the API real and scriptable, and make agents and automations first-class citizens instead of awkward add-ons.

Mental model

Think of Sally as five connected layers:

1. Accounts — people log in and create API or hosted MCP keys.
2. Workspaces — the top-level collaboration boundary where memberships and permissions begin.
3. Projects — containers for execution, status lanes, members, and activity.
4. Tasks — the unit of execution, with labels, todos, comments, due dates, and timesheets.
5. Machine interfaces — HTTP API, hosted MCP at /mcp, and local stdio MCP via sally-mcp.

Who Sally is for

• teams doing delivery, operations, support, or implementation
• organizations that care about self-hosting
• builders who want direct API access
• teams using agents or scripts to safely read and update project state
• people who hate PM software that hides core workflows behind decorative UI

Current features

Accounts and auth

• email/password login
• session tokens
• personal API keys
• hosted MCP keys
• profile editing and profile image upload
• password reset and invite acceptance

Workspace management

• list visible workspaces
• create workspaces
• manage memberships and invite members by email
• workspace-scoped access control

Projects and tasks

• projects with default or custom statuses
• archive and delete flows
• project members with roles
• tasks with priorities, due dates, descriptions, labels, todos, comments, and inline image upload
• move and reorder flows across board columns
• client linking

Operations

• notifications for assignments and mentions
• project and task timesheets
• workspace-wide reporting
• hosted and local MCP access

How Sally usually gets used

Human-first workflow

1. sign in
2. pick a workspace
3. create or open a project
4. define statuses if the defaults are not enough
5. create tasks and assign owners
6. track progress on board, project, and task pages
7. log time when needed

Agent-first workflow

1. mint an API key or hosted MCP key
2. select the correct workspace
3. list projects or board state
4. create or update tasks, comments, labels, todos, or timesheets
5. leave the web UI as the human control surface

Mixed workflow

Most real teams do both: humans work in the UI, scripts sync external state, agents summarize and triage, and owners stay in control through Sally’s normal role model.

Roles and permissions

Sally has two main permission layers:

• Workspace roles: OWNER, MEMBER, VIEWER
• Project roles: OWNER, MEMBER, VIEWER

As a rule of thumb, owners manage structure and membership, members do normal project work, and viewers can read without actively changing project state.

Hosted MCP vs local stdio MCP

Use hosted MCP when you want the simplest setup, remote access through your Sally domain, and key management inside Sally. Use local stdio MCP when you want a CLI process or your MCP client expects stdio.

What Sally is not trying to be

• a giant all-in-one enterprise suite
• a document or wiki platform
• a chat replacement
• a generic productivity OS full of ornamental features

It is trying to be a solid operational core for project and task execution.