Open Paws Project Management

End-to-end encrypted project management for animal advocacy organizations. This is a customized fork of CryptPad that extends the Kanban board with strategic campaign scoring, security-tiered access, task management, and three switchable views (Pipeline, My Tasks, Timeline). Built for Open Paws to coordinate advocacy work under hostile legal environments; suitable for any organization that needs encrypted, real-time collaborative project planning.

Note

This project is part of the Open Paws ecosystem — AI infrastructure for the animal liberation movement. Explore the full platform →

Open Paws is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit building tools for organizations working to end animal exploitation. This tool stores Tier 3 data (investigation planning, witness coordination, legal defense notes) and operates under a zero-knowledge architecture — the server never has access to decryption keys.

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Quickstart

git clone https://github.com/Open-Paws/cryptpad-project-management.git
cd cryptpad-project-management
cp config/config.example.js config/config.js
# Edit config.js — set httpUnsafeDomain and httpSafeDomain at minimum
docker compose up -d

For local development without Docker:

npm install && npm run install:components
npm run dev

Requires Node.js 18+ (see .nvmrc). Two DNS A records pointing to your server are needed — one for the main application domain, one for the sandbox domain.

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Features

• Three views — Pipeline (kanban with drag-and-drop columns), My Tasks (personal dashboard across all projects), and Timeline (Gantt chart with draggable bars)
• Ten-dimension strategic scoring — each project card carries a composite score (0–10) across dimensions including scale, impact magnitude, longevity, coalition building, and build feasibility; drives filtering and sorting
• Security tier filtering — projects are tagged T1 (public campaign), T2 (internal strategy), or T3 (investigation/legal); T3 items are excluded from all exports independently enforced in both export.js and inner.js
• Sub-tasks inside project cards — checkbox completion, per-task assignees and due dates, progress indicator, dependency IDs across projects
• Assignee and date management — assign team members to projects and tasks, start and due dates with urgency indicators, DST-safe date arithmetic
• Filter and sort controls — filter by assignee, score range, due date preset, completion status, and security tier; sort by score, due date, title, or creation date
• Zero-knowledge encryption — all data encrypted in the browser before reaching the server using NaCl secretbox (XSalsa20-Poly1305); server stores only encrypted blobs it cannot read
• Real-time multi-user collaboration — ChainPad operational transformation for conflict-free concurrent editing
• Docker deployment — multistage Dockerfile, compose file, and NGINX config examples included
• Upstream sync workflow — all customizations confined to www/kanban/; upstream CryptPad code is unchanged, enabling clean merges

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Documentation

• Architecture — full system architecture
• Security decisions — settled constraints, encryption domain sovereignty
• CLAUDE.md — Ten Commandments of CryptPad development (required reading before any code change)
• Kanban-specific patterns — patterns specific to the Kanban application
• NGINX config examples — reverse proxy setup
• Upstream CryptPad docs — developer guide for local setup

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Architecture

Encryption data flow

flowchart TD
    A["User edits card\n(plaintext JSON in browser)"] --> B["ChainPad creates diff patch"]
    B --> C["NaCl secretbox encrypts patch\n(key from URL hash fragment)"]
    C --> D["Encrypted blob sent to server\nover WebSocket"]
    D --> E["Server stores and broadcasts\nencrypted blob — reads nothing"]
    E --> F["Other clients decrypt\nand render update"]

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The encryption key lives in the URL hash fragment. Browsers never send hash fragments to servers. Access control is cryptographic, not server-side: sharing a document means sharing its URL.

Component layout

graph TD
    subgraph Browser
        A["www/kanban/inner.js\n(Open Paws features — plaintext only)"]
        B["www/kanban/jkanban_cp.js\n(date arithmetic, drag-drop)"]
        C["www/kanban/export.js\n(T3 redaction enforced here)"]
        D["www/common/sframe-app-framework.js\n(encryption layer — apps never touch this)"]
    end

    subgraph Server["Node.js Server"]
        E["server.js"]
        F["lib/hk-util.js\n(history keeper — stores encrypted blobs)"]
        G["lib/metadata.js\n(access control by public key)"]
    end

    A -->|"framework.localChange()"| D
    D -->|"NaCl secretbox encrypt"| F
    F -->|"broadcast encrypted"| D

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All Open Paws customizations are confined to www/kanban/. Upstream CryptPad code outside that directory is not modified, which keeps upstream merges tractable.

What the server can and cannot see

The server CAN see	The server CANNOT see
Channel IDs (32 hex characters)	Document content of any kind
Message timestamps and sizes	User display names in documents
Who is connected (by session ID, not identity)	Search queries or tags
Access-control metadata (owners as public keys)	File names (encrypted in drive metadata)
Metadata command signatures	Encryption keys

Security tiers

Tier	Data type	Export behavior
T1	Public-facing campaign content	Included in exports
T2	Internal strategy, coalition coordination	Included in exports
T3	Investigation planning, witness coordination, legal defense notes	Stripped from all exports

T3 redaction is enforced independently in both www/kanban/export.js (redactT3Items()) and www/kanban/inner.js. Neither path alone is a single point of failure.

Strategic scoring dimensions

Key	Dimension	What it measures
scale_score	Scale	Number of animals and advocates affected
impact_magnitude_score	Impact Magnitude	Depth of positive change
longevity_score	Longevity	Lasting value over time
multiplication_score	Multiplication	Enables additional impact
foundation_score	Foundation	Creates platform for future work
agi_readiness_score	Future-Readiness	Adapts to a changing landscape
accessibility_score	Accessibility	Easy for advocates to adopt
coalition_building_score	Coalition Building	Strengthens movement unity
pillar_coverage_score	Coverage	Impact across advocacy approaches
build_feasibility_score	Build Feasibility	Speed and ease of implementation

The composite score (average of all ten dimensions) displays on cards and drives filtering and sorting.

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Code Quality

Contributing

Read CLAUDE.md before writing any code — it contains the Ten Commandments of CryptPad development that govern all changes to this codebase. Then read www/kanban/CLAUDE.md for Kanban-specific patterns.

Key rules:

• Never bypass framework.localChange() — it is the only encrypted sync path
• Never add server-side content access of any kind
• Run semgrep --config semgrep-no-animal-violence.yaml on all code and documentation changes
• Run desloppify scan --path . (minimum score: 85)
• Security-sensitive changes (encryption, key derivation, access control) require review before merging

When syncing with upstream cryptpad/cryptpad, verify that T3 redaction still functions and all three views render correctly after every merge.

Animal advocates with JavaScript experience are welcome to contribute — especially on view improvements, scoring UI, and upstream sync tooling.

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License

GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later. See LICENSE.

Upstream CryptPad is developed by XWiki SAS. Open Paws customizations are copyright Open Paws contributors.

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