Lific MCP server

Issue tracking for the agentic coding era. One binary. One SQLite database (plus an attachments dir). MCP built in.

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Your agent can write the code. What it can't do is remember: the plan dies with the context window, the TODO list rots in a markdown file, and the next session starts from zero. Lific is the missing memory: a self-hosted, single-binary issue tracker whose primary user is often an agent rather than a person.

Three numbers instead of adjectives:

• 30 MCP tools in 6,335 tokens. That's the measured size of the full tools/list response (o200k tokenizer). Your entire tracker costs about as much context as one long file read.
• One ~25 MB binary. Embedded SQLite, embedded web UI, backups built in. The data set is just the database and a content-addressed attachments/ dir beside it (both covered by the automatic backups). No Docker, no Postgres, no reverse proxy, no daemon farm. Copy it to a server, point your agents at it, done.
• 11 AI clients configured by one command. lific connect writes correct MCP config into OpenCode, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, Codex, Zed, and more. No hand-edited JSON.

Identifiers are human-readable everywhere: APP-42, never a UUID. They survive being spoken, logged, grepped, and pasted into a prompt.

60-second setup

cargo install lific     # or grab a binary from the releases page

lific init              # config + database + your API key, printed once -
                        # then installs a background service and starts it.
                        # The server is now on :3456 and survives reboot.
lific connect           # writes MCP config into your AI clients

That's the whole thing. lific init sets everything up in your OS's standard locations (config in ~/.config/lific/, data in ~/.local/share/lific/ on Linux; macOS and Windows equivalents) so it works the same from any directory - use lific init --here if you'd rather keep a directory-local instance (./lific.toml + ./lific.db). It registers the server with your OS service manager (a systemd user unit on Linux, a LaunchAgent on macOS), so it isn't a process tied to your terminal - it's still running tomorrow. lific connect then detects the AI tools installed on your machine, lets you pick, mints a per-tool API key, and merges correct MCP config into each one without overwriting existing config. Restart your client and the Lific tools are there.

Manage the service anytime with lific service status | restart | stop | uninstall. Prefer a foreground process (containers, supervisors, debugging)? lific init --no-service skips the service and lific start runs the server in your terminal.

The web UI is at http://localhost:3456. Sign up there to create your account, then grant it admin rights from the CLI: lific user promote --username .

Shortened. The full README is on GitHub.