From a rough brief to a PR traced to its spec — every capability, in one place.
Penling covers the whole arc of AI-native engineering work: understand the ask, structure it into specs, hand it to an agent over MCP, and watch it build — every decision on the record. Here's the full surface area.
Any MCP-compatible agent
Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, or your own framework. Drop in the server config — Penling connects over MCP, no wrapper, no lock-in.
Human approval before every build
Plans are published, not auto-run. A human edits and signs off before the agent touches code.
Four-part structured specs
Every focus area gets a definition, expected results, conditions, and explicit boundaries — before any plan is generated.
The live build canvas
Watch the agent work and steer it live. Files, events, and checks fill in with evidence as the build runs.
Dashboard & full history
Every initiative, action, and decision — in one place, exportable as CSV or JSON.
Bring your own agent.
Penling connects over MCP — no wrapper, no proprietary SDK. The agent you already use just connects.
One Penling server. Any MCP-compatible runtime.
Drop the server config into Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, or your own agent framework. Penling exposes four tools your agent uses to claim the build, stream progress, resolve checks, and ask a human when it needs to.
- No lock-in. One Penling server works with any MCP-compatible agent — bring the tools your team already runs.
- Builds run in your runtime. Your machine, your cloud. Penling is the coordination layer, not the executor.
- Clarifications pause the build. When the agent needs a human decision, the build waits. Nothing proceeds on a guess.
{ "mcpServers": { "penling": { "command": "npx", "args": [ "@penling/mcp-server", "--build", "19" ], "env": { "PENLING_TOKEN": "${PENLING_TOKEN}" } } } } // Four tools your agent gets: // claim_build - lock the build before writing code // report_event - stream progress back to Penling // resolve_check - close a spec check with evidence // open_clarification - pause and ask a human a question
Human control, by design.
Plans are published, not auto-run. A human shapes and approves every plan before the agent touches code — and that decision is on the record.
The plan is where intent becomes mandate.
AI drafts an implementation plan from the spec. You edit it, approve it, and publish it. The agent can't start without a published plan — and the version it runs is locked to the build.
- Published, not auto-run. You approve before the agent touches code — no build starts without a human sign-off.
- Human edits are tracked. Every change you make to a plan is attributed and visible in the plan history.
- Versioned. A focus area can carry several plans over its lifetime. Only the published one runs.
Structured specs, not tickets.
From a messy brief to a four-part spec a human confirms and an agent can act on — without losing anything along the way.
Paste anything. Penling extracts the signal.
Drop in a brief, a Slack thread, a transcript, or a rough idea. Penling reads the whole thing and surfaces outcomes, constraints, out-of-scope items, and open questions as confirmable chips — nothing is assumed.
- Nothing assumed. Every extracted signal is confirmable — edit or dismiss before it becomes spec input.
- Open questions surface early. Unresolved unknowns are flagged before they reach the agent.
- Out-of-scope is first-class. The agent knows where the boundaries are before it touches a file.
Every goal becomes a four-part spec.
Penling proposes focus areas from your signals — you accept, edit, or replace them. Each becomes a spec with a definition, expected results, conditions, and explicit boundaries.
- Specs, not tickets. Each focus area has a definition, expected results, conditions, and explicit boundaries.
- Results become checks. Expected results flow downstream as the checks the agent must satisfy.
- Boundaries are explicit. The agent knows the edges of each focus area before writing a single line.
Watch the build happen. The agent works, you steer.
One screen, three live columns — files, events, and checks filling in with evidence.
Every commit, test run, and decision streams over the Penling API.
Human and AI on the same canvas — answer a clarification and the build resumes.
Every check is backed by evidence — file, test run, or human resolution.
Every decision, on the record.
Every initiative, every action, every build — in one place. What needs your attention is always one glance away.
The dashboard that actually tells you what's happening.
Every initiative, its readiness, what's building, paused, or shipped — with a full exportable history. “Needs you” is always one glance away.
- Readiness you can trust. Status reflects the spec, not guesswork.
- “Needs you” is explicit. Open clarifications surface to the top so nothing waits silently.
- Full history. Every actor, every decision, exports as CSV or JSON.
Every capability has an actor, an artifact, and a record.
Nothing happens off the record. Here's who does what, and what it leaves behind.
See the whole arc, end to end.
Bring a brief and an agent. Watch Penling turn it into a spec, a plan, and a PR traced to its reasoning — every decision on the record.