Azure DevOps Boards from the CLI: Introducing adoboards

If you feel like Homer Simpson backing into the bushes the moment someone mentions the upcoming Sprint Review, you are in the right place.

We’ve all been there. You are deep in the zone, fixing an actual production issue or writing core logic, when someone reminds you that your user stories need descriptions, acceptance criteria, T-shirt sizes, and business value fields filled out before tomorrow’s “ceremony.” (The first time I heard the term “Sprint Ceremony,” I genuinely thought I was being initiated into a corporate cult.)

Don’t get me wrongScrum and the role of Scrum Masters (or Scam Masters, as they sometimes feel when they produce nothing but meetings) are genuinely valuable when applied properly. But let’s be honest: most organizations apply it in ways that create more overhead than actual software value. This is especially true for architecture and infrastructure engineering, where real complexity lives in system design and routing protocols, not in filling out a Jira or Azure DevOps ticket template.

After nearly 20 years in the industry, I noticed a painful pattern: the time engineers spend grooming work items inside slow web portals is often disproportionate to the actual value of the ticket.

To fix this, I built adoboardsa CLI tool inspired by Git.

adoboards pulls your Epics, Features, and User Stories from Azure DevOps (ADO) Boards, organizes them locally as flat Markdown files on your computer, and lets you manage your backlog directly from the terminal.

Here is what you can do:

1. Work with Git-like commands: Use terminal workflows you already know (clone, push, pull, status, diff, add).
2. Write offline in Markdown: Edit files locally using your favorite text editorno slow web UIs or corporate network restrictions.
3. Optional AI generation: Generate descriptions, Epics, or User Stories using Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini (with API keys safely secured in your local KeePass database).
4. Automated optimization: Let the tool analyze your local drafts and fill in standard fields so you stop guessing, “What T-shirt size does this network migration require?”
5. Sprint capacity planning: Use right-sized capacity allocation to distribute work items intelligently.
6. Instant sprint reports: Generate markdown reports from your local state in secondsready to copy-paste into Slack, Teams, or emails.

The CLI is fully functional without AI. The core push, pull, and status workflows require nothing more than your standard ADO Personal Access Token (PAT). AI features (gen, optimize, plan) are there when you want them, but never mandatory.

Less time writing about work in a slow web portal, more time doing the actual work.

If it saves you from just one sprint planning nightmare, it was worth building. Check out the project, star it on GitHub, and if we ever cross paths, buy me a coffee (or a snack for my Schnauzer, Tyson).

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Get it on GitHub

• GitHub Repository: adoboards