KAREN

KAREN is an AI-assisted tool that helps you refine your JIRA backlog.

The recursive backronym stands for KAREN: Assisted Review, Estimation, & Nitpicking.

Features

• Edit JIRA Software issues using markdown
  • from your command line
  • from your favorite editor
• Interactively prune old issues from your backlog
  • List old issues using a threshold of age
  • Delete old issues
• Use Local AI to review your backlog
  • Review and score issues for clear acceptance criteria and expected outcomes
  • Estimate story points
  • Suggest improvements

Installation

• Install Ollama

• Install Deno

• Run this command to install karen:

  deno install --global --unstable-kv -A https://raw.githubusercontent.com/specialblend/karen/refs/tags/0.0.1/karen.ts

Usage

Quick Start

Setup Ollama

• Ensure Ollama is running on your local machine. By default, KAREN will look for Ollama at http://localhost:11434

• Review .karen/settings.json in your home directory.

Important! Check the models in .karen/settings.json and make sure you choose a model size that will fit into your VRAM.

Configure KAREN with your JIRA credentials:

karen config setup

Pull issues from a JIRA project into your local storage:

If your tickets look like EXAMPLE-1234, you can pull them like this:

karen pull project EXAMPLE

Review and estimate an issue using AI:

karen review EXAMPLE-1234

You can also review all issues:

karen review --all

Publish your review as a comment to the issue:

karen review EXAMPLE-1234 --publish

Note: review --publish is idempotent and can be safely run multiple times without adding multiple comments to the same issue.

You can also review and publish all issues at once:

karen review --all --publish

Show a list of reviewed issues sorted by score below a threshold:

# Show all issues sorted by score below 50%
karen list reviews --threshold 0.5

Command Line Reference

Configuration

• karen config setup - Interactive setup of JIRA credentials
• karen config show - List all configuration values
• karen config remove [key] - Remove configuration value(s)
  • --all Remove all configuration values
  • --force Remove without confirmation

Project Management

• karen pull project <project-key> - Pull all issues for a project
• karen pull issue <issue-key> - Pull a specific issue from JIRA
• karen push <issue-key> - Push local changes to JIRA

Issue Management

• karen edit <issue-key> - Edit an issue in your preferred editor
• karen diff <issue-key> - Show differences between local and remote versions
• karen prune <days> - List old issues
  • --created Filter by created date instead of updated date

AI Features

• karen review [issue-key] - Review issue(s) using AI
  • --all Review all stored issues
  • --force Force new review even if cached
  • --model <model> Specify Ollama model

Data Management

• karen list|ls - List stored data

  • projects List stored projects
  • issues List stored issues
  • edits List stored edits
  • reviews List stored reviews
  • Options:
    • --details Show full details
    • --format <format> Output as json or yaml

• karen get <key> - Get stored data

  • issue <issue-key> Get stored issue
  • edit <issue-key> Get stored edit
  • project <project-key> Get stored project
  • review <issue-key> Get stored review

• karen remove|rm - Remove stored data

  • Same subcommands as get, with options:
    • --all Remove all items of that type
    • --force Remove without confirmation

System

• karen path - Show storage directory path
  • --storage Show storage DB file path
  • --settings Show settings file path
• karen settings - Show current settings
  • --edit Open settings in editor
• karen info - Show summary of stored data

Common Options:

• Most commands support --format yaml|json|markdown for output formatting
• Use karen --help or karen [command] --help for detailed help