A timeline, not a backlog
Milestones with real dates, each showing the work planned against it. Rename or re-date one straight from the timeline when the plan moves — because it will.
coLabLive
Every project remembers what it is for.
coLab holds the dates you are working towards, the work planned against each of them, and the record of what the team decided — in the words of whoever decided it.
The dashboard opens on what needs a decision today. Everything else waits where you left it, and a collaborator from outside the team can be given one project without being given the rest.
- Milestone timeline
- Decision log
- Per-project sharing
One project over a week: the dates it is working towards, the work planned against them, and what the team settled on the way.
The questions a project asks every week
None of them are hard. They are just answered in five different places, by whoever happens to remember.
QuestionSpread across your toolsWith coLab
Where the plan lives
UsuallyA spreadsheet one person owns, and a chat thread
With coLabA milestone timeline, with the work planned against each date
Why you chose it that way
UsuallyIn a thread, three weeks up, if anyone can find it
With coLabIn the decision log, signed by whoever settled it
What needs a decision today
UsuallyWhatever the loudest message was about
With coLabHigh-priority and soon-due work, on the dashboard rail
Bringing in one outside collaborator
UsuallyThey see everything, or they see nothing
With coLabInvited to a single project, as editor or viewer
Who is already overloaded
UsuallyYou ask, and hope the answer is candid
With coLabOpen and overdue counts, beside every name you can assign to
Three things, in order
A project is set up in about five minutes, and nothing has to be configured before it is useful.
Where coLab stops
Worth knowing before you move a team across, rather than after:
- It is not a chat app. Threads hang off the work they are about, and that is the whole of the messaging.
- Milestones hold work; they do not schedule it. There are no dependencies and no critical path.
- Access is checked on the server for every change, but a public link is a share rather than a permission — anyone who has it can read the project.
01
Start with the dates
A project opens on its timeline. Add the milestones you are actually working towards, and the work planned against each one is counted underneath it — so a date is never just a note in a calendar.
02
Hang the work off them
Every task carries an assignee, a priority, a due date and its own comment thread. The thread is a link you can send, so pulling someone into a specific decision does not mean re-explaining it.
03
Write down what you settled
When the team lands on something, it goes in the decision log in the words of whoever landed it, signed and timestamped. That is the part a chat thread loses, and the part you need six months later.
What is in a project
Six things, and you would notice any of them missing by the end of the first week.
Tasks that carry their context
Assignee, priority, due date, status. The dashboard lifts the high-priority and soon-due ones into a rail of their own, labelled with the project they came from.
Threads, and @ that reaches people
Every task has a comment thread. Typing @ offers the people who can see the project, and being named puts the task on your radar — with an email, when mail is set up.
A decision log, not a scratchpad
Entries are never edited, and only the owning team can strike one — a log its author can quietly tidy up is not a log. Newest first, because the question is usually where you landed.
Workloads before you assign
The assignee list says what each person is already carrying — open, and overdue — and the tasks tab opens on the same numbers as bars. Counted across live projects only.
The whole workspace, one keystroke away
A floating shortcut opens search, a calendar of what is due, and a timeline across every project you can see — without leaving the one you are in.
Three ways into a project
Most trackers make this a choice between your whole workspace and nothing at all. coLab resolves it per project, in that order of authority, and checks it again on the server for every change.
Your team
Workspace member
Belongs to the workspace the project lives in, and can open and change every project in it. Signing up creates your first workspace with you as its owner; an account can belong to several, and the switcher says which one you are looking at.
Best for
The people you work with every day
One project
Invited guest
Invited to a single project as editor or viewer, and sees exactly that — not the rest of the workspace. A guest editor can change the project but not who else gets in. Invitations expire in fourteen days and are redeemable once.
Best for
A client, a contractor, or a collaborator on one piece of work
Read-only
Public link
A share link that opens the project read-only for anyone signed in with any account. Making the project private again — or resetting the link — mints a new token and kills every link already out there.
Best for
A status page for a wider audience than you want to invite
Built for teams that hand work to each other
Product & engineering teams
Milestone timeline · Task threads · Decision log
Agencies & client work
Invited guests · Public links · Per-project sharing
Research groups & labs
Decision log · Workspaces · Workloads
The ones people ask first
How is this different from a shared to-do list?
A to-do list holds what is left. coLab also holds the dates the work is planned against and the record of what the team decided and why — which is the part that is missing when someone new joins, or when the same argument comes back around in March.
Can I bring in someone from outside the team?
Yes, and only into the one project. Invite them as an editor or a viewer and that is all they can open — the rest of the workspace is not visible to them, and it is not something they have to be trusted not to look at.
Can a decision be edited afterwards?
No. Entries are written once and signed with the author's name and the minute they were recorded. The owning team can strike one from the log, but nobody — including the author — can quietly reword what was decided.
What happens to a project when it is finished?
Archive it. It keeps every milestone, task and decision and stops appearing in the grid, the attention rail and the counts. Deleting is separate, sits behind typing the project's name in full, and is checked again on the server.
Do we have to remember another password?
Not after the first time. coLab supports passkeys, so signing in can be your device's own unlock, and there is a password reset by email for the accounts that keep one.
How do we get started?
Create an account. A workspace is created with it, with you as the owner, and you can invite the rest of the team from there. If you would rather be walked through it — or you need it running somewhere specific — talk to us first.
Start with one project
Creating an account creates a workspace with you as its owner. Put a real project in it, invite the two people who care about it most, and see whether the decision log gets used.