> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://orbit-dev.app/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Introduction

> An issue tracker and project management app for small teams

![Orbit](https://shieldcn.dev/header/grid.svg?title=Orbit\&subtitle=Create+projects%2C+track+issues+through+a+workflow%2C+and+see+progress+on+a+dashboard\&logo=ri%3AFaProjectDiagram\&size=wide\&mode=dark\&align=left\&image=https%3A%2F%2Fimages.unsplash.com%2Fphoto-1614850523459-c2f4c699c52e%3Fw%3D1600%26q%3D70%26fit%3Dcrop%26fm%3Djpg\&overlay=1)

Orbit is a self-hosted issue tracker and project management app. Teams use it to organize work into projects, track issues through a lifecycle, and stay on top of what changed and who needs to act on it.

Orbit is a single Laravel + Inertia + React application — there's no separate backend API to deploy or a database service to provision beyond what Laravel already needs. Clone it, run one setup command, and you have a working tracker.

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Quickstart" icon="rocket" href="/quickstart">
    Get Orbit running locally with Docker or a native PHP/Node setup.
  </Card>

  <Card title="GitHub" icon="github" href="https://github.com/orbit-collective/orbit">
    Browse the source, open an issue, or send a pull request.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## What you can do with Orbit

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Organize work into projects" icon="folder-tree">
    Each project has its own name, color, and slug, and holds its own issues and [saved filters](/concepts/saved-filters).
  </Card>

  <Card title="Track issues through a lifecycle" icon="list-check">
    Issues move through **Open**, **In Progress**, and **Closed**, with priority, labels, an assignee, and an optional date range.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Work the way you prefer" icon="table-columns">
    Switch between a sortable, filterable **List**, a drag-and-drop **Board**, and a date-driven **Calendar** — all showing the same underlying issues.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Stay in the loop" icon="bell">
    Get notified in-app when you're assigned an issue, when one of your issues changes, or when someone comments on it.
  </Card>

  <Card title="See the whole workspace at a glance" icon="chart-line">
    The [dashboard](/concepts/dashboard) rolls up every project into stat cards, a priority breakdown, a completion ratio, and a weekly productivity trend.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## How Orbit is built

Orbit is a monolith, not a client that talks to a separate API — see the [tech stack](/architecture/tech-stack) for the full picture:

* **[Backend](/architecture/backend-architecture)** — Laravel 13, following a layered Controller → Service → Repository pattern. Controllers stay thin, services hold business logic and side effects (like writing to the activity log or sending a notification), and repositories own all Eloquent query building.
* **[Frontend](/architecture/frontend-architecture)** — React 19 with TypeScript, rendered through Inertia.js rather than a REST or GraphQL API. Pages are server-driven: a controller returns page props, and Inertia renders the matching React page.
* **[Database](/architecture/database-schema)** — SQLite by default, swappable for MySQL or PostgreSQL through standard Laravel environment variables.

<Tip>
  New to the codebase? Start with the [Quickstart](/quickstart) to get Orbit running, then explore the app itself — creating a project and an issue will make the rest of these docs click into place. If a term in these docs isn't clear, check the [glossary](/reference/glossary); if something isn't working the way you expect, check the [FAQ](/reference/faq) or the [known limitations](/reference/known-limitations).
</Tip>

Orbit is open source under the [MIT license](https://github.com/orbit-collective/orbit/blob/master/LICENSE).