How to Run Sprints as a Solo Developer (Without the BS)

Scrum was designed for teams of 5-9 people. If you try to follow it as a solo developer, you'll spend more time on process than building.

Here's the stripped-down version that works.

The 3 Things You Need

1. A board — Kanban or sprint board. Visual columns: TODO, In Progress, Review, Done.

2. A capture tool — Somewhere to dump ideas without losing them. Codepylot's Quick Capture (Cmd+K) is perfect.

3. A weekly rhythm — Pick work Monday, ship Friday.

What to Skip

• Daily standups (you're talking to yourself)
• Sprint retrospectives (just make notes)
• Story point poker (estimate in t-shirt sizes in your head)
• Burndown charts (overkill for one person)
• Sprint reviews with stakeholders (you are the stakeholder)

What to Keep

• Backlog grooming — 15 min/week to keep your backlog clean
• WIP limits — Max 2 stories in progress at once
• Definition of done — Code merged, deployed, and working
• Velocity tracking — How many stories/week? This helps you plan realistically.

The Monday Ritual

1. Open your board (2 min)

2. Look at the backlog (3 min)

3. Pick 3-5 stories for this week (5 min)

4. Assign to sprint (2 min)

5. Start your first story (the rest of Monday)

Total planning time: 12 minutes.

Pro Tip: Use AI Agents

With Codepylot, you can assign stories to AI agents. While you work on the complex story that needs your brain, agents handle the straightforward ones. End of the week, you review their output and ship everything together.

This is how solo devs build like a team.