Jag Project, LLC Releases a Free Open-Source App That Moves Japan's Paper Neighborhood Circular Board to Smartphones

Tokyo-based Jag Project, LLC releases Jag Kairanban-app, a free, open-source web app that brings neighborhood association notices to residents' smartphones.

TOKYO, JAPAN, October 27, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Tokyo-based Jag Project, LLC has officially released Jag Kairanban-app, a free, open-source web app that lets Japan's neighborhood associations deliver notices to residents' smartphones instead of passing a paper clipboard from door to door. The app has been available as a public preview since August 2026.

In Japan, neighborhood associations (chonaikai) still share notices through the kairanban, a clipboard of printed notices that each household reads, stamps and hands to the next door. A full circuit can take a week or more, and no one can easily tell who has read it. The kairanban dates back to 1940 and has survived the smartphone because it reaches every household and doubles as a doorstep check on older neighbors.

Jag Kairanban-app is designed to keep those functions rather than replace them. Notices arrive as smartphone notifications, and a list of who has pressed "I have read this" is kept automatically for each notice. The app also handles hall bookings, meeting attendance, documents, membership applications, and garbage-collection and disaster information. It is available in five languages: Japanese, Easy Japanese, English, Chinese and Vietnamese, so that foreign residents are included in the circle.

Many members are not comfortable with smartphones, and receiving notifications on an iPhone requires adding the app to the home screen, a step in which the iOS share sheet covers the instructions. Jag Project measured on real devices that the top 42.7 percent of the screen stays visible while the share sheet is open, and placed every step, with photos of what to press, inside that band. No app-store account is needed, and members log in with a phone number instead of a password.

The August preview was meant for anyone to try, and its setup assumed help from an AI tool. For the official release, Jag Project looked at the budgets of neighborhood associations and rebuilt the setup so that it works with or without an AI assistant. An association officer registers an email address with Jag Utilities, the company's tool desk, to open a free setup wizard, answers questions such as the association's name and the location of its hall, and receives two configuration files and step-by-step instructions for Mac or Windows. Running a setup file then publishes the app without typing commands. The officer needs a PC, free development tools and a free Cloudflare account. The app is MIT-licensed, and server costs are zero for a typical association within the free tier, as of September 2026.

Electronic circular boards in Japan are mostly monthly subscriptions, which send association fees out of the community each month. Jag Kairanban-app is built the other way around: if anyone is paid to maintain it, it can be the association's own IT-literate members or local businesses, so the money stays in the neighborhood. Jag Project calls this "digital self-governance": residents running their own community with digital tools.

"A kairanban matters because it reaches every home on the block," said Jag Yamamoto, Representative of Jag Project, LLC, who has served as an officer of his neighborhood association. "My first onboarding guide scored 20 out of 100 when I reviewed it myself, because it assumed people could remember what they saw and then act on it. We measured again on real phones and rebuilt it so that no one has to remember anything. The app is free and all of the code is public. We want to grow a kairanban that keeps association fees inside the neighborhood, together with associations across Japan, while they use it."

Jag Kairanban-app is open-source software improved on GitHub, not a packaged product; there is no support desk, warranty or installation service. Jag Project is looking for one association to test the app in real use together.

About Jag Project, LLC
Jag Project, LLC is a Tokyo company that turns demand nobody has named yet into businesses that earn revenue, supporting business planning and B2B marketing on commission, including for overseas companies entering the Japanese market. Representative Jag Yamamoto teaches behavioral economics as a part-time lecturer at Musashino Art University's graduate school, previously served as CEO of G DATA Software's Japanese subsidiary, and founded the company in 2015.

Jag Yamamoto
Jag Project, LLC
info@jagproject.com