# Kadence **Find the rhythm of your work day.** A pomodoro timer that knows what you have to do, stands between you and the distractions, and tells you in Telegram how the day went. Three pieces, one backend: | Piece | What it is | Where it runs | | --- | --- | --- | | **Backend** | FastAPI + Postgres: the clock, the task mirror, the blocking policy, the reports, the Telegram bot | Docker | | **Web app** | React + Material UI — the whole thing in a browser, on any device | Docker (same container) | | **Desktop app** | A **native Qt/QML** app: tray, D-Bus, real notifications, and the part that actually blocks websites and apps | Your machine | The server owns the clock. Start a pomodoro on your phone's browser, watch it count down in the tray, finish it from the desktop — it is one interval. --- ## What it does ### A fully configurable pomodoro timer Focus / short break / long break lengths, how many cycles before a long break, auto-start of breaks and of the next interval, a daily goal, pausing (or not), strict mode (abandoning a focus interval costs you a written reason), interruption counting, alarm sound and volume. Intervals are recorded as they really happened — planned vs actual, paused time, interruptions — so the stats are not a guess. ### Every todo you own, in one list Sourced from the integrations worked out in [`~/code/jira-helper`](../jira-helper), and taking **all** of them: * **Jira** — every open issue across the site (not just what is due today), with the due date, the "Start date" custom field, the status, the priority, the project. * **Todoist** — every open task, or your own filter query. * **Google Tasks** — every incomplete task, including undated ones. * **Laundry bookings** (`4ka.inbicst.ru`) — the slots you booked today, because they are blocks of time that will interrupt your pomodoros. * **Local tasks** — the "and this too" you type at 9am. **You cannot tick a task off here.** Completion belongs to the tool the task lives in — close it in Jira, Todoist or Google Tasks and the next refresh notices (an item that comes back done, or that a healthy source stops returning at all, is credited to that day). Two places to mark something done is two places to be wrong. Every source is pulled independently: an expired laundry cookie or a Jira outage costs you that one source and shows up as a warning next to it, never as an empty list — and nothing is ever counted as closed on a source that failed. The list is mirrored into the database on every refresh, so the UI is instant and the daily report still works when a source is down. ### A focus guard that actually blocks Rules live on the server (edit them in the web app or the desktop app); the native desktop app enforces them on your machine: * **Websites** — `/etc/hosts` is rewritten through a tiny privileged helper under polkit. No browser extension, no proxy, works for every app on the machine, and you can audit it with `cat /etc/hosts`. * **Masks** — `youtube.com` blocks the site plus `www.` and `m.`; `*.google.com` blocks every subdomain in your expansion list (a hosts file has no wildcards, so the app expands them for you and tells you when a pattern like `*gram*` cannot be expressed that way). Exceptions take masks too, so `*.google.com` blocked plus `*.docs.google.com` allowed does what you would expect. * **Applications** — `/proc` is watched and blocked apps are closed (or just reported, if you prefer a warning). Entries here are globs as well: `steam*`, `*discord*`, matched against the process name and its command line. * **When** — only while a focus interval runs (the default), always, or on a schedule. Breaks can keep the block on or let it go. * Every attempt that gets turned away is recorded — and teased about in the evening report. ### A daily report that is worth reading Pomodoros vs goal, focus and break minutes, the longest unbroken stretch, when you started and stopped, interruptions, abandoned intervals, tasks closed (with links), the sites you tried to sneak off to, your streak, a comparison against your 7-day average, **achievements** (🎯 goal met, 🧘 deep work, 🦉 night owl, 🪃 comeback, 🚀 personal best…) and **fun facts**: ``` 🍅 Daily report — 2026-10-18 ████████░░ 6/8 pomodoros ⏱ Focus: 2h 35m · breaks: 35m 🧠 longest stretch: 1h 20m · 🕘 from 09:12 to 18:40 · 📵 interruptions: 3 🔥 Streak: 4 days (best 11) 📊 7-day average: 5.4 · yesterday: 7 ✅ Tasks closed (3) • PLAT-184 Fix the flaky importer (Jira) • Write the design doc (Todoist) … 🚫 Temptations blocked • youtube.com × 12 • reddit.com × 4 🏅 Achievements 🧘 Deep work — 80 minutes without breaking the chain. 🛡️ Gatekeeper — The blocker turned you away 16 times. It won. 🍅 155 minutes of focus — that is 7.0 sitcom episodes you did not watch. ⏰ Your peak hour was 10:00. Defend it. Target hit. Now protect the streak. 💪 ``` Four tones (friendly / coach / drill sergeant / dry) and two languages (English, Russian). ### A Telegram bot that pushes back Unlike jira-helper's one-way daily message, this one is a remote control: * **Morning briefing** — your day, grouped: overdue, due today, coming up, plus your streak and the goal to beat. * **Daily report** at your hour, **weekly review** on your day. * **Nudges** — "90 minutes without a pomodoro. You are at 2/8 — one block puts you back on plan." Windowed, rate-limited, and silent during quiet hours. * **Cheers** every N pomodoros. * **Commands**: `/start_work [minutes]`, `/break`, `/pause`, `/resume`, `/stop`, `/status`, `/today`, `/done 3`, `/report`, `/week`, `/streak`, `/block`. --- ## Quick start ```bash git clone kadence && cd kadence cp .env.example .env # fill in Jira / Todoist / Telegram (optional) docker compose up -d --build # → http://localhost:8000 ``` That is the backend and the web app. Then the native desktop app: ```bash # Arch: the only dependency is PyQt6, which is a system package sudo pacman -S --needed python-pyqt6 qt6-declarative # (Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt install python3-pyqt6 python3-pyqt6.qtquick qml6-module-qtquick-controls) ./desktop/packaging/install-desktop.sh # menu entry + icon + `kadence-desktop` sudo ./desktop/helper/install.sh # the privileged helper, for website blocking kadence-desktop ``` Point it at the backend in **Settings → Backend** (it defaults to `http://localhost:8000`). ### Without Docker ```bash make backend-venv # backend/.venv with the dependencies cd backend && .venv/bin/python -m app.cli serve --reload cd frontend && npm install && npm run dev # http://localhost:5173 ``` --- ## Configuration Two layers, on purpose: * **Environment** (`.env`) — infrastructure and **secrets**: the database, the API token, and the seeds for the integrations. The variable names are jira-helper's, so you can copy that `.env` across unchanged. * **Settings** (the UI) — everything else, stored as one validated document in the database and shared by the web app, the desktop app and the bot. Secrets are masked (`••••••••`) on the way out and never clobbered on the way back. Nothing has to be in the environment: a fresh install is a working 25/5/15 timer, and you can fill everything in from **Settings**. | Variable | What for | | --- | --- | | `DATABASE_URL` | set by compose; SQLite works too (`sqlite:///./kadence.db`) | | `API_TOKEN` | if set, every `/api` call must send `X-API-Token`. Set it the moment the backend leaves localhost | | `TIMEZONE` | which day a pomodoro belongs to, and when the jobs fire | | `JIRA_*`, `TODOIST_*`, `GOOGLE_*`, `LAUNDRY_*` | seeds for the sources | | `TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN`, `TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID` | the bot | | `SCHEDULER_ENABLED`, `TELEGRAM_BOT_ENABLED` | switch the background jobs / bot off | --- ## How it fits together ``` ┌──────────────┐ ┌───────────────────────────────┐ ┌───────────────┐ │ Web app │ │ Backend (FastAPI) │ │ Jira │ │ React + MUI │──/api──│ • timer engine (owns clock) │───────▶│ Todoist │ └──────────────┘ │ • task mirror + write-back │ │ Google Tasks │ │ • blocking policy │ │ Laundry │ ┌──────────────┐ │ • reports + achievements │ └───────────────┘ │ Desktop app │──/api──│ • scheduler (briefing, │ │ Qt/QML, D-Bus│ │ report, nudges) │───────▶ Telegram ⇄ you │ hosts + /proc│ └───────────────────────────────┘ └──────────────┘ │ enforces Postgres ``` * `backend/` — FastAPI app. `app/services/` holds the thinking (timer, tasks, stats, report, blocker policy, scheduler, bot); `app/sources/` holds one module per integration; `app/api/` is a thin HTTP layer. 44 tests under `backend/tests`. * `frontend/` — React + TypeScript + MUI, built by Vite into the backend image and served from the same origin (so there is no CORS to configure). * **The look** — warm paper, ink type, hairline rules instead of boxes and shadows, Fraunces for figures and headings, Inter for everything else, one ember accent. The desktop app's `Theme` singleton carries the same tokens as the web app's `tokens.ts`, so the two clients are one product. Chart colours come from a separate, validated data palette: the brand is warm, but a chart has to stay readable for colour-blind readers in both themes. * `desktop/` — the native app. See [`desktop/README.md`](desktop/README.md). --- ## Make targets ``` make up # docker compose up --build make dev # backend with reload + Vite dev server make test # backend test suite make desktop # run the native app from the checkout make desktop-install # menu entry + icon make helper-install # the privileged blocking helper make report # build and send today's report right now ``` The backend also has a CLI, handy from cron or a systemd timer: ```bash python -m app.cli refresh # pull every source once python -m app.cli briefing # send the morning briefing python -m app.cli report # build and send today's report python -m app.cli stats # print the numbers as JSON ``` --- ## Security notes * The desktop app never runs as root. The only privileged code is `desktop/helper/kadence-helper` (~200 lines): it validates every hostname, rewrites only the region between its own markers in `/etc/hosts`, writes atomically, keeps a backup, and refuses anything that does not look like a hostname. It is authorised by polkit (`auth_admin_keep` by default — one prompt per session; `install.sh --passwordless` drops that for one user). * Tokens live in the database and in `.env`, are masked in every API response, and are never sent to the browser in full. * Set `API_TOKEN` before exposing the backend beyond localhost; put it behind TLS if it leaves your network.