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.

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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, 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. Finishing a Jira-backed task here transitions the issue to Done.
• Todoist — every open task, or your own filter query. Finishing closes it in Todoist.
• Google Tasks — every incomplete task, including undated ones. Finishing marks it completed in Google.
• 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.

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. 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.
• Applications — /proc is watched and blocked apps are closed (or just reported, if you prefer a warning).
• 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.

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Quick start

git clone <this repo> 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:

# 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

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

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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

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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).
• desktop/ — the native app. See desktop/README.md.

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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:

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

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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.