Primico
A local-first todo app for Android and the desktop. Importance first, due date breaks ties.
Your tasks live in a SQLite file on your device. No account required, no analytics, no cloud
unless you point it at your own.
viberfasend.github.io/primico · Developer docs
Status: feature-complete as a single-user list app, in daily use on Android and Linux.
Known as Cadence until version 3; the name changed to avoid a clash with an unrelated app.
macOS and Windows builds are produced by the same code and the same release workflow but see
far less real-world use. What comes next is on the roadmap.
Why Primico?
Most todo apps either sort by date and bury what matters under what is merely due, or keep your
list on someone else's server. Primico does neither. Every list is ordered by importance first,
due date second, so the thing you should be doing sits on top even when ten small things are due
today. And every task is stored locally: the app works fully offline and signed out, and syncing
between your own devices is an optional sign-in against a database you control.
Features
- 🗂️ Local-first — one SQLite database per device, and it is the source of truth. Nothing
leaves the device until you sign in.
- ⭐ Importance first — four priority levels, always spelled out (
P1…P4), never colour
alone. Due date only breaks ties.
- ⌨️ Quick add — one line, parsed as you type, in English and German:
Call the dentist tomorrow at 17:00 !p1 #Health @phone.
- 🔁 Recurrence that understands both kinds of rule — calendar rules (
every 2 weeks on thu,
every last weekday) and n days after completion. A task completed late catches up to the
next occurrence that is not behind you.
- 📥 Today, Upcoming, Inbox, Triage, Projects, Tags — projects nest one level, tags are
cross-cutting labels, and Triage walks the backlog one card at a time.
- ☑️ Subtasks, notes, attachments — files and links on a task, content-addressed and
deduplicated on disk.
- 🔔 Reminders — exact, Doze-proof alarms on Android; a tray notification on the desktop.
Several lead times per task.
- 🖥️ A real desktop app, not a phone app in a window — drag and drop, right-click menus, a
project-tree sidebar, two panes on wide windows and a command palette (
Ctrl/Cmd+K).
- 📱 Home-screen widgets on Android — Today, Inbox and agenda lists, any project or tag, a next-task card, a progress ring and a quick-add button.
- 🔄 Optional sync — sign in and your devices merge through a Postgres database you host
yourself, last-writer-wins, tombstones and all. See Sync.
- 💾 Backup and import — a versioned JSON file you can read, plus a converter for Todoist
exports.
- 🌍 English and German, including the quick-add grammar, with a per-app language picker on
Android 13+.
- ♿ Accessible by design — 44dp+ touch targets, 200% font scaling, two row densities, light
and dark.
Tech stack
| Layer | Technology |
|---|
| Language | Kotlin, one codebase for every target |
| UI | Compose Multiplatform, Material 3 |
| Storage | SQLite via SQLDelight — the same schema and migration chain on every platform |
| Android shell | Jetpack Navigation, Glance widgets, AlarmManager |
| Desktop shell | Compose for Desktop, jpackage installers (.deb, .rpm, .dmg, .msi) |
| Sync (optional) | Ktor client talking PostgREST to a Neon Data API, with Neon Auth |
Get it
Android
Open this link on the phone and install it:
https://github.com/viberfasend/primico/releases/latest/download/primico-release.apk
That URL always serves the newest published build. Android will ask you to allow installs from
this source, which is expected for an app that does not come from a store. Tap the same link
again later to update in place: the release APK is signed with a stable release key, so a new
build installs over the old one and keeps your tasks.
Coming from Cadence 3.x? The release APK installs straight over it: same application id,
same signing key, your tasks stay. Only the name on the home screen changes.
If you still have an install from before 3.0 (signed with the debug key), Android will
refuse the update with "App not installed": the signing key changed. Export a backup first
(Settings → Data → Export backup), uninstall once, install again and import.
A debug-signed build sits beside it as primico-debug.apk. The two have different application
IDs and install side by side.
Desktop
Grab the package for your OS from the latest release:
.deb, .rpm or a tarball on Linux, .dmg on macOS, .msi on Windows. Every release ships the
Linux packages; the macOS and Windows installers are built on request, so if the newest release
lacks one, the previous one may have it, or build it yourself.
Coming from Cadence 3.x on Linux: the package is called primico now, so install it and then
remove the old one (sudo apt remove cadence). Your data directory is adopted on first start.
On macOS and Windows the installer upgrades in place.
This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗
