Better Tasks

A calm, keyboard-first planner for your day. You type a task in one line (Review PR 15:30 ~45m !! #work) and it lands on a timeline with its time, duration, priority and tags already set.

Views

• Today: the day spine, a vertical timeline of today's tasks with a now marker, plus the tasks dated today without a time ("Whenever"). The side panel shows the hourly workload and the remaining focus time.
• Next: what is coming after today.
• Inbox: tasks without a date.
• Week: a calendar. Drag across a range to create a block; drag a block to move it, or resize it to change how long it lasts.

Open any task to edit it as a sentence (day, time, duration, priority, tags), add steps and a note. Tick it to complete it, and use the two-step button to delete it.

The Line

The Line is the floating input that creates tasks. Write the title and add any of these, in any order:

Write	Means	Example
15:30, 3pm, 3:30pm	Starts at (the time stays in the title)	Call mum 6pm
13:30 to 15:30, 1pm-3pm	A time range: sets the start and the duration	Workshop 9:00 to 11:30
~45m, ~2h	Lasts	Read ~2h
!, !!, !!!	Priority: low, medium, high	Pay rent !!!
#work, #work,home	One or more tags (up to 8)	Report #work
today, tomorrow	The day (a time alone also means today)	run tomorrow 7:05

A line with no day and no time goes to the Inbox.

Running it

Requires Node.js 24 (the tests run the TypeScript sources directly with node --test), a MongoDB database (Atlas) and a Google OAuth client. There is one environment: local development uses the production database.

1. Copy .env.example to .env.local and fill it in:
   • MONGODB_URI and MONGODB_DB: the Atlas connection string and database name.
   • BETTER_AUTH_SECRET: a random secret, e.g. openssl rand -base64 32. Vercel can have its own; changing a secret signs out everyone using that URL.
   • BETTER_AUTH_URL: http://localhost:3000 locally, https://<domain> in Vercel.
   • GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID and GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET: a Google Cloud OAuth client (Web application) whose redirect URIs include <BETTER_AUTH_URL>/api/auth/callback/google for each URL above.
2. Prepare the database once (the tasks validator and every index; safe to run again):

npm run db:setup

3. Run it:

npm i
npm run dev     # http://localhost:3000, then Continue with Google at /login
npm test        # domain and server tests (node --test); the MongoDB ones skip without MONGODB_URI_TEST
MONGODB_URI_TEST=mongodb://127.0.0.1:27017/better-tasks-test npm test   # also runs the store contract on a local, throwaway MongoDB (never the real one: it creates and drops collections)
npm run lint
npm run build   # needs the variables above (Next loads the route modules while building)

Structure

src/
  app/                 routes: landing, (app)/today|next|inbox|week, api/tasks
  components/ds/       design system primitives
  components/ui/       shadcn components adapted to the tokens
  features/tasks/      domain (pure logic), server (MongoDB store, route logic), client (data hooks), components
  features/auth/       Google log in, account button, session guard, safe ?next=
  lib/                 MongoDB client, Better Auth (server and client), the session
  proxy.ts             sends signed-out visitors to /login
scripts/
  db-setup.mts         the tasks validator and the indexes (npm run db:setup)
  features/calendar/   the Week calendar (FullCalendar lives only here)
  features/landing/    the landing page
docs/
  ARCHITECTURE.md      modules, decisions, design tokens and motion
  SPEC.md              the V1 implementation plan
  SPEC-V1.1.md         persistence and accounts

See docs/ARCHITECTURE.md for the full picture.

Tech stack

Next.js 16 (App Router) · React 19 · TypeScript · Tailwind CSS 4 · shadcn/ui on Radix · TanStack Query · FullCalendar 7 · Temporal polyfill · MongoDB · Better Auth

Current limitations

• Google is the only way to sign in.
• Dark mode only, English only, no time zones, no recurring tasks, no notifications.

Made with ❤️ by Andres Gallego