pomban

A local-first personal productivity platform — projects, sprints, kanban, and focus sessions — that runs entirely in your terminal.

pipx install pomban && pomban

What is pomban?

pomban is a single-binary planning, focus, and review platform built around one SQLite library on your machine. It models work the way you actually do it — projects own sprints, sprints own tasks, tasks accumulate focus sessions — and gives every layer a keyboard-driven screen:

• Plan at the project and sprint level. Move tasks across a kanban with WIP limits, deadlines, and inline @project / !sprint syntax.
• Focus with a Pomodoro engine that logs every session against a task, captures mid-session blockers, and records a free-text note when a session ends.
• Review with stats, per-tag analytics, a daily digest, exports (CSV / JSON / grouped markdown), and a full session history.
• Integrate through phase-lifecycle shell hooks and in-process Python plugins. The first-party git_sync plugin commits the SQLite library on exit so the same database follows you across machines via a personal git remote.

The terminal is the runtime — fast launch, zero chrome, every action one keystroke — but the product is the platform underneath. Your library never leaves your machine, no account, no telemetry, no cloud.

How it compares

• vs CLI timers — full task surface (kanban + projects + sprints
  • digest + stats + history), not just a countdown.
• vs phone Pomodoro apps — keyboard-driven, distraction-free, themed, runs in the terminal you already have open.
• vs PM SaaS (Linear/Jira/Notion) — local-first, single-file library you own, no login, no rate limits, no migration anxiety.
• vs a wall clock + sticky notes — every session is logged. Per task, per project, per sprint, per day, per week.

Features

Plan

• Projects and Sprints (5 / 6) — full CRUD with archiving, completion states, and @project / !sprint inline task syntax. One sprint per project can be active; sprint runner overlay (Shift+R) keeps the current goal pinned regardless of screen.
• Kanban board (2) — three columns, priorities, due dates (overdue render red), per-column WIP limits, board search (/), visual-mode bulk actions (v), card-detail screen (i).
• Context header — every screen carries the active project / sprint chip so you always know what work the next focus session attaches to.
• First-run flow — empty DB launches a modal that seeds your first project so the hierarchy is never empty.

Focus

• Pomodoro engine — focus / short-break / long-break / lunch phases, configurable cycle length, auto-advance toggle (Shift+T), resume-on-restart prompt, lunch-window suggestion.
• Blocker capture (b) — log a one-line blocker against the current focus session without breaking the timer.
• Session notes — at session end, jot a freeform note; it surfaces on the history screen against that row.
• Working-hours quiet — set a daily window in [breaks] and outside it desktop popups + sound suppress automatically. A header chip shows the current state.

Review

• Stats (3) — daily / weekly / monthly buckets, top tasks, interruption counts, plus a per-tag analytics panel built on minutes_per_tag.
• Today digest (7) — sessions, top tasks, interruptions for the current day, one screenful.
• History (4) — every session with planned vs. actual duration and the session note inline.
• Exports — pomban export ships CSV, JSON, and grouped-markdown formats. pomban sprint export … produces a per-sprint report.

Integrate

• Hooks — [hooks].on_focus_start / on_focus_end / on_break_start / on_break_end shell commands invoked with POMODORO_PHASE and POMODORO_TASK_TITLE env vars.
• In-process plugins — Python entry points discovered at startup; exceptions are sandboxed and never crash the app.
• git_sync plugin — commits the SQLite library on exit so it can sync across devices via a personal git remote.
• Themes — nord, gruvbox, dracula, catppuccin-mocha, tokyo-night. Cycle with t; persisted to config.toml.

Install

pipx install pomban

pipx (or uv tool) is the recommended path for end-user CLI tools — it sandboxes pomban's dependencies in their own venv and gives you a global pomban command. On modern Linux distros it's also the only path that works without virtualenv gymnastics, thanks to PEP 668.

# uv tool — same idea, faster
uv tool install pomban

# pip (inside a venv)
python -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
pip install pomban

# From source
git clone https://github.com/prajwalmahajan101/pomban
cd pomban && pip install -e ".[dev]"

Requirements

• Python ≥ 3.11
• A terminal with at least 80 columns. 100+ recommended.
• Linux desktop notifications need notify-send; sound needs paplay, aplay, or ffplay on $PATH. Both degrade silently if missing — the in-TUI bell still fires.

Quick start

pomban                    # launch the TUI

On an empty database the first-run modal walks you through creating a project. From there: pick a sprint, add tasks (n, with inline @project / !sprint / #tag / ~25 for a 25-minute estimate), and hit s to start a focus session.

Press ? at any time for a context-aware help overlay. The most common keys:

Full reference: docs/site/keybindings.md.

CLI

pomban                                # launch the TUI
pomban export --since 7d              # markdown review to stdout
pomban export --since 7d --format csv # CSV export
pomban export --since 7d --format json
pomban sprint export …                # per-sprint reports (see `--help`)

Configuration

pomban reads ~/.config/pomban/config.toml (XDG-compliant). The file is optional — sane defaults ship. Top-level sections:

The working-hours window lives under [breaks] as working_hours_start / working_hours_end ("HH:MM"); outside the window, desktop popups and sound suppress (the in-TUI bell still fires).

Full reference: docs/site/configuration.md.

XDG paths

Troubleshooting

The bell rings but no desktop notification appears. On Linux, install a notification daemon and notify-send (libnotify on most distros). On macOS, install terminal-notifier. The bell itself always fires; the desktop notification is best-effort.

Notifications stay quiet during the day. Check your [breaks].working_hours_start / working_hours_end. The header chip reflects the current quiet state.

git_sync complained "not a git repo". Run git init && git remote add origin <your-url> inside ~/.local/share/pomban/. pomban commits on exit but never pushes — set up a post-commit hook or cron if you want auto-push.

A focus session crashed mid-pomodoro; will I lose it? No. The session and remaining seconds are persisted at every phase transition. On next launch you'll get a resume prompt.

SQLite says "database is locked". pomban uses a single SQLite connection by design (see ADR-0002). If you opened the DB in another tool while pomban was running, close that tool.

Development

git clone https://github.com/prajwalmahajan101/pomban
cd pomban
python -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e ".[dev]"
pre-commit install

pytest -q
ruff format --check . && ruff check src/ tests/

See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full convention list, ROADMAP.md for what's coming, and RELEASE_PLAN.md for how releases are cut.

Project background

pomban is a solo, phase-driven project. The phase plan and current status are in ROADMAP.md; architectural decisions are recorded under docs/adr/; the cumulative change history is in CHANGELOG.md. Active and resolved code-review findings live under .code_review/.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.