Carbon: Simple on the surface, powerful underneath

Carbon is a offline-first, with a self host-able sync server task manager. With the simplicity of generic ToDo apps, the power of leading GTD apps, with time tracking, and a core belief in No SaaS!

What You Get Right Away

Capture & organize

• Quick inbox for ideas
• Projects to group related tasks
• Tags to categorize work
• Due dates and defer (snooze) dates
• Priority flagging

Smart views

• Today - what’s due today
• Inbox - capture and process
• Flagged - your priorities
• Review - (GTD) Review Projects, so you don’t forget!
• Nearby - Tasks valid at your location
• Plan - Plan your day
• Custom Views - Create custom views with powerful filters.

Works offline, syncs when ready

• Full browser app with SQLite
• Works completely offline
• Syncs to your server whenever you connect
• No cloud, no accounts you don’t control

Deploy it yourself

• Docker Compose setup
• Runs on your VPS, NAS, or home server
• Optional authentication
• No vendor lock-in

Power Features

• Recurring tasks — set up repeating work
• Nested tasks — break work into subtasks
• Drag-and-drop — organize your way
• Dark/light mode — fits your lighting
• PWA installable — install as an app
• Desktop app — global quick-add hotkey (Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+A), system tray, and close-to-tray
• Task assignment — delegate to team members
• Sharing — collaborative projects with read/write access
• Comments — per-task discussions with @mentions
• Markdown export — export your lists and tasks as clean, portable Markdown
• REST API — integrate with Home Assistant, scripts, anything

Talk to It: Natural-Language Control

Carbon understands plain language — capture and manage tasks the way you’d describe them out loud.

• In-app command box — type something like “add milk to shopping, due Friday”. A server-side tool-loop carries it out and tells you exactly what changed, tracking token usage per command.
• Agent API (/api/agent/*) — a small set of granular tools (resolve, lists, items, add, complete, update, tag, geo-tag, nearby, geocode) that any LLM can compose. Scoped tokens, per-item write gating, and fuzzy name→ID matching keep it safe and forgiving.
• Telegram bot — chat with Carbon in plain language. It remembers the conversation, so follow-ups just work: “add bread and milk to the shopping list”, then “sausages too”, then “I’ll get bread and sausages from Coles, milk from Aldi” — and each item is tagged to the right place.
• Hermes skill & webhook — drive Carbon from the CLI or any script via the carbon-nl skill and its webhook listener.
• Bulk tagging — add or remove tags across a whole list, tag, query, or set of items in a single call.

Location-Aware Reminders

• Place geocoding — “remind me at the nearest Coles” finds the closest match (via OpenStreetMap) and geofences a tag to it. Cached, rate-limited, and opt-in per deployment.
• Multi-device location — every signed-in device can report its own GPS as a toggleable source. Name and manage your devices; the freshest accurate fix wins. Home Assistant is just one more source.
• Geofencing — fire reminders when you arrive or leave, via device GPS or Home Assistant.

Learn More

Full Feature List — Detailed breakdown of every feature

Blog & Videos — Deep-dives into key features (coming soon)

Get Started

Visit carbon.etx.sx

Or

git clone https://github.com/emmertex/carbon.git
cd carbon
npm install
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:3042. Works offline immediately. Configure a server in Settings when you’re ready to sync.

Self-host: docker compose up -d --build