Cairn helps you capture the chaos, focus on what matters, and celebrate every win — without the overwhelm.
Available on
Designed to reduce overwhelm and work with how your brain actually operates.
Open a capture overlay with one shortcut. Type everything on your mind — one thought per line. Tasks land in your Inbox so you can organize later. Optional AI (local, private) extracts structure from free-form text.
One task at a time. No list to get lost in. A built-in Pomodoro timer keeps you in flow — 25 minutes of work, 5 minutes of rest. Hit Done and get a confetti burst.
Brain-dumped tasks sit in your Inbox until you're ready to triage. Move your most important work into Today and Cairn will nudge you to pick your top priorities if you haven't yet.
Expand any task to add ordered sub-steps. A progress bar tracks completion and each step carries into Focus Mode so big tasks feel manageable.
Confetti and a rotating celebration message greet every completed task. A 🔥 streak counter tracks consecutive days with at least one completion — just enough motivation without the pressure.
Your tasks never leave your device. No accounts, no cloud sync, no recurring subscriptions. Tasks are stored in plain JSON you can read, back up, or version-control yourself.
Four levels — clear meaning, zero ambiguity.
Must happen today. Limit yourself to 1–3.
Important, do after MITs.
On the list, no pressure today.
Captured so your brain can let it go.
No accounts. No servers. No surveillance. Cairn is private by design, not just by policy.
All tasks are saved to a plain JSON file on your own device. You own your data completely.
Cairn never asks you to sign up, log in, or hand over an email address.
The optional AI Brain Dump feature sends text to a local Ollama process on your machine — never to any cloud.
Tasks are stored as plain JSON — readable, versionable, and yours to export whenever you want.
$0.99 — one-time purchase, no subscriptions. VS Code extension is free.
The native macOS app. $0.99 — no subscriptions. Currently under review by Apple.
Coming SoonFor iPhone and iPad. $0.99 — no subscriptions. Currently under review by Apple.
Coming SoonQuestions? Visit the Support page.