lapse

A minimal spaced-repetition flashcard app. Tauri + Svelte + SQLite.

Built because Anki is powerful but its desktop UX is rough. lapse keeps the parts that matter — FSRS scheduling, audio playback, your data on disk — and strips the rest.

What lapse is

• One deck = one .lapse file (SQLite under the hood). Open it, review, close. No collection database, no profiles, no syncing service. Legacy .db files still open for backwards compatibility.
• Opinionated schema. Every card has four fields: front, back, audio (BLOB, optional), tags. No note types, no card templates, no Mustache.
• FSRS scheduling. Modern algorithm via rs-fsrs.
• Keyboard-first. Space to flip, 1/2/3/4 to rate, r to replay audio, Esc to leave.

What lapse is not

• An Anki importer. lapse only reads .db files in its own schema.
• An editor. Decks are built outside the app (Python, scripts, whatever).
• A sync service. Your deck is one file — back it up however you back up any file.

Schema

meta(key TEXT PK, value TEXT)         -- 'schema_version', 'name', etc.

cards(
  id            INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,
  front         TEXT NOT NULL,
  back          TEXT NOT NULL,
  audio         BLOB,
  audio_mime    TEXT,                  -- e.g. 'audio/mpeg'
  tags          TEXT NOT NULL DEFAULT '',  -- space-separated
  state         INTEGER NOT NULL DEFAULT 0, -- 0=new, 1=learning, 2=review, 3=relearning
  due           INTEGER NOT NULL DEFAULT 0, -- unix ms
  stability     REAL NOT NULL DEFAULT 0,
  difficulty    REAL NOT NULL DEFAULT 0,
  reps          INTEGER NOT NULL DEFAULT 0,
  lapses        INTEGER NOT NULL DEFAULT 0,
  last_review   INTEGER                 -- unix ms, nullable
)

review_log(id, card_id, reviewed_at, rating, elapsed_days, scheduled_days, state_before)

src-tauri/src/schema.sql is the source of truth.

Building a deck

Anything that writes SQLite in the v1 schema can build a deck. The repo ships builder scripts as a Claude Code skill under .claude/skills/deck-builder/ (see its SKILL.md for full docs). The quick path:

# Tiny 5-card sample (smoke test)
python3 .claude/skills/deck-builder/make_sample_deck.py sample.lapse

# Convert anki-lebanese Python data into a lapse deck
python3 .claude/skills/deck-builder/import_lebanese.py lebanese.lapse

# Add free neural TTS audio (Microsoft edge-tts, ar-LB-LaylaNeural by default)
uv run .claude/skills/deck-builder/fetch_edge_tts.py lebanese.lapse

The TTS script is resumable — it only synthesizes cards whose audio column is currently NULL.

To make a deck available inside the app, drop it into the persistent deck folder:

# Linux
cp lebanese.lapse ~/.local/share/dev.lapse.app/decks/
# macOS
cp lebanese.lapse ~/Library/Application\ Support/dev.lapse.app/decks/

Development

Prerequisites:

• Rust 1.93+ (stable)
• Node 22+
• Fedora: sudo dnf install librsvg2-devel webkit2gtk4.1-devel openssl-devel gtk3-devel
• Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt install librsvg2-dev libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev libssl-dev libgtk-3-dev

npm install
npm run tauri dev

License

MIT. See LICENSE.