DANO

A local-first PARA workspace — notes, tasks, projects, a light CRM, and a calendar, all on your own device.

DANO is a free, open-source, offline-first "second brain" desktop app that organizes your work and life with the PARA method (Projects · Areas · Resources · Archive). No accounts, no cloud, no tracking — your data stays in a local SQLite file you fully own.

Download · Features · Screenshots · Build from source

What is DANO?

DANO is a privacy-first productivity app that unifies the tools you normally juggle across five apps — a note-taking app, a to-do list, a project tracker, a contacts/CRM, and a calendar — into one fast, keyboard-driven desktop workspace.

It's built around Tiago Forte's PARA method, a simple system for organizing everything you're working on:

• Projects — things with a goal and a finish line (e.g. "Website redesign").
• Areas — ongoing parts of your life with no end date (e.g. "Health", "Finance").
• Resources — notes and reference material, written in Markdown.
• Archive — anything finished or inactive, out of the way but never lost.
• Inbox — a quick-capture space for thoughts you'll sort later.

Everything runs 100% offline. Your data lives in a local SQLite database on your machine — there's no server, no sign-up, and nothing leaves your device unless you export it yourself.

Features

• PARA organization — Areas hold Projects, Projects hold Tasks; notes link to anything, or stay in the Inbox.
• Dashboard — a home screen with quick capture, stats, recent activity, and what needs attention.
• Markdown notes — a clean CodeMirror editor, with tags and links to projects, areas, and contacts.
• Tasks — checklists inside projects, with due dates and drag-to-reorder.
• Light CRM — keep contacts with notes and recurring dates (birthdays, anniversaries) that surface on your calendar.
• Calendar — month, week, and agenda views for events, deadlines, and contact dates.
• Pin & favorite — keep important projects and notes at the top.
• Filter & sort — slice projects by status, area, priority, or deadline; filter notes by area or tag.
• Backup & restore — export and import your content and settings as JSON, to a location you choose.
• Appearance — light / dark / system theme, adjustable zoom, and four UI fonts.
• Keyboard-first — quick shortcuts for navigation, capture, and search.
• Yours, forever — local-first, open-source, no telemetry, no lock-in.

Download

Grab the latest build for your platform from the Releases page:

DANO is currently in beta and not yet code-signed. On macOS, right-click the app → Open the first time (or run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/DANO.app). On Windows, choose More info → Run anyway at the SmartScreen prompt.

Screenshots

Coming soon.

Tech stack

• Tauri v2 — a lightweight, secure desktop shell (Rust + system webview), far smaller than Electron.
• Svelte 5 + SvelteKit (static SPA) — reactive UI with runes.
• SQLite via tauri-plugin-sql — native, reliable, local-only storage.
• CodeMirror 6 — the Markdown note editor.
• TypeScript throughout.

Build from source

You'll need Rust, Node.js, and the Tauri prerequisites for your OS (full list here).

On Arch-based distros, the Linux prerequisites are roughly:

webkit2gtk-4.1 base-devel curl wget file openssl librsvg

Then:

git clone https://github.com/xUniti/dano.git
cd dano
npm install
npm run tauri dev      # run in development
npm run tauri build    # produce a release bundle

Roadmap

• PARA workspace (Areas, Projects, Tasks, Resources, Archive, Inbox)
• Dashboard, calendar, and a light CRM
• Settings, theming, and JSON backup / restore
• Pin, tags, drag-to-reorder
• End-to-end encrypted sync (CRDT-based, offline-first)
• Mobile apps (iOS / Android via Tauri)
• Calendar sync (CalDAV)

License

MIT © xUniti