Defrago — A GTD App to Defragment Your Mind

Your Brain Is Not a Task Warehouse

“I have to do this.” “I can’t forget that.” Is your head packed with tasks?

Working memory is severely limited. As long as unprocessed tasks occupy that memory, your true creative capacity stays out of reach.

Defrago is a GTD task-management app that writes everything in your head into safe external storage and guides your brain into flow.

Defrago = Defragment + Go Sort the scattered thinking, then act on it immediately.

The 3 Design Principles of Defrago

Principle	Description
Zero-Friction Capture	Drive the cost of writing things down to zero. Externalize the moment a thought arises.
One Screen, One Decision	The judgment required on each screen is always exactly one. Never get lost, never overthink.
Think Less, Do More	The app guides the decision flow. Don’t spend brain on management — spend it on action.

The 4 GTD Phases

Capture → Clarify → Engage → Review → (loop)

Phase	What you do
Capture	Write everything that bothers you into the Inbox. Empty your head with zero friction. Sort it later.
Clarify	Pick from 4 classification buttons: delegate, project, do now, or task.
Engage	Filter to what to do now. Status change is one tap.
Review	Reflect on completed tasks and re-plan projects. Keep the GTD cycle running.

The 4 Clarify Buttons

In the Clarify phase, for each Inbox item, pick one of 4 buttons. No hesitation.

Classification	Description
Delegation	Not for you. Hand it off to someone, or delete it.
Project	Needs 2+ steps. Plan via the 6-step Natural Planning model.
Do Now	Completes within 2 minutes. Do it now, or in the very near future.
Task	Has time/location. Set schedule and priority.

Deleted items stay in the trash for 30 days. Misclicks are safe.

Project Planning — The Natural Planning Model

Big projects are structured by the GTD theory’s 6-step model.

Step 1-2  Define purpose & desired outcome
          → Judgment criteria become clear; hesitation disappears

Step 3    Brainstorm
          → No judgment; surface every related element

Step 4-5  Organize & support material
          → Sort tasks, set deadlines, store reference docs

Step 6    Identify the next action
          → "What I do today" becomes obvious

Redesigned Around Essentialism (v2.0.0)

Defrago v2.0.0 adopted essentialism — strip out complexity, focus on what is essential.

Feature	v1	v2 (Essentialism)
Prioritization	10 levels by importance × urgency	Intuitive 4-bucket sorting
Calendar	A separate classification	Folded into “Do Now” as tasks
Phase count	5 phases (Capture → Clarify → Organize → Engage → Review)	4 phases (Capture → Clarify → Engage → Review)
Classification	Wizard (Yes/No questions)	4 buttons (Delegate / Project / Do Now / Task)
After delete	Completely deleted	Recoverable for 30 days via trash

The result: shorter time to decide, faster transition from decision to action.

How to Use

1. Empty your head (Capture)

Open the Inbox and write everything that’s on your mind. Don’t worry about accuracy or order. The goal is to get “I’ll think about it later” out of your brain.

2. Pick one of 4 buttons to clarify

For each Inbox item, pick one of the 4 buttons. No hesitation.

3. Act (Engage)

The dashboard tells you what to do next. You just do it.

4. Review

Review completed tasks, re-plan projects. The GTD cycle keeps turning so your head stays clear.

Multi-user & Data Isolation

• Anyone can sign up freely (username: 3–50 chars of alphanumeric, hyphen, underscore)
• Passwords are securely hashed with bcrypt
• All GTD items are grouped by user_id; only the logged-in user’s data is shown
• Notifications and projects are scoped per user (multi-tenant ready)

The Icon Bar

Auxiliary tools accessible from the header icon bar.

Icon	Function
Notifications	Release notes and task-related notices
Achievements	A record of completed tasks and project completions
Help	Usage guide and tutorials
Contact	Send feedback to the dev team

Community

Open channels for users and developers.

• GitHub Discussions (questions, ideas, talk)

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For Developers

The rest of this page covers the tech stack and internals — for those who care.

Architecture

The logic layer and the web layer are fully separated, in a 3-tier structure.

src/defrago/
├── models.py              # Data models (StrEnum + dataclass)
├── repository_protocol.py # Repository protocol
├── logic/                 # Business logic (web-independent)
│   ├── collection.py      # Capture
│   ├── clarification.py   # Clarify (4-button)
│   ├── execution.py       # Engage
│   └── review.py          # Review
└── web/                   # FastAPI web application
    ├── app.py             # App factory
    ├── routers/           # Phase routers
    ├── templates/         # Jinja2 + HTMX partials
    └── static/            # CSS + HTMX

Aspect	Approach
Logic isolation	Business logic is fully isolated from the web layer via a repository protocol
Tiers	Model → Logic → Web (three tiers)
Interaction	HTMX delivers SPA-like UX without page transitions, server-side
Persistence	Production PostgreSQL / development SQLite + SQLAlchemy

Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Web	FastAPI + Jinja2 + HTMX
DB	PostgreSQL (production) / SQLite (development) + SQLAlchemy
Auth	bcrypt (password hashing)
Testing	pytest + httpx
Quality	ruff + mypy (strict)
Deploy	Docker + Render + Neon PostgreSQL