I got frustrated with every productivity app trying to be everything. Notion, Todoist, Obsidian—they're powerful, but I was spending more time organizing than doing. I wanted something closer to a CLI. Type a command, get a result, move on.
So I built Lock In.
The core idea:
One input field. Four quadrants (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly). Commands for everything. The app docks to the side of your screen—always visible when you need it, out of the way when you don't.
/d 100 pushups /w 4 gym sessions /m read 2 books /y £50000 savings
That's one line adding four goals. Each quadrant auto-resets at the right interval—daily at midnight, weekly on Sunday, etc. No maintenance.
Why command-driven?
Speed. My hands stay on the keyboard. Adding a goal is <1 second. Updating progress is 3 characters if you use aliases (50 p adds 50 to pushups). There's no UI to navigate, no buttons to hunt for.
It's essentially a REPL for personal goals that happens to have a minimal visual interface.
Features:
Chain multiple commands in one line
Aliases for frequently updated goals
/review 7d or /review 30d to see progress over time
XP and leveling (simple gamification that actually works)
Always-on-top mode (/aot on)
Dock left or right (/fix left / /fix right)
Quick notes with /n idea your thought here
What I learned:
Building something deliberately minimal is harder than building something feature-rich. Every time I wanted to add a feature, I had to ask: does this require a new command, or am I just adding complexity? Most features died at that question.
The design philosophy is constraint as a feature. Your brain can't get distracted by features that don't exist.
Would love feedback from the HN crowd—especially on the command syntax. Is it intuitive enough? Too terse? I'm still iterating.
TedOS•1h ago
So I built Lock In.
The core idea:
One input field. Four quadrants (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly). Commands for everything. The app docks to the side of your screen—always visible when you need it, out of the way when you don't.
/d 100 pushups /w 4 gym sessions /m read 2 books /y £50000 savings That's one line adding four goals. Each quadrant auto-resets at the right interval—daily at midnight, weekly on Sunday, etc. No maintenance.
Why command-driven?
Speed. My hands stay on the keyboard. Adding a goal is <1 second. Updating progress is 3 characters if you use aliases (50 p adds 50 to pushups). There's no UI to navigate, no buttons to hunt for.
It's essentially a REPL for personal goals that happens to have a minimal visual interface.
Features:
Chain multiple commands in one line Aliases for frequently updated goals /review 7d or /review 30d to see progress over time XP and leveling (simple gamification that actually works) Always-on-top mode (/aot on) Dock left or right (/fix left / /fix right) Quick notes with /n idea your thought here
What I learned:
Building something deliberately minimal is harder than building something feature-rich. Every time I wanted to add a feature, I had to ask: does this require a new command, or am I just adding complexity? Most features died at that question.
The design philosophy is constraint as a feature. Your brain can't get distracted by features that don't exist.
Would love feedback from the HN crowd—especially on the command syntax. Is it intuitive enough? Too terse? I'm still iterating.