rmd

A lightweight, reliable reminder daemon and CLI for Linux.

Set one-shot reminders that survive reboots and show up as desktop notifications.

Philosophy: rmd is not a task manager. It is a zero-friction, hard-interrupt system designed to protect your flow state—reserving push notifications strictly for urgent, time-bound events (like food on the stove or an immediate meeting). Read the full Design Vision.

Features

• Simple CLI: rmd +25m Tea is ready
• Background daemon (auto-started by CLI or managed via systemd)
• Persistent storage (~/.local/state/rmd/reminders.json)
• Missed reminders handling (grouped notification when the system was offline)

Requirements

• Linux
• Rust toolchain (cargo 1.90+ to build from source)
• A D-Bus notification daemon (e.g., Fnott, Mako, Dunst, SwayNC, or DE built-in)

Installation

Using Makefile (Recommended)

Builds the release binary, installs it to ~/.local/bin/, and sets up the systemd user unit:

make install

Enable and start the daemon service:

systemctl --user enable --now rmd.service

To uninstall:

make uninstall

Manual Installation

cargo build --release
install -Dm755 target/release/rmd ~/.local/bin/rmd
install -Dm644 extra/rmd.service ~/.config/systemd/user/rmd.service
systemctl --user daemon-reload

Usage

# Relative duration (+ prefix optional, spaces allowed)
rmd 45s Push the tempo
rmd +10m Check the oven
rmd 1h 30m Call mom

# Relative days & weekdays (spaced or git-style @)
rmd today 18:30 Game over
rmd tomorrow 15:00 Join release call
rmd tomorrow@10:00 Standup meeting
rmd fri 22:00 Shut up and go to bed

# Absolute time & ISO / full dates
rmd 18:30 Evening standup
rmd 2026-08-10 09:00 Doctor appointment
rmd 2026-12-01@10:00 VPS domain renewal

# --- Inspection & Listing ---

# List nearest active reminders (top N based on config)
rmd
# or override limit:
rmd ls 10

# Show specific subsets (supports optional limit N)
rmd active [n]       # Active reminders (alias: act)
rmd history [n]      # Missed & Triggered (alias: hist)
rmd missed [n]       # Only Missed reminders (alias: msd)
rmd triggered [n]    # Only Triggered reminders (alias: trg)
rmd log [n]          # Full chronological list (aliases: all, everything)

# View detailed info for specific reminder(s)
rmd 3
rmd 1 2 5
# or: rmd info 1 2 5

# --- Management & Cleanup ---

# Purge finished and missed reminders from history (interactive confirmation)
rmd clean
rmd clean -y         # Skip confirmation prompt

# Remove specific reminders by ID
rmd rm 3
rmd rm 1 2 5 -y      # Skip confirmation prompt

Tip: Quotes around date/time or message are optional. rmd tomorrow 15:00 Call mom and rmd "tomorrow 15:00" "Call mom" work identically.

Daemon Management

The daemon runs in the background, maintaining timers and dispatching notifications.

• Systemd Service (Recommended): Enabling rmd.service ensures the daemon starts automatically on boot/login, so scheduled reminders fire even if you haven't opened a terminal.
• CLI Auto-Start: If the daemon is not running when you issue any rmd command, the CLI will automatically spawn it in the background as a fallback.

To manually run the daemon in the foreground:

rmd daemon

To stop the running daemon:

rmd stop

To view logs when running via systemd:

journalctl --user -u rmd.service -f

How it works

• CLI communicates with the background daemon over a Unix domain socket
• Daemon retains reminders in memory and persists state to disk (atomic JSON writes)
• When a reminder triggers, a desktop notification is dispatched via D-Bus
• On startup, the daemon checks for and handles any missed reminders

Configuration & Paths

View current settings and active configuration file location:

rmd config show

Manage options via CLI:

rmd config time-format human   # Set display time format (human, iso)
rmd config limit 10            # Set default active reminders limit
rmd config reset               # Reset configuration to default values

File Locations

Configuration file:

$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/rmd/config.json
# (falls back to ~/.config/rmd/config.json)

State storage:

$XDG_STATE_HOME/rmd/reminders.json
# (falls back to ~/.local/state/rmd/reminders.json)

Runtime socket:

$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/rmd.sock
# (falls back to /tmp/rmd.sock)

License

MIT