Hasan OzganHasan Ozgan
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Buobu

A local-first personal productivity workspace running entirely in the browser with RxDB over IndexedDB, zero backend requirement, and AGPL-3.0 open source.

Completed
Website / DemoRepository
nextjsreacttypescripttailwindrxdbsupabasecloudflare-workersstripemcplocal-first

Buobu — Local-First Personal Productivity Workspace

A local-first personal productivity workspace running entirely in the browser without requiring an account or backend. Built as a bootstrapped SaaS venture and later open-sourced under AGPL-3.0, it delivers an instant, zero-latency desktop-class productivity suite for tasks, habits, notes, mindmaps, and calendars.

Founded and solo-built Buobu as a bootstrapped SaaS venture in the months after Thoughtworks: a local-first personal productivity workspace running entirely in the browser, requiring no account or backend. Validated the product technically end-to-end, architecture, payments, and security, but did not gain sufficient user traction to justify continued investment. Open-sourced under AGPL-3.0 rather than let the work go to waste; still live as a preview, with active development paused.

Key Accomplishments & Technical Impact

  • Local-First Architecture: Every browser holds a complete copy of the workspace in RxDB over IndexedDB — zero network calls required, with an optional Postgres backend that is strictly additive rather than a degraded fallback.
  • Payments and Entitlements: Stripe Checkout, Customer Portal, and idempotent webhooks maintaining a subscriptions table; entitlements gate premium features like multi-device sync.
  • AI Integration via MCP: A Model Context Protocol server on Cloudflare Workers, allowing Claude, Cursor, and any MCP host to read/write user data via scoped, hash-only API keys.
  • Security Hardening: Row Level Security across 31 SQL migrations, session revocation on password change, and sanitised OAuth error handling.

Workspace Capabilities

  • Kanban boards and goal/habit tracking routines
  • Rich-text markdown notes (TipTap) and whiteboard diagrams (Excalidraw)
  • Interactive time blocks and calendar scheduling (FullCalendar)
  • Mindmaps, Mermaid diagrams, and KaTeX math typesetting
  • Recharts data visualisations and dnd-kit fluid drag-and-drop interactions

Technology Stack

  • Frontend: Next.js 16 (App Router), React 18, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS v4, shadcn/Radix UI
  • Rich Media & Canvas: TipTap, Excalidraw, FullCalendar, Recharts, dnd-kit, Mermaid, KaTeX
  • Data & State Management: RxDB / Dexie over IndexedDB, Zustand, Jotai
  • Backend & Edge Services: Supabase (Postgres, Auth, Realtime, Storage), Cloudflare Workers, Stripe
  • Testing & Infrastructure: Vitest, Playwright, Terraform, AGPL-3.0 License