1.1 What Productivities is

Productivities is not just a task manager or a notes app. It is a workspace for the messy middle of personal work: the moment when a thought might become a task, a link might become research, a page might become a plan, and a project might need a calendar, a timeline, a table, and a few reminders around it.

The app works by creating durable objects and letting those objects travel. A task can link to a page, a pin can sit in the Universal Inbox until you decide what it is, a canvas node can reference a task, and a Space can collect a whole project without forcing everything into one folder. That matters because real workflows rarely fit one surface for long.

A useful way to think about the everyday loop is: capture something, decide what it is, place it in the right context, connect it to related work, and return to it through the view that helps today.

Core tools

• Tasks and Planner help you turn intention into visible commitments, then decide what belongs today, later, or inside a larger Space.
• Pages give your thinking somewhere portable to live, while still adding backlinks, properties, tags, embeds, graph views, and search.
• Pinboard gives captured material a holding area before you know whether it is reference, reading, research, or fuel for a task.
• Tables help when information needs structure: records, fields, filters, groups, formulas, and views rather than another loose note.
• Canvas helps when you need to understand shape and relationship visually, especially when tasks, pages, pins, and tables all belong to the same problem.
• Systems, focus, Automations, Activity, and AI support the operating layer around the work: repetition, review, concentration, maintenance, history, and assistance.

1.2 Install and first run

Productivities is distributed as a desktop app for macOS and Windows. On macOS, install it by opening the disk image, dragging Productivities into Applications, and launching it from Applications or Spotlight. On Windows, use the Productivities installer, choose the installation location if prompted, and launch it from the Start menu or desktop shortcut.

The first run is deliberately about ownership. Productivities keeps the app database locally by default, while Pages and media folders can live in folders you choose. That means your writing and files are not trapped inside a hidden app format.

First run

1. Create the first local user account. This account becomes the administrator for the installation.
2. Choose where file-backed content should live. Pages are Markdown files, while media folders keep images, PDFs, videos, and audio accessible outside the app.
3. Open the main workspace and use the sidebar to move between the Planner, Tasks, Spaces, Pages, Pinboard, Calendar, and the tools enabled for your plan.

Your app database lives in the Productivities application-data folder. Your Pages and media can live wherever you choose, so they remain accessible in Finder, File Explorer, and other tools.

1.3 Interface tour

The main window is organised around a left sidebar, a central workspace, and supporting panels for calendar, systems, AI, and other context. Most work happens in the central workspace; the top and title-bar controls adapt to the active tool.

If you are new to the app, start by noticing that the sidebar changes the kind of work you are doing, while the objects themselves can remain connected. Moving from Planner to Pages or Pinboard is not switching to a separate silo; it is changing the lens.

Common navigation

• Sidebar opens the main tools and user menu entries such as Settings, Activity, and Admin Console. Use it when you want to change the type of work you are doing.
• Title-bar actions hold commands that depend on the current view, such as creating a task, changing a table view, importing, filtering, or opening a panel.
• Context menus are available on most objects. Right-click tasks, pages, pins, rows, canvas nodes, Spaces, and events when you want to ask, “what can I do with this?”
• Global search helps you find work across object types, while the command bar helps you move quickly, capture quickly, or trigger an action without hunting through navigation.

1.4 Plans and feature access

Some features depend on the plan, the current user, and the environment the app is running in. If something is missing, it does not always mean you are in the wrong place: the installation may not include it, an administrator may have disabled it for your user, or the current runtime may not support the native capability.

Free

Core personal tools for getting started: Tasks, Pages, Pinboard, Spaces, Calendar, Systems, and local-first use.

Personal Pro Pro

Advanced tools and capabilities for deeper personal workflows, such as Canvas, Tables, Media Manager, Activity, Automations, Time Tracking, Deep Work, Command Bar, AI Agent, advanced workflows, integrations, and mobile access.

Business / shared deployments

Server-style operation for shared environments, including PostgreSQL-backed deployments, shared Spaces, groups, assignment, administration, and expanded operational controls.

Always use the Pricing page as the commercial source of truth; this documentation explains how the product behaves once a feature is available.

2.1 Tools, objects, views

A tool is an area of the app designed for a particular kind of work. A durable object is something you create, capture, edit, connect, or return to later. A view is one way of looking at those objects: as a board, a list, a calendar, a table, a graph, a dashboard, or another useful arrangement.

The practical idea is simple: you should not have to choose one rigid format for everything. A task can be planned on a board, scheduled on a calendar, linked to a page, discussed in Activity, or shown inside a Space. The object stays the same; the view changes depending on what you need to understand or do next.

Tool

Tools are the main working areas. Each one has its own interface because writing notes, planning tasks, reading saved material, and reviewing a routine are different activities. They still share the same underlying model, so the work you create in one tool can stay connected to work elsewhere.

Object

Objects are the things Productivities remembers. They are durable: you can create them in one place, connect them somewhere else, and later find them through search, Spaces, views, links, or Activity.

View

Views are different ways of looking at the same underlying work. A Planner board helps you reason about flow. A task list helps you scan and clear work. A Week Calendar helps you understand time. A table view helps you compare structured records. Universal Inbox helps with triage. Activity helps you see what changed. A note graph helps you see relationships between pages. A filtered Pinboard helps you review saved material by type, Space, or context.

This distinction matters because Productivities tries not to trap work in a single surface. A task remains a task whether you see it in the Planner, a task list, a calendar projection, a Space dashboard, or a linked canvas node. The app is designed so the same piece of work can appear wherever it is useful.

2.2 Spaces and links

A Space is the main organiser across tools. It can represent a project, client, topic, role, life area, or shared workspace. The reason Spaces matter is that they let you gather related work without flattening it into one kind of item. A project can have tasks, pages, pins, canvases, tables, routines, systems, measurements, a timeline, and milestones, and still feel like one place.

Spaces can be

• Manual containers when you want to explicitly decide which work belongs to a project, client, topic, or life area.
• Smart filters when the Space should gather matching work automatically based on criteria such as tags, keywords, or pin types.
• Protected areas when sensitive contents should require an unlock before they are visible in normal use.
• Shared work areas in deployments where groups and access controls decide who can see or contribute to the Space.

Links are the second organising layer. They explain how individual pieces of work relate to each other. A task can link to a page, pin, table, canvas, or calendar context. Pages can reference other pages and embedded objects. Canvas nodes can reference Productivities objects. Systems can collect tasks, routines, pages, and measurements into a recurring operating model. This gives you a way to keep context close without copying the same information into every place you might need it.

2.3 Local-first storage

Productivities defaults to local storage. Structured data is stored in SQLite, while Pages are real Markdown files in the folder you choose. Media files are stored on disk and referenced by the app.

This is important if you care about longevity and control. You can use the app layer for search, links, views, and workflow, but your authored Markdown and media still live in normal files and folders.

• Database stores the structured parts of the workspace: users, settings, Spaces, tasks, pins, routines, tables, canvases, automations, time entries, comments, agent plans, and operational metadata.
• Markdown files hold Page bodies. The database mirrors metadata for search, properties, tags, scheduling, and backlinks, but the writing itself remains portable.
• Media folders hold images, PDFs, audio, and video so the Media Manager and Pages can work with files directly.
• Optional PostgreSQL supports server-style deployments where a shared backend is preferred.

3.1 Tasks

A task can be as small as a quick capture or as rich as a scheduled, recurring, linked, assigned, blocked, typed, time-tracked work item. The value is not that every task needs every field. The value is that the simple task and the complex task can live in the same model, so you can add structure only when the work deserves it.

Task fields and relationships

• Status, priority, title, notes, due date, scheduled date, recurrence, size, and completion state help you decide what the task means operationally.
• Subtasks and dependencies help when a task is not really one action, or when another task or person has to move first.
• Space, tags, custom properties, custom task types, and custom statuses help different kinds of work carry the right context.
• Links to Pages, Pins, Canvases, Tables, and other supporting objects keep the material you need close to the action itself.

3.2 Planner and calendars

The Planner is the day-to-day planning surface. It groups tasks into practical scheduling columns such as overdue, today, tomorrow, next week, or custom columns. Dragging a task between columns updates its scheduling context, which makes planning feel like arranging the work rather than editing a database field.

The Week Calendar projects tasks and calendar events into a time-based layout. This helps answer a different question from the Planner: not “what is important?” but “does this fit in the time I actually have?” Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, native Productivities events, and iCal feeds can all contribute calendar context when configured.

3.3 Universal Inbox Pro

The Universal Inbox is a triage view over real tasks and pins. It is useful when you capture faster than you can organise. Instead of forcing every new item into a perfect home immediately, the Inbox gives you a review surface for deciding what something is, where it belongs, and whether to keep, schedule, open, or clear it.

• Tasks and pins can enter the Inbox without becoming separate queue-only records, so triage does not disconnect the item from the rest of the workspace.
• Opening an item is different from triaging it. Review should not silently mark something as handled just because you inspected it.
• Keyboard navigation supports fast review when the Inbox feature is enabled, which helps when the Inbox becomes part of a daily startup or shutdown ritual.
• The user-facing term is Inbox or Universal Inbox.

3.4 Advanced workflows Pro

Most task systems start with one assumption: every task moves through the same simple path. That is fine for quick personal actions, but it can become awkward when different kinds of work need different language or different checkpoints.

Advanced workflows are for that moment. They let you describe the shape of the work more honestly, without losing the common task model underneath. A writing task might move from idea to draft to editing. A support issue might move from reported to investigating to waiting on customer. A personal errand may only need open and done.

The key concept is the task type. A task type describes what kind of work this is. Each task type can have its own custom statuses, and those statuses map back to common lifecycle states: open, in progress, completed, and cancelled. That mapping matters because Productivities can still understand the basic state of the task even when your workflow uses more specific words.

• Use custom task types when different kinds of work need different fields, statuses, or expectations.
• Use custom statuses when the default open, in progress, completed, and cancelled lifecycle is too broad for the way a specific task type actually moves.
• Use custom columns when the Planner board should reflect how you decide what to do next, such as by date, phase, energy, priority, or another planning lens.
• Use time and workload tracking when you want to compare what you planned with what the work actually cost.
• Use Productivity Insights when you want completion, workload, focus, and time patterns to become easier to review over time.

3.5 Daily rituals

Daily rituals are about starting and ending the day with intention. They belong with planning because they help you decide what matters before the day takes over, and close loops before unfinished work turns into background noise.

The morning ritual is a way to review the work already in motion: what is scheduled, what is overdue, what is sitting in the Inbox, what needs a decision, and what genuinely deserves attention today. The shutdown ritual is the counterpart at the end of the day: review what changed, clear or reschedule loose tasks, and leave tomorrow with less ambiguity.

• Use startup to choose the day deliberately: review tasks, check calendar commitments, triage the Inbox, and decide what should be scheduled or prioritised.
• Use shutdown to close open loops: capture what changed, move unfinished work to a sensible place, and leave notes for the next session.

4.1 Markdown Pages

Pages live as plain Markdown files in your chosen folder. This matters because the writing is still yours outside the app. Productivities then adds an editor, tabs, split views, preview, scheduling, metadata, search, and graph features on top of those files.

The editor treats a Page as more than one long text field. You can work with sections of the page as blocks, which makes it easier to move, refine, embed, or connect parts of a document while the underlying file remains Markdown. When Markdown is not expressive enough, Pages can also include HTML, giving you a practical escape hatch for richer formatting or embedded content.

Use Pages when something needs more continuity than a task: project notes, meeting records, research, plans, documentation, reference material, or the developing thinking behind a decision.

• Use the folder tree when the file structure matters: browsing, creating, renaming, moving, and deleting Markdown files.
• Use block editing when you want to manipulate a section of a Page without treating the whole document as one fixed piece of text.
• Use tabs and split view when you are comparing notes, drafting from source material, or cross-linking related pages.
• Use wikilinks, embeds, tags, backlinks, and HTML support when you want knowledge to become connected and expressive without giving up file portability.

4.2 Properties and graph

Page metadata is mirrored into the database so the app can search and filter quickly while the body remains a normal file. Frontmatter can carry tags, properties, Space assignment, and other structured details.

This is the bridge between writing and workflow. A page can stay readable as Markdown, but still behave like a useful object in the app: it can belong to a Space, appear in search, show relationships, and connect to tasks, pins, tables, and canvases.

Knowledge features

• Backlinks show what references the current page, which helps you rediscover context you may not remember manually.
• Suggested links help discover pages that may belong together, especially when a knowledge base grows beyond what you can keep in your head.
• Graph views make page relationships easier to inspect when you want a visual sense of how ideas cluster.
• Templates speed up recurring page formats, such as meeting notes, project briefs, reviews, or research records.
• Git integration can support file-level versioning workflows when configured, which is useful if you want history and sync around Markdown files.

4.3 Media Manager Pro

The Media Manager is the file-facing surface for images, PDFs, videos, and audio. It is useful when your knowledge work includes source material, screenshots, documents, recordings, or visual references that need to remain findable and reusable.

Its practical value is not just browsing. When media files are moved or renamed through the Media Manager, Productivities can preserve reference integrity so Pages and other workflows keep pointing at the right material.

• Browse media folders directly from inside Productivities without losing the underlying folder organisation.
• Preview thumbnails and open supported media when you need to inspect a file before linking or embedding it.
• Move or rename media while keeping references intact, reducing the chance that Markdown embeds or linked workflows break as files are reorganised.
• Keep media organised by folder while still using it inside Markdown and object workflows.

4.4 Journal

The Daily Journal gives each day a natural page-based capture point for notes, reflections, work logs, and loose thoughts. It is helpful when you want a chronological layer alongside project and topic-based organisation.

• Daily notes provide a chronological home for work logs, reflection, and loose thoughts that do not yet belong to a project page.

5.1 Pins

A Pin is a saved reference object. Productivities recognises many pin types and renders them differently where possible, because a Jira issue, a recipe, a PDF, a YouTube video, and a quote do not all need the same treatment.

• Pins can represent links, articles, text notes, quotes, PDFs, images, videos, audio, recipes, books, movies, TV shows, X posts, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Jira, Confluence, and Google Drive items.
• Each pin can carry title, description, tags, Space, favourite state, scheduling, reading progress, and source metadata, so it can stay useful after the moment of capture.
• Pins can link back into tasks, pages, Spaces, and Inbox workflows when captured material becomes part of active work.

5.2 Capture and enrichment

Paste or save a URL and Productivities attempts to classify it, fetch useful metadata, and present the right reader or card type. The browser extension can send content into Productivities without switching context, which is useful when you are researching, reading, or collecting project material on the web.

Smart capture

• Article and reader extraction help turn noisy web pages into material you can read and return to.
• Type-aware cards for media, culture, recipes, PDFs, and work-app links keep the saved item recognisable.
• AI-assisted analysis can summarise or classify supported pins when AI features are enabled.
• Atlassian and Google Drive enrichment can pull useful context into Jira, Confluence, and Drive pins when those integrations are configured.

5.3 Readers and scheduling

Pins are not just bookmarks. They can be scheduled, reviewed, read, analysed, attached to tasks, and used as supporting material in Pages. That gives captured material a path from “interesting” to “useful”.

• Use readers for PDFs, articles, videos, images, audio, and enriched cards when the saved item needs attention, not just storage.
• Schedule pins into planning views when a reference should become part of a day, such as an article to read before a meeting.
• Move captured pins into the Universal Inbox when they need triage before they become reference material.

6.1 Tables Pro

Tables are structured databases inside Productivities. They are useful when a list needs fields, formulas, views, grouping, imports, or row-level links rather than a free-form note.

Use a table when you keep asking the same questions about a set of things: what status is this in, who owns it, what category is it, what date matters, which page describes it, or how should this list be filtered today?

• Typed columns, rows, cells, formulas, filtering, sorting, grouped views, and linked relationships help a collection behave more like a working database.
• CSV import/export keeps tabular data portable when it needs to move in or out of the app.
• Obsidian .base import support helps bring note-backed datasets into Productivities.
• Row and cell comments support discussion or review around structured data, with empty-cell fallback to row-level discussion.

6.2 Canvas Pro

Canvas is a free-form visual workspace for thinking spatially. It can hold sticky notes, text, shapes, frames, edges, groups, and references to Productivities objects.

Canvas is useful when a list hides too much. Planning a project, mapping research, sketching a system, or connecting ideas often requires seeing proximity, clusters, gaps, and relationships.

• Use frames to group ideas and create visual sections when the board starts to grow.
• Link canvas nodes to tasks, pages, tables, and other work objects so the visual map stays connected to the actual work.
• Use zoom, pan, selection, edges, thumbnails, and grouping to manage larger boards without losing orientation.

6.3 Systems and routines

Systems are for repeatable ways of operating. They help when something matters enough to revisit regularly, but is broader than one task. A system might describe how you run a weekly review, maintain a project, track a health practice, or keep a creative workflow alive.

Inside Systems, routines and measurements become the recurring objects. Routines describe behaviours you want to repeat; measurements record signals you want to review over time.

• Routines support schedules, reminders, completion history, heatmaps, and daily summaries, making repetition visible rather than relying on memory.
• Measurements track numeric or progress-style signals over time, which helps you see trends rather than isolated entries.
• Systems are durable operating models for goals, projects, or life areas, bringing the supporting routines, measurements, pages, and tasks into one pattern.

6.4 Comments and Activity Pro

Comments are shared-ready threads attached to objects such as tasks, page blocks, canvas nodes, table rows, and table cells. Activity provides a unified history surface for what changed across the workspace.

This matters because work often needs explanation, not just state. A comment can hold the decision behind a task, the review note on a table row, or the discussion around a canvas idea. Activity then gives you a way to see movement across tools without checking each one separately.

• Use comments for object-specific discussion, review, and decision notes where the context should stay attached to the item.
• Use Activity to inspect recent changes and cross-surface work history when you need to understand what moved.
• In shared deployments, these features become the backbone for collaborative review without splitting discussion by tool.

7.1 Deep Work Pro

Deep Work is a distraction-reduced workspace for focus sessions. It is designed for the moments when the problem is not knowing what to do, but staying with it long enough to make progress.

It can hide normal navigation, persist focus state, support a companion window, track sessions, and use macOS app blocking where available.

• Start a focus session from the app controls or command workflows when you are ready to protect a block of attention.
• Use app blocking to reduce access to distracting apps during sessions where environmental friction helps.
• Review focus time later through insights and time-tracking views, so focus becomes something you can learn from rather than just hope for.

7.2 Command bar and search Pro

The command bar is the fast path for navigation, quick capture, desktop actions, folder/app launching helpers, clipboard workflows, and AI ask mode. It matters because many productivity systems fail at the moment of friction: you know what you want to do, but the interface makes you go looking for it.

Global search answers a different need: finding the page, task, pin, table, or idea again after it has disappeared into the size of your workspace.

• Cmd+K opens the command bar.
• Cmd+Shift+F opens global search across workspace objects.
• Cmd+I or Ctrl+I opens the Universal Inbox only when Inbox triage is enabled.

7.3 Automations Pro

Automations are event or schedule-driven workflows. An automation combines a trigger, optional conditions, and one or more actions that run in the background.

Use them for work that is important enough to happen consistently but repetitive enough that you should not have to remember it every time. They are most useful for maintenance, reminders, organising, and keeping objects in the right state as your workspace changes.

• Use event triggers for Productivities changes such as created or updated objects when the action should follow something that happened in the workspace.
• Use scheduled automations for regular maintenance and reminders when the action belongs to a time or rhythm.
• Inspect automation runs and history when debugging behaviour, so the automation remains understandable rather than mysterious.

7.4 AI and agent Pro

Productivities supports chat-style AI and agentic planning. AI can work with Ollama, OpenAI, Grok, and Gemini depending on configuration.

The useful distinction is between asking for help in the moment and asking for help with a multi-step workflow. AI Chat is conversational and immediate. Agent plans are more structured: they can break work into steps, track progress, pause, resume, and ask for approval before direct actions that need care.

• AI Chat streams assistant responses and can use configured tools over workspace data, which helps when you want to draft, summarise, ask, or explore.
• Agentic AI creates persistent plans, runs steps, pauses or resumes work, and asks for approval before destructive direct actions.
• Provider keys are user-supplied and stored as sensitive settings, so you choose which local or cloud provider powers the workflow.

8.1 Apple integrations

Native macOS integrations are provided through the desktop shell and a Swift helper where needed. They matter when your personal operating system already includes Apple Calendar, Reminders, Notes, speech, or paste workflows and you want Productivities to work with them rather than duplicate them.

• Apple Calendar can surface local calendar events through EventKit and combine them with Productivities calendars, helping scheduled work sit beside existing commitments.
• Apple Reminders supports two-way sync between Reminders lists and Productivities Spaces/tasks when Reminders is already part of your capture habit.
• Apple Notes import can bring existing notes into the Pages workflow, including attachment handling where supported.
• Speech and paste helpers support native workflows used by command and AI features.

8.2 Google and calendars

Google and calendar integrations are opt-in and connect external events or files to the same calendar, Pinboard, and search surfaces used by local work. The point is not to replace Google services; it is to make their context visible where you plan and review your own work.

• Google Calendar brings connected calendars into the Productivities calendar view alongside local events, routines, time tracking, Apple Calendar, and iCal feeds.
• Google Drive recognises Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, and Drawings links and can enrich captured pins with file metadata and thumbnails where available.
• iCal feeds add subscribed external calendars by URL and can be shown, hidden, tested, or removed from the calendar settings.
• Google OAuth is used for connected Google services and can be disconnected when you no longer want Productivities to access the account.

8.3 Atlassian and work systems

Productivities can recognise work-system links and turn them into richer pins instead of plain bookmarks. This is useful when a Jira issue or Confluence page is not just something to save, but context for a task, project Space, canvas map, or review.

• Jira links can become Jira pins with issue key, summary, status, type, priority, assignee, reporter, labels, description, parent issue, dates, and recent comments.
• Confluence links can become Confluence pins with page title, Space information, ancestors, creator, and update metadata.
• Atlassian credentials are configured by user and used to test the connection and refresh Jira pin metadata in the background.
• Todoist can connect projects to Productivities Spaces, import Todoist tasks, sync task details, and reflect completion changes back to Todoist.

8.4 Git and file-backed work

For Markdown-backed work, Productivities can sit on top of a Git repository so your Pages folder, or another chosen Git root, has visible version control inside the app. This matters if you treat writing, notes, or project files as long-lived material and want history, review, and remote sync without leaving the workspace.

• Status shows branch, changed files, untracked files, ahead/behind counts, and nested repository changes so you can see what has moved.
• Diff and history show working-tree diffs, recent commits, and the files changed in a selected commit when you need to understand or recover changes.
• Repository setup can initialise Git, write a sensible default .gitignore, and configure or remove an origin remote.
• Commit, push, and pull use the user-configured Git repository and normal Git credentials; hosted services such as GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, or self-hosted Git work through standard remotes.

8.5 Capture and web services

Pinboard classifies and enriches URLs so saved links keep their useful context when they move into Spaces, tasks, canvas nodes, or search. This helps a saved URL become something you can understand later, not just another unexplained bookmark.

• Web pages and articles can be captured with Open Graph metadata, images, readable content, and AI summaries where Smart Pins are enabled.
• Media services include typed pins for YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, X posts, PDFs, images, video, audio, books, movies, TV shows, and recipes.
• Custom URL classifications let users decide how matching URLs should be treated when Productivities captures them.
• External links remain connected to the rest of your workspace through Spaces, task links, Universal Inbox, global search, and Activity.

8.6 Extension, CLI, and API

The Chrome extension captures web content into Pinboard, which makes capture available at the moment you find something useful. The pr helper exposes native macOS services and API automation commands for tasks, pages, pins, reminders, events, and configuration.

These surfaces use the same Productivities API model as the desktop app. That means capture, automations, AI tools, and external clients converge on the same objects instead of creating parallel systems.

AI providers are also integration points. Productivities can use Ollama for local models or configured cloud providers such as OpenAI, Grok, and Gemini.

8.7 Local and remote modes

Productivities can run as a local desktop app, a standalone server, or a remote desktop client pointed at a Productivities server. The mode matters because some capabilities depend on where the data, server, native helpers, and browser are running.

• Local desktop starts the bundled server and loads the app from localhost.
• Standalone server serves the same web app and API for browser or self-hosted use.
• Remote desktop client loads a configured server while preserving the same same-origin API contract.
• System capabilities report which native or server-side capabilities are available, helping the UI explain what can work in the current mode instead of presenting actions that cannot run.

9.1 Users and permissions

The first user becomes an administrator. Administrators can manage users, roles, groups, API keys, feature permissions, and server-level settings. In a single-user desktop setup this may stay mostly invisible; in shared or server-style deployments it becomes the control layer for who can see and use what.

• Roles separate normal users from administrators so operational controls are not available to everyone by default.
• Per-feature ACLs control access to tools such as tasks, pages, pins, AI, canvas, tables, command bar, and integrations.
• User groups support shared Spaces and multi-user access patterns when work belongs to a group rather than one person.
• Admin Console is the operational surface for these controls.

9.2 Licensing

Feature access is enforced on the server as well as reflected in the interface. This means hidden buttons are not the security boundary; API routes still check whether the current installation and user may use the feature.

For a user, licensing usually shows up as “why can I see this feature?” or “why is this feature unavailable?” The answer can involve the plan, the user’s permissions, and the deployment mode.

• Plan tiers decide what the installation is entitled to use.
• User permissions decide which enabled features a specific user can access.
• Signed tier state prevents simple local database edits from unlocking gated features.

9.3 Backups, restore, trash

Productivities includes operational safety nets for local-first data. These features matter because a personal operating system becomes valuable only if you trust it enough to keep important work there.

• Backups can be scheduled, retained, listed, validated, and restored when you need recovery points.
• Restore uses a pending-restore flow so the app can restart cleanly around database replacement.
• Trash provides unified soft-delete and restore flows for supported object types, giving accidental deletion a safer path.
• Retention cleanup keeps backups and trash from growing forever.

9.4 Server operations

Server-style deployments can use SQLite or PostgreSQL, session cookies, API keys, optional LAN access, HTTPS configuration, background schedulers, and job health reporting. These controls are mostly about making the product understandable as an operated service rather than just a desktop app.

• The server binds to loopback by default; LAN access is explicit.
• Background jobs cover backups, calendar refresh, reminders sync, Todoist sync, automations, notes indexing/sync, trash cleanup, and related maintenance, so recurring work can be observed.
• Operational logs live in the Productivities application-data area for packaged desktop builds.

10.1 Default privacy posture

The local desktop app stores your data on your machine by default. Network access is only needed for deliberately online features such as cloud AI providers, OAuth integrations, feed subscriptions, metadata fetching, or remote/server operation.

This matters because Productivities is designed for personal operating data: tasks, pages, plans, references, routines, and project context. The default posture is that this material starts locally, and online behaviour should come from features you intentionally configure.

• Pages are plain Markdown files, so authored knowledge remains portable.
• The default structured data store is SQLite, which supports local-first use.
• Media files remain on disk in user-controlled folders.
• Ollama can keep AI workflows local when you want local model use instead of a cloud provider.

10.2 Authentication and API keys

Productivities uses session cookies for normal app access and API keys for automation or external clients. The distinction is useful: sessions are for people using the app, while API keys are for deliberate programmatic access.

• Passwords are hashed.
• Sessions use signed HttpOnly cookies.
• API keys are shown once and stored as hashes.
• Administrators can revoke access and manage feature permissions.

10.3 Protected content

Protected Spaces and locked objects add a session-level unlock step before sensitive notes, pins, canvases, tables, or Space contents are visible. This is useful for private areas inside an otherwise everyday workspace, especially when one installation holds both ordinary work and more sensitive material.

Sensitive settings such as provider keys and OAuth tokens are encrypted at rest.

10.4 Network behaviour

Network activity depends on enabled features. Examples include metadata fetching for pins, AI provider calls, OAuth-backed services, calendar feed refresh, Todoist sync, Google/Atlassian enrichment, and remote client connections.

If you are trying to understand what might leave the device, start with the features you have enabled. A local Markdown page does not need the network; a Google Calendar connection, cloud AI request, or Jira enrichment does.

• Native macOS permissions are requested only for integrations that need them, such as Calendar, Reminders, Speech, or automation helpers.
• Outbound fetches for user-provided URLs use safer fetch paths intended to reduce SSRF-style risks.
• Packaged desktop builds harden the Electron runtime and keep development tools gated away.

11.1 Shortcuts

Shortcuts are intended to reduce friction around common actions. You do not need to learn them all at once; start with command bar, search, and Inbox if those are part of your daily workflow.

• Cmd+K opens the command bar.
• Cmd+Shift+F opens global search.
• Cmd+I / Ctrl+I opens Universal Inbox when the feature is enabled.
• Return opens the selected Inbox pin during review.
• Arrow keys navigate Inbox review where supported.

11.2 File locations

These locations matter when you want to back up, inspect, move, or troubleshoot your local workspace. Productivities separates app data from user-chosen content folders so database state, Markdown pages, and media can be understood independently.

• Application data: ~/Library/Application Support/Productivities/ on macOS, or %APPDATA%\Productivities on Windows.
• Default database: productivities.db inside the application-data folder.
• Pages: the Markdown folder chosen during setup or in Settings.
• Media: image, PDF, video, and audio folders chosen in setup or Settings.
• Logs: application-data logs for packaged desktop troubleshooting.

11.3 Troubleshooting

When something behaves unexpectedly, first ask which layer is involved: plan access, user permission, local/native capability, integration credentials, or runtime mode. Most confusing problems become easier once you know which layer is responsible.

A feature is missing

Check plan entitlement, user permissions, Settings visibility, and whether the runtime mode supports the native capability.

Calendar or Reminders are not syncing

Check macOS permissions, integration settings, and whether the native helper is available in the current mode.

AI is unavailable

Check provider configuration, API keys, Ollama availability for local use, and feature permissions.

Remote mode behaves differently

Check system capabilities and avoid assuming desktop-only helpers exist when connected to a remote server.

11.4 Glossary

Productivities uses a few terms very deliberately. The glossary is here to help translate those terms into the underlying idea, especially where older code or older interface labels may still use previous names.

Page

A Markdown-backed knowledge document. Older UI or code may still call this a note.

Pin

A saved reference object such as a link, article, PDF, image, video, quote, or media item.

Space

A project, area, topic, shared workspace, smart filter, or protected container that cuts across tools.

Universal Inbox

A triage view over tasks and pins waiting to be reviewed.

Activity

A unified history feed for changes and discussion across supported objects.

Agent plan

A persistent AI plan with steps, progress, approvals, and audit history.