# Build brief — a focused alternative to Sunsama

> **Verdict:** Partly, if you narrow it · **Buildability:** 63/100 · **Category:** Tasks Calendar
> **Source:** https://www.canitbevibecoded.com/sunsama
> Independent editorial assessment from Can It Be Vibe Coded? Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or derived from Sunsama. Verify current pricing and capabilities before acting.

## Context

**Sunsama** — Daily planner that pulls tasks and calendar into a focused schedule. It currently costs $25/mo.

A daily planning dashboard is not hard, but Sunsama's value is many integrations, careful UX, calendar sync, and habit-forming workflow.

This brief describes a focused, single-operator replacement for the part of Sunsama that is genuinely reproducible. It is deliberately narrower than the product it replaces, and it says so in writing. Build the useful core; do not pretend to have rebuilt the rest.

## What you are building

Pull tasks/calendar events, let the user drag tasks into a day plan, track estimates/completion, and run a daily shutdown prompt.

- Build a focused single-user workflow with real persistence, search, and export.
- A responsive interface with real empty, loading, success, and error states.

## Requirements

### Functional

- Hosted backend.
- Auth.
- Notification/email channel.

### Data and integrations

- Google/Microsoft calendar OAuth.
- Task-tool APIs.

Each of these needs a real account, credential, or quota. Set them up before writing feature code.

### Non-functional

- Accessibility: semantic markup, labelled controls, visible focus, and reduced-motion support.
- Security: server-side secrets, validated input, and no credentials in the client bundle.
- Reliability: retries with backoff on external calls, and a clear failure state when a provider is down.
- Portability: the operator can export their data and leave without losing it.

## Implementation brief

Build me a solo daily planner like Sunsama. Requirements:

- A local web app on localhost:4400: Node + Express + better-sqlite3, server-rendered
  with a little vanilla JS for drag and drop. No frontend framework.
- Today view, two columns: my Google Calendar events (read-only via googleapis, OAuth
  creds in .env) as a timeline, and today's task list beside it.
- Tasks have title, estimate in minutes, project tag, done flag. Quick-add box at the
  top, plus a backlog panel of unplanned tasks I can drag into today.
- Header shows planned minutes vs a daily budget from config (default 6h) and turns
  red when I overplan.
- A /shutdown page for the end of day: walks each unfinished task, one keystroke to
  roll to tomorrow, send to backlog, or drop, then shows planned vs actual.
- Keep per-day history in SQLite so a /week page can show the last 7 days of planned
  vs done.
- Calendar is read-only: never write events. Out of scope: task-tool integrations
  (Todoist, Trello, email), mobile apps, and two-way calendar sync.
- No accounts, no telemetry, everything local except the Google API calls.
- README: Google Cloud console steps for the OAuth client · that console is the
  worst part of this build.

## Delivery standard

- Inspect the repository first, then write a short implementation plan before writing code.
- Deliver the smallest complete end-to-end workflow first; every primary control must work against persisted data.
- Use real validation and storage; never substitute fake dashboards, decorative controls, hard-coded success states, or mock integrations.
- Include responsive layouts plus genuine empty, loading, success, validation, and failure states.
- Keep secrets server-side in environment variables, provide .env.example, and never commit credentials or user data.
- Add structured logs around every external call and return actionable errors without leaking sensitive details.
- Write unit tests for the core logic and one automated test of the main user journey.
- Finish with a README covering setup, architecture, data location, backups, tests, deployment, and known limitations.

## Acceptance criteria

- [ ] A clean install starts the app using only the README and .env.example.
- [ ] The primary journey works from first visit through saved result, reload, edit, export, and deletion where applicable.
- [ ] Invalid input, missing configuration, provider failure, and an empty database each have a usable state.
- [ ] The interface works at 390px and 1440px, is keyboard navigable, and shows visible focus on every control.
- [ ] Tests, type checking, linting, and a production build all pass with no ignored failures.
- [ ] No part of the interface implies a live integration, security guarantee, or scale capability that was not actually built and verified.

## Non-goals

Do not build these, and do not claim to have replaced them:

- Integration breadth.
- Calendar two-way sync.
- Daily ritual design.
- Mobile apps.
- Connectors, OAuth flows, and vendor API changes require constant upkeep.
- The last 20 percent is sync, migration fidelity, speed, and edge cases.

## What you still own after launch

- Secure credentials, rotate secrets, and handle provider rate limits.
- Run migrations, backups, restores, and dependency updates.
- Test the critical journey after every model, API, or hosting change.
- Monitor failures and fix the edge cases a first prompt will miss.
- Maintain every third-party integration as APIs and OAuth rules change.

## Risk

**Operational risk.** The code is achievable; dependable data, integrations, and ongoing operations are the real cost.

Editorial confidence in this assessment: high. No independent one-shot implementation is linked yet.

## Prior art

Working open-source software you can read, fork, or borrow from before starting:

- [Super Productivity](https://github.com/johannesjo/super-productivity) — Open-source task/time-planning app with local-first workflows

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Generated by [Can It Be Vibe Coded?](https://www.canitbevibecoded.com) · Full report: https://www.canitbevibecoded.com/sunsama