Vigilare: A Local-First Productivity Dashboard

Most productivity tools try to do everything, and end up doing too much.

They sync endlessly, phone home constantly, and bury simple actions behind dashboards, accounts, and subscriptions.

Vigilare started as a reaction to that.

It’s a local-first, customizable productivity dashboard built with Next.js, designed for developers and technical users who want one place to manage links, notes, commands, and service status, without logins, clouds, or distractions.

Check it out at vigilare.vercel.app or see the GitHub repo for the code.

Why Vigilare Exists

If your daily workflow looks anything like this:

• A collection of important links you keep “temporarily” in bookmarks
• Notes scattered between editors, files, and random apps
• Useful commands
• Services that you need to be checking

…then you already know the problem.

Vigilare is meant to live in a browser tab that stays open all day.

It’s fast, keyboard-driven, and intentionally boring in the best way possible.

No accounts.
No backend.
No tracking.

Just your tools, your data, your machine.

What Vigilare Can Do

Vigilare is built around focused panels instead of one giant “do everything” interface.

Links Panel

Save and organize frequently used links into simple categories like Work, Personal, or Study.
No nesting rabbit holes, just fast access.

Notes Panel

Lightweight notes with basic organization.
Good for things you need often, not a full second-brain system.

Commands Panel

Store shell commands, snippets, or setup notes with syntax highlighting.
This alone replaces a surprising number of scattered files and old gists.

Status Panel

Monitor websites or services and get real-time availability checks.
If something goes down, or comes back up, you’ll know via browser notifications.

Global Search & Command Palette

Everything is searchable and actionable via the keyboard:

• Ctrl/Cmd + P - Global search
• Ctrl/Cmd + K - Command palette

If you prefer the keyboard over clicking around, Vigilare is built for you.

Design Philosophy

The UI is intentionally minimal:

• Light, Dark, and System themes
• Subtle animations via Framer Motion
• Drag & drop reordering where it actually helps
• Clear offline detection when connectivity drops

The goal is to stay out of your way, not to be a distraction or a “fun” app.

Local-First by Design

All Vigilare data lives in your browser’s local storage.

That means:

• No servers
• No sync delays
• No privacy concerns

If you want portability, you can export everything as JSON and import it elsewhere.
It’s simple, transparent, and predictable.

Progressive Web App (PWA)

Vigilare works as a Progressive Web App, meaning it can be installed and used like a native application while remaining entirely web-based.

As a PWA, Vigilare:

• Works fully offline
• Launches instantly from your system
• Runs in its own window, separate from the browser
• Persists data locally without relying on external services

This makes it ideal as a “always-open” workspace, whether pinned, installed, or running alongside your editor and terminal.

No app store.
No updates pushed remotely.
Just a web app that behaves like a proper tool.

Keyboard-First Workflow

Vigilare is meant to stay out of your way. Most actions are accessible without touching the mouse:

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl/Cmd + K	Command palette
Ctrl/Cmd + P	Global search
Ctrl/Cmd + L	New link
Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + N	New note
Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + C	New command
Ctrl/Cmd + S	New status
Ctrl/Cmd + I	View shortcuts
Ctrl/Cmd + ,	Open settings

Once muscle memory kicks in, the UI almost disappears.

What’s Next

Vigilare isn’t finished, but it’s also not on a path toward becoming a bloated platform.

Future development focuses on customization and flexibility, without sacrificing the local-first, distraction-free core.

Layouts & Profiles

One of the main goals is to let Vigilare adapt to how you work:

• Multiple layouts or profiles (e.g. Work, Study, Personal)
• Per-profile panel visibility and ordering
• Different shortcuts or defaults per layout

Not everyone needs every panel all the time.
Vigilare should make it easy to hide what you don’t need and surface what you do.

Modular by Design

Rather than hard-coding one “correct” setup, I want Vigilare to be modular and adaptable:

• Panels that can be enabled, disabled, or replaced
• Optional features that stay out of the way unless explicitly enabled
• A core that remains small and understandable

Status monitoring, commands, or notes should feel like tools you chose, not features you’re stuck with.

Extensibility & Plugins

Longer-term, I want Vigilare to grow a lightweight plugin system:

• Simple, well-defined extension points
• Local-only by default
• Easy to add, easy to remove

This would make it possible to create custom panels or behaviors, and even share them, without turning Vigilare into an app store or ecosystem you have to buy into.

If plugins exist, they should feel closer to configuration than a marketplace.

Still Local-First

Even as Vigilare becomes more flexible, some things won’t change:

• No required accounts
• No mandatory sync
• No background services phoning home

Sharing or collaboration may exist one day, but it won’t be the foundation the app is built on.

Who Is This For?

Vigilare is probably for you if you:

• Spend most of your day in a browser
• Prefer tools that work offline
• Like keyboard shortcuts more than menus

It’s not trying to replace Notion, Obsidian, or Jira.
It’s the thing you keep open next to them.

Open Source & Contributions

Vigilare is fully open source under the MIT license.

If something feels off, missing, or unnecessary, change it.
PRs are welcome, and the project is intentionally easy to reason about and extend.

Final Thoughts

Vigilare is a personal project born out of frustration with the current state of productivity tools.

It’s not trying to be the next big thing, just a better way to manage the small but essential parts of my workflow.

If you think it could help you too, give it a try.
Feedback, issues, and contributions are all appreciated.

Best,
Frank