Skip to content

Chataltul docs

How to use Chataltul, where your data is kept, and how to run your own copy.

These pages are how Chataltul works, written down. It's a focus timer that checks in on you while you work, so you notice when you drift, with a kitten that grows up while you focus (a bit like Forest), and it runs in your browser with no account needed. If you're new, read "What is Chataltul?" first and then Install, which gets it onto your phone, iPad or computer with the reminders on. The pages under "Using Chataltul" follow a block from the Focus tab to the end, then the cats, and the ones at the bottom are for running your own server and working on the code.

Getting started

  • What is Chataltul? — what it does, finding your way around, what works where, and what's in Settings
  • Why I made it — who it's for, the idea behind it, and what I left out on purpose
  • Install — the Home Screen app on an iPhone or iPad, Android, a computer, and turning on reminders

Using Chataltul

  • A focus block — a timer or a stopwatch, cancel, pausing, extra time, sounds, notes, the end, breaks, a mindful minute and Later
  • Sounds — the 39 background sounds, where each recording is from, and how the loops are made
  • Check-ins and Cat mode — "Ask me" and "Nudge me", what the notifications do, and the cat at a check-in
  • Cats — the kitten that grows while you focus, staying with it, napping together and nap rooms, the cats, treats and the shop, shelter cats, goals and achievements, and the Halloween and winter weeks
  • The Café, goal and the daily reminder — your Cat Café by day, week, month and year, sharing it, themes, when you focus, editing blocks, tags, the heatmap, a daily goal and a "Time to focus?" ping
  • Focus with friends — friend codes, what you share, joining a friend's block to nap together, and the rankings
  • The browser extension — a cat instead of the sites you drift to while a block runs, in Chrome and Firefox on a computer

Your data

Running your own server

  • Your own server — one Node program, a state folder, HTTPS and the admin CLI

Under the hood

Start with What is Chataltul?, and if something here doesn't match what the app does, feel free to open an issue.