Hey everyone!

I spent quite some time thinking about this througout the years. This is the vision document I came up with (with the help of our friendly AI overlords of course 🤖).

Super Productivity Spaces – Vision & Plan

The Problem

You use Super Productivity. You love it. But your customers don't. Your partner doesn't care about productivity software. Your NGO volunteers just want a simple list. Your team doesn't understand the fuss.

Right now, when you need to collaborate with these people, you end up in WhatsApp groups, shared Apple Notes, or Google Docs – none of which connect back to your SP workflow. Your tasks live in one place, your team's tasks live in another, and things fall through the cracks.

You shouldn't have to choose between your personal system and your team's ability to stay aligned.

The Idea

Spaces is the simplest way to stay aligned with people who don't use your tools.

It lives at spaces.super-productivity.com. It's the place where SP users collaborate with people who don't use SP – and don't need to.

Think of it this way: SP is your private cockpit. Spaces is the shared table.

The core principle: when your group chat isn't enough but project management software is too much, Spaces fills the gap. Things stop falling through the cracks – without asking anyone to adopt your system.

Who Is This For?

• A startup team planning their next sprint
• A couple planning a big trip and tracking what needs to happen
• A university study group coordinating assignments
• An NGO managing volunteers for an event
• A small agency keeping client work organized
• Anyone who needs a shared to-do list without the overhead

The common thread: small groups of people who don't have (or don't want) "a tool" but still need to get organized together.

How It Works

Share a Link, Start Collaborating

You create a Space -- maybe from inside SP with a "Collaborate on XYZ" button, maybe directly on the web. You get a link. You share it. Anyone who clicks the link is immediately in -- no signup, no download, no account required. They pick a display name and start contributing.

It should feel instant -- like opening something that's already alive. If there's a loading spinner, a cookie banner, or anything that feels like "software," I've failed.

Three Simple Building Blocks

Shared Lists -- the foundation. Create a list, add items, check things off, assign them to people. Works for groceries, works for volunteer task assignments, works for sprint planning. Lists can optionally be viewed as a kanban board -- same data, just dragged between columns.

Scratchpads -- a shared notepad per project. The place for meeting notes, research links, plans, context. Replaces the pinned message in the group chat. Basic markdown, nothing fancy.

Projects -- the container that holds lists and scratchpads together with a group of people. Each project has a name and a short purpose line ("Planning our two weeks in Tuscany") so everyone knows what the space is for at a glance.

Staying in the Loop

One of the biggest reasons people fall back to group chats is the question: "Did anything change?" Spaces solves this with two lightweight features:

Activity Feed -- every project has a simple stream of what happened. "Anna added 'book flights'" / "Max completed 'research hotels'" / "Lisa updated the scratchpad." No notification overload -- just a clear timeline you can glance at.

Presence -- when you open a Space, you see who else is there right now. "Johannes and Anna are here." It makes the tool feel alive and gives you confidence that your team is actually using it.

Nudge Button -- your team's conversation still happens in WhatsApp or Signal. Spaces doesn't try to replace that. Instead, a simple "Share update" button generates a ready-to-paste message like: "Updated our Italy Trip space -- added 3 tasks, completed 2. Check it out: [link]". No notification system needed -- just a clipboard copy that rides on whatever messaging app your group already uses.

Every task also has its own shareable link -- so you can point someone to a specific item in a chat message and they land right on it.

That's it. No visible settings, no admin overhead, no integrations screen.

Two Sharing Modes

Open link -- anyone with the link can join and participate. Perfect for casual use: grocery lists, trip planning, study groups. No email required -- you pick a display name and get an auto-assigned color and avatar so people can tell each other apart, even without accounts. Your identity sticks to your device, so you're recognized when you come back.

Every action can be undone -- accidental deletions don't destroy the shared space.

Private -- members are verified via email (magic link, no password). You can see who's in the project and manage access. For NGOs, agencies, teams -- anyone who needs to know who's who.

An open project can be upgraded to private later when things get more serious.

The SP Connection

For SP users, Spaces tasks assigned to you flow back into your SP workflow as an issue provider. You never have to leave SP to stay on top of what your team needs from you.

Later, I want to make this richer: status syncing both ways, handing off tasks from SP to the shared Space, seeing team activity on your tasks inside SP. But the first version keeps it simple -- a clean one-way sync of your assigned tasks.

What I'm NOT Building

• A Notion clone
• A project management tool with Gantt charts and resource planning
• Something that requires training or onboarding
• An app that needs to be installed

Spaces should stay simple. The moment it feels like "enterprise software," it's lost its purpose.

The Plan

Phase 1 -- The Core Loop

Create a project, get a link, open the link, see a shared list, add items, see updates in real-time. Includes a simple activity feed ("Anna added a task"), presence indicators ("3 people are here"), deep links to individual tasks, and a nudge button to share updates back into your group chat. This alone is a usable product.

Phase 2 -- Scratchpads, Board View & File Attachments

Add simple scratchpads for shared context and planning notes. Add the kanban board view toggle on lists. Support basic file/image attachments on tasks and scratchpads -- because trip planning involves flight screenshots and event coordination involves flyers. The product now covers planning, not just task tracking.

Phase 3 -- Private Spaces & Verified Members

Email-based magic link verification. Private sharing mode. Member management. This unlocks the "serious" use cases.

Phase 4 -- SP Integration

Connect your SP account. See your Spaces tasks as an issue provider. The bridge between your personal workflow and your team's shared space.

Future -- Based on Your Feedback

• Simple polls ("What restaurant should we go to?")
• Scheduling / availability coordination ("When is everyone free?")
• Real-time collaborative editing on scratchpads (CRDT-based)
• Two-way task sync with SP
• "Collaborate on XYZ" button inside SP
• Plugin system for extending Spaces

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I Want Your Input

This is an early plan and I'd love to hear from you:

• Would you use this? What's the scenario you'd reach for it?
• What's missing? Is there a building block I'm overlooking?
• What should I cut? Is anything here unnecessary for a first version?
• How should the SP connection feel? What would make the integration genuinely useful to you?

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Technical Appendix

For the technically curious, here's a brief overview of the architecture.

Stack: TypeScript end-to-end, PostgreSQL, SolidJS frontend.

Real-time: Server-Sent Events (SSE) for live updates on lists and scratchpads. Clients send mutations via HTTP, the server broadcasts changes to all participants. WebSockets may be introduced later for richer collaborative editing.

Auth: Anonymous users get a random token stored in the browser -- no cookies, no tracking. Verified users authenticate via email magic links (no passwords). SP-connected users link via an API token. All three are the same identity model, just progressively enhanced.

Scratchpads: V1 uses a simple shared textarea with last-write-wins and live updates. Later versions will use Yjs (a mature CRDT library) for true simultaneous editing.

Data model: Projects contain lists and scratchpads. Lists contain items. Items can be assigned to members and organized into board columns. Members can be anonymous (display name only) or verified (email-linked).

Hosting: Single VPS, Node.js backend, PostgreSQL, Nginx, TLS. Simple, cheap, fully controlled.

Privacy: No tracking, no analytics cookies, no third-party scripts. Functional cookies only (session tokens), so no cookie banner needed. Server is EU-based. GDPR compliant by design.

Mobile-first: The UI is designed for phones first, desktop second. Most real-world usage (grocery lists, quick check-ins, volunteer coordination) happens on mobile. SolidJS keeps the bundle small and performance snappy on lower-end devices.

Another huge month for Super Productivity! 31 community contributors shipped roughly 51 PRs in April - features, bug fixes, translations, and brand-new community plugins. Massive thank you to everyone involved.

Outstanding Contributions

@aakhter had an incredible month with 7 PRs, with major impact across plugins, search, archive validation, and Electron hardening: a new reInitData plugin API (#7305), a taskUpdate hook for project moves (#7302), substring match in tag/project/date autocomplete (#7376), search scroll-to-selected fix (#7283), hardened simple store writes (#7297), and hardened archive payload repair and validation (#7248).

@costajohnt (John Costa) kept up his prolific bug-fix streak with 5 fixes that polished a lot of rough edges: a much larger IndexedDB retry window for session-restart locks (#7220), special-character handling in task ID querySelectors (#7222), preserving time estimates while typing in the add-task bar (#7211), wrapping (instead of truncating) long task titles in the planner (#7143), and preventing overlapping search results on narrow screens (#7237).

@sespiros (Spyros Seimenis) delivered 4 PRs improving the Gitea and GitHub issue providers: label-based include/exclude filters for Gitea (#7359), an "Include pull requests" option for GitHub (#7358), Gitea issue id and done-sync fixes (#7288), and a fix to pass issueNumber into plugin field mapping context (#7360).

@zenoprax (Corey Newton) continued the docs and infrastructure work that keeps the project running smoothly with 4 PRs: wiki content v0.8 and v0.9 (#7068, #7116), bumping the stale-discussions workflow frequency (#7080), and another LF/CRLF SCSS fix (#7117). The wiki keeps getting better month after month - thank you @zenoprax!

New Features

• Sections in Projects by @qievenz (#6066) - long-awaited! Projects can now be split into sections, just like the planner.
• Wayland idle detection by @davidvornholt (#7337) - a new ext-idle-notify backend so idle detection works properly on modern Wayland desktops.
• Task parsing with sub-tasks by @adnoh (#7184) - sub-tasks can now be parsed directly from the add-task input.
• Persist selected time view in Schedule by @alan-null (#6473) - Schedule remembers your last view.
• List selection for Short Syntax by @steindvart (#6913) - pick which list a task lands in via short syntax.
• Pomodoro session counter reset by @Br1an67 (#6767) - reset button for the pomodoro session counter.
• Keyboard shortcut to collapse/expand groups by @Hetsavani (#7370).
• Substring match in mentions autocomplete by @aakhter (#7376).
• Cycle mode in interval display by @SettingDust (#7329) - clearer feedback when interval is one.

New Community Plugins

• Super Productivity MCP by @b0x42 (#7335) - Model Context Protocol plugin to drive SP from AI tools.
• Print Tasks plugin by @philkonczyk (#7369) - print your tasks!
• AutoPlan plugin URLs migrated to Codeberg by @arturmartins (#7347).

Bug Fixes

• @Hetsavani - Google calendar text overflow (#7361)
• @ToasterUwU - GitHub advanced search supports OR/AND query operators (#7304)
• @jaydeep-pipaliya - Use attachment title as task name when pasting a bare URL (#7059)
• @symonbaikov - Recreate tray indicator before minimize (#7072)
• @vacy - Add Nextcloud to file-based provider IDs (#7203)
• @overcuriousity - Reload app after profile switch to fix stale state (#7106)
• @officialasishkumar - Asset-specific plugin size errors (#7210) and roll-up estimates for added subtasks (#7208)
• @cyphercodes - Prevent project counters from overlapping the menu icon (#7142)
• @novikov1337danil - Unified backup filename format (#7141)
• @cpa-27 - Improved TOKEN description copy (#7205)

Translations & i18n

• @siemieniuk (Szymon Siemieniuk) - Big Polish translation pass for markdown, calendar context menu, habits, and typos (#7049), plus a missing-translate fix (#7160).
• @Cyber-Syntax (Serif) - Turkish: sorting options + error messages (#7321) and missing translations (#7243).
• @SilverGreen93 (Mihai Vasiliu) - Romanian translations phase 3 (#7199).
• @balaios (Ivan Noleto) - pt-BR refresh based on en.json (#7368).
• @milotype (Milo Ivir) - Croatian update (#7148).
• @Gitoffthelawn - UI text improvements (#7185).

Infrastructure

• @leandromqrs - Updated Electron to v41.x (#7097).

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Every PR, plugin, translation, and bug report makes Super Productivity better. Whether it's a major feature, a one-line typo fix, or a well-written issue - thank you all so much!!!

If you'd like to contribute, check out the GitHub repo. We're always happy to help new contributors get started!