Features
Chore Reminder helps a caregiver keep a household member's chore list up to date and texts them the next thing to do — no app to install, just SMS.
Per-person chore lists
Every household member is a User with their own ordered list of tasks. A caregiver adds tasks, reorders them (move up/down), and marks them done right from that person's page. The top pending task is always "what's next" for that person. Completed tasks remain visible too, grouped by the day they were finished (the last two weeks), so progress isn't lost once a task is checked off.
Progress at a glance
Each household member's page shows how many tasks are still incomplete, how many were completed in the last 7 and 30 days, and how many have been completed in total — a quick snapshot of how things are going without digging through history.
Text message reminders
Each person can have one or more scheduled reminder times per day. At each scheduled time, the app texts them their current next task via Twilio. If they don't have a pending task, no text is sent. Reminders pause automatically while a person has snoozed (see below).
Recurring tasks
Instead of adding the same chore by hand every week, a caregiver can define a recurring task definition: a name, an optional Markdown description, optional photos, a time of day, an optional time estimate, and which days of the week it recurs on. The app generates a fresh task automatically on each scheduled day — but only if the previous instance has already been completed, so an unfinished chore never gets duplicated.
Reply by text
A household member can reply to any reminder text to manage their own list, without touching the web app:
DONE— marks their current task doneSKIP— moves their current task to the bottom of the listNEXT— lists their next 5 pending tasksLIST— lists all pending tasksADD <name>— adds a new task to their listSNOOZE until tomorrow/SNOOZE for <N> hours/SNOOZE until <N>am|pm— pauses scheduled reminders until that timeUNSNOOZE— cancels an active snoozeREMIND me in <N> hours/REMIND me at <N>am|pm— schedules a one-time reminder text, without changing the daily recurring schedule
Real-time "what's next" updates
Whenever a change could affect what a person's next task is — completing, skipping, adding, editing, deleting, or reordering a task, or a recurring task generating for the day — the app checks right away and, if the next task actually changed, texts them immediately instead of waiting for the next scheduled reminder (up to 15 minutes later).
Public per-task page
Every recurring task definition has its own simple, unauthenticated web page (linked from reminder texts) showing its name, Markdown-rendered description, and any photos — so a household member can tap the link in a text to see instructions or a reference photo without logging into anything.
Manage chores from the Claude app
A caregiver can connect Claude (the AI assistant) directly to their household's chore list and manage it by just asking — viewing, adding, completing, reordering, or deleting tasks, and creating or editing recurring tasks and reminder times for any household member, all without opening the web app. When connecting, the caregiver picks one household member as the default the connection acts as (handy for "what's on my list today?"-style questions), but it can still be asked to manage anyone in the household. Connected apps can be reviewed and disconnected at any time from the admin area.
Conversation history
The admin area has a chat-style view of every text exchanged with a household member, oldest first, so a caregiver can see exactly what was sent and what they replied. A caregiver can also simulate a text reply from this view — useful when standing next to the person rather than texting them — which runs the same DONE/SKIP/NEXT/LIST/ADD/SNOOZE/REMIND handling as a real text and actually sends the reply.
Time estimates
A one-off task or recurring task definition can have an optional time estimate, so a household member knows how long something is expected to take before they start it. The estimate shows up alongside the task name everywhere it appears — in reminder texts, text-reply confirmations, and list replies.
Custom message wording
Each person has their own message template (using Liquid syntax) controlling exactly how their reminder texts are worded, with the task name, its time estimate (when set), and a link to the task's public page (when available) all available as template variables.
Per-person time zone
Each household member has their own time zone, so a recurring task's "time of day" and a reminder's "time of day" are both evaluated in their local time, not the server's.
One-off and welcome messages
A caregiver can send an arbitrary one-off text to a household member (e.g. a heads-up unrelated to any chore), or send a canned welcome message to introduce someone to text-based reminders for the first time.
Single shared login
There are no individual accounts. The entire admin area is gated by one shared password for the caregiver(s) managing the household, entered on a simple login page. Reminder texts, their linked public task pages, and this help/features site all require no login at all.
Self-hosted, single container
The whole app — web server and background job processing — runs as a single Docker container with no separate worker process, message queue, or external cache to manage. Designed to run on a home server for one household.