DEV Community: Akram Sakib

Your daily reminder needs three states, not a boolean

Akram Sakib — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 17:27:01 +0000

I built a checklist that opens itself at 8 am. The hard part wasn't opening it. It was working out when to stop.

The version that fails

The obvious model is a boolean. One flag per day:

{ "2026-09-20": { opened: false } }

A timer checks every thirty seconds. Is it past 8am, and is opened still false? Show the window. When the person presses Start My Day, set it true and go quiet until tomorrow.

It works, right up until someone closes the window instead.

Closing doesn't set opened. So the day is still "not opened". Thirty seconds later the timer fires, sees an unanswered day, and puts the window back. Thirty seconds after that, again.

The only escape from a window you were trying to escape is to press the button that says you did the work. That's not a reminder. That's a hostage situation with a checkbox.

The fix isn't a better flag

I spent a while trying to patch around it. A closedAt timestamp. A snooze counter. A grace period. Every one of them was a workaround for asking the wrong question.

The flag asks: has this opened?

What the app actually needs to know is: has this been answered?

Those aren't the same question, and one boolean can't hold both.

Three states

done        you pressed the button
dismissed   you closed the window
owed        neither — and the only one that opens anything

In the store, a slot starts empty and settles one of two ways:

function blankSlot() {
  return { done: false, dismissed: false, at: null };
}

// A slot is settled once it has been done OR deliberately dismissed.
function settled(slot) {
  return Boolean(slot && (slot.done || slot.dismissed));
}

owed isn't stored. It's the absence of the other two, which is exactly what it is in real life. And the timer gets one line shorter, because it now asks the right question:

slotDue(name, now = new Date()) {
  const day = this.ensureToday(now);
  if (settled(day[name])) return false;
  // ...time checks
}

Closing the window is an answer. It just isn't the same answer as doing the work.

That sentence is the whole post. Everything else is consequence.

What fell out for free

Two problems I hadn't solved yet solved themselves once the third state existed.

Opening the app at 11 pm. Answer the morning slot, and the evening check-in is due immediately — two windows for one sitting. With three states, answering one slot can quietly dismiss any other whose time has already passed:

settleOverdue(answered, now = new Date()) {
  ['morning', 'evening'].forEach((name) => {
    if (name === answered) return;
    if (this.slotDue(name, now)) this.slot(name, now).dismissed = true;
  });
}

Minimising. It looks like closing, but it isn't an answer — the person put the window somewhere; they didn't respond to it. So the slot stays owed, and the timer leaves a minimised window alone instead of popping it back up. Under a boolean, I'd have had no way to say that.

The general shape

If a boolean is forcing you to invent workarounds, it's usually not the wrong value. It's the wrong question. Ask what the user actually did, not what your feature wanted them to do — and count declining as a real answer, because that's what it is.

The store is one file if you want to read it: src/store.js. Slot logic is about a third of the way down.

It's a free, open-source morning checklist for Windows. No account, no server, no network calls of any kind — one JSON file in %APPDATA% you can open in Notepad.

https://daily-start-sigma.vercel.app/?utm_content=post_2&utm_source=dev.to

From tomorrow, you’ll never forget to update your to-do checklist again.

Akram Sakib — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 18:05:27 +0000

I kept forgetting to open my to-do app.

I'd write my tasks the night before, feel organised, and then start the next morning without looking at them.

By the time I remembered, half the day was already gone.
So I built a to-do app that doesn't wait for me to remember it exists.

The idea

Daily Start opens automatically when my day starts.

I set a time for my morning checklist. When I turn on my PC around that time, the app opens with today's list.

I can:

Add today's tasks
Check things off
Leave notes for tomorrow
See my previous days
Track my streak
Look at my productivity analytics

Then it gets out of the way.

No notifications every 10 minutes.

No "don't forget!" reminders.

Just one check-in at the beginning of the day.

There's also a night check-in

Before going to bed, Daily Start shows the checklist again.

That's when I can update what I actually finished, add notes, or prepare something for tomorrow.

So the whole workflow is basically:

Morning → Plan your day
During the day → Get things done
Night → Update your checklist
Next morning → Start again

The goal isn't to create another complicated productivity system.

It's to make one small habit easier to maintain.

The part I cared about most

I didn't want the app to become annoying.

Imagine closing the morning window because you're busy, only for it to open again 30 seconds later.

So closing the window counts as an answer too.

The app doesn't care whether you completed everything.

It only needs to know that you've already responded to today's check-in.

Once you've answered, it leaves you alone.

That tiny distinction makes a surprisingly big difference.

It's completely local

Daily Start is built with Electron and stores your data locally.

No account.
No server.
No network calls.
No analytics tracking.
No crash-reporting service.

Your checklist stays on your computer, and you can access your own data directly.

And yes, it's free.

Why I built it

I don't think everyone needs another giant productivity platform.

Sometimes you just need something that asks:

What are you doing today?

And then, at the end of the day:

What did you actually do?

That's Daily Start.

It's free, open source, and available for Windows 10 and 11.

👉 Try it here:
https://daily-start-sigma.vercel.app/

**If you use a to-do app, I'd love to know:

What's the one thing you wish it did automatically?**

Find the Perfect Portfolio Website Idea Effortlessly!

Akram Sakib — Sun, 15 Sep 2024 12:17:42 +0000

Creating a portfolio website can feel overwhelming, especially for developers trying to showcase their skills and projects. I’ve found a website where all people share their portfolio website. so you can build a standout portfolio and find the best ideas and examples of websites with ease. Say goodbye to the hassle and get inspired today!

https://portfolio-ideas.vercel.app/portfolio.html

Build Your Own Discord Bot: A Node.js Journey from Scratch

Akram Sakib — Sun, 18 Aug 2024 16:58:49 +0000

1 - Discord configuration

First, you go to the developers page of the Discord website. From there create a Discord application.

After creating the application click on the application and edit the profile with the application name, description, etc. Then click on the bot tab from the sidebar and from there click on the presence intent and server intent toggle button.

Now click on the OAuth2 tab and go to that page from there click the bot from Scopes and the administrator checkbox from BOT PERMISSIONS, then copy the link from the generated URL and open it in a new tab.

After opening the link you will be redirected to a webpage and from there you can select the server for which you want to install the bot on your Discord and continue, thus completing the next steps.

Now you will open your Discord app. Open the settings and go to the advanced tab and from there turn on the developer mode

2 - Developing bot with Node

Please ensure that Node is installed on your computer system.

1: Create a project folder

Time to breathe some life into our bot creature. Let's start with creating a folder and initializing Node:

mkdir welcomeBot
cd welcomeBot
npm init -y

2: Install packages

Our little fellow requires a couple of packages to function:

discord.js – a Node.js module that allows interactions with the Discord API
dotenv– allows loading environment variables from a process.env file in Node apps Run the following command to install the packages:

npm install discord.js dotenv

3: Configure main.js

Now we need a main.js file to host the functions of our bot. Also, create a .env file, have an env variable called BOT_TOKEN, and put the token in there.

In the project directory, run:

touch main.js
touch .env

3 - Adding bot commands

Before working on main.js, the ID of the server on which we want to use the bot. Copy the channel ID on which the bot will give the welcome message and the channel on which the leave message will be given. And later I will set them in variables of main.js.

Now write the following codes in main.js

require("dotenv").config();

const token = process.env.BOT_TOKEN
const { Client, EmbedBuilder, GatewayIntentBits } = require("discord.js");
const serverID = "977250450799726662"

const bot = new Client({
  intents: [GatewayIntentBits.Guilds, GatewayIntentBits.GuildMembers],
});

bot.on("ready", () => {
  console.log("Ready Up");
});

bot.on("guildMemberAdd", (member) => {
  const channelID = "1272858378862985278";
  if (member.guild.id !== serverID) return;

  const embed = new EmbedBuilder()
    .setTitle("Member Joined!!")
    .setDescription(`${member.user.displayName} has joined this server`)
    .setColor("Orange")
    .setTimestamp();

  const channel = bot.channels.cache.get(channelID);
  if (channel) {
    channel.send({ embeds: [embed] }).catch(console.error);
  } else {
    console.error("Channel not found");
  }
});

bot.on("guildMemberRemove", (member) => {
  const channelID = "1272858477294915715";
  if (member.guild.id !== serverID) return;

  const embed = new EmbedBuilder()
    .setTitle("Member Left!!")
    .setDescription(`${member.user.displayName} has left from the server`)
    .setColor("Orange")
    .setTimestamp();

  const channel = bot.channels.cache.get(channelID);
  if (channel) {
    channel.send({ embeds: [embed] }).catch(console.error);
  } else {
    console.error("Channel not found");
  }
});

bot.login(token);

This code is for a Discord bot that sends a custom message whenever a user joins or leaves a specific server. The bot is built using the discord.js library, which is a popular JavaScript library for interacting with the Discord API.

4 - Code Breakdown:

Loading Environment Variables:

require("dotenv").config();

This line imports the dotenv package and loads environment variables from a .env file into process.env. This is commonly used to keep sensitive information like API tokens secure.
Declaring Variables:

const token = process.env.BOT_TOKEN;
const { Client, EmbedBuilder, GatewayIntentBits } = require("discord.js");
const serverID = "977250450799726662";

token: Retrieves the bot token from the environment variables. The bot token is required to authenticate the bot with Discord.
Client, EmbedBuilder, and GatewayIntentBits: These are classes and constants imported from the discord.js library.
serverID: This is the ID of the Discord server (guild) the bot is targeting.
Creating the Bot Client:

const bot = new Client({
  intents: [GatewayIntentBits.Guilds, GatewayIntentBits.GuildMembers],
});

Client: Creates a new instance of the Discord client, which represents the bot.
intents: These are used to specify which events the bot should listen to. In this case, the bot listens for events related to guilds and guild members.
Bot Ready Event:

bot.on("ready", () => {
  console.log("Ready Up");
});

This event triggers when the bot successfully logs in and is ready to start working. The bot logs "Ready Up" to the console.
Member Join Event:

bot.on("guildMemberAdd", (member) => {
  const channelID = "1272858378862985278";
  if (member.guild.id !== serverID) return;

  const embed = new EmbedBuilder()
    .setTitle("Member Joined!!")
    .setDescription(`${member.user.displayName} has joined this server`)
    .setColor("Orange")
    .setTimestamp();

  const channel = bot.channels.cache.get(channelID);
  if (channel) {
    channel.send({ embeds: [embed] }).catch(console.error);
  } else {
    console.error("Channel not found");
  }
});

This event triggers whenever a new member joins the server.
It checks if the member joined the specified server (serverID).
It creates an embedded message using EmbedBuilder, announcing the new member.

The bot retrieves the channel by its ID (channelID), and if found, sends the embed message. If the channel is not found, it logs an error.
Member Leave Event:

bot.on("guildMemberRemove", (member) => {
  const channelID = "1272858477294915715";
  if (member.guild.id !== serverID) return;

  const embed = new EmbedBuilder()
    .setTitle("Member Left!!")
    .setDescription(`${member.user.displayName} has left from the server`)
    .setColor("Orange")
    .setTimestamp();

  const channel = bot.channels.cache.get(channelID);
  if (channel) {
    channel.send({ embeds: [embed] }).catch(console.error);
  } else {
    console.error("Channel not found");
  }
});

This event triggers whenever a member leaves the server.
Similar to the guildMemberAddevent, it checks if the member left the specified server.
An embed message is created to announce the member's departure.
The bot then tries to send this message in the specified channel, logging an error if the channel is not found.
Logging the Bot In:

bot.login(token);

This line logs the bot into Discord using the token retrieved from the environment variables.

5 - Run Your Bot

Finally, our application is ready to run. Now go to Terminal and run:

node main.js

After the application is run, open the Discord server, you can see on the right side that your bot is now active.

Now login to another account and enter that server. Then you can see a message from your bot on your #welcome channel. And if someone leaves the channel, the member can see a message left.

Summary:
This code sets up a simple Discord bot that automatically sends a welcome message when a new member joins a specific server and a farewell message when a member leaves. It uses discord.js to handle these events and sends nicely formatted embed messages to specific channels.

Source Code: https://github.com/Akram-Sakib/discord-welcome-bot
Hire Me: https://www.fiverr.com/akramsakib/develop-nodejs-apis-using-expressjs-nestjs-or-graphql