I built a Linux reminder CLI because sleep && notify-send dies on reboot

Bunch — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 13:12:14 +0000

I used to do this:

sleep 25m && notify-send "Tea is ready"

It works until the laptop sleeps, the terminal closes, or you reboot. Then the timer is just gone.

I wanted one-shot reminders that survive that — and actually interrupt me. Not another todo list.

So I wrote rmd.

The interface

rmd +25m Tea is ready
rmd tomorrow 15:00 Join release call
rmd fri 22:00 Shut up and go to bed
rmd

rmd with no args lists what's coming. Relative durations, weekdays, ISO dates. Quotes optional.

What it is not

Not a task manager. No recurring projects, no kanban, no "someday". Push notifications are reserved for time-bound things: food on the stove, a call in 10 minutes.

What it does that `sleep` doesn't

Daemon via systemd user service (or auto-spawned by the CLI)
State in ~/.local/state/rmd/reminders.json — reboot-safe
If the machine was off, missed reminders come back as one grouped notification
Desktop notifications over D-Bus (Dunst, Mako, Fnott, SwayNC, DE built-in)

Linux + a notification daemon. Built in Rust.

Install

PaulBunch / rmd

One-shot Linux reminders that survive reboot and show up as desktop notifications

rmd

A lightweight, reliable reminder daemon and CLI for Linux.

Set one-shot reminders that survive reboots and show up as desktop notifications.

Philosophy: rmd is not a task manager. It is a zero-friction, hard-interrupt system designed to protect your flow state—reserving push notifications strictly for urgent, time-bound events (like food on the stove or an immediate meeting). Read the full Design Vision.

Features

Simple CLI: rmd +25m Tea is ready
Background daemon (auto-started by CLI or managed via systemd)
Persistent storage (~/.local/state/rmd/reminders.json)
Missed reminders handling (grouped notification when the system was offline)

Requirements

Linux (x86_64 or aarch64)
A D-Bus notification daemon (e.g., Fnott, Mako, Dunst, SwayNC, or DE built-in)

Installation

Prebuilt Binary (Recommended)

Downloads the pre-compiled static musl binary and enables the systemd user service:

curl -sSfL https://github.com/PaulBunch/rmd/releases/latest/download/rmd-linux-x86_64.tar.gz | tar -xz
install -Dm755 rmd ~/.local/bin/rmd
install -Dm644 rmd.service ~/.config/systemd/user/rmd.service
systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user

…

View on GitHub

cargo install rmd-cli

Prebuilt binaries are in the GitHub releases if you prefer not to compile.

If you also got tired of sleep && notify-send, that's the whole pitch.

DEV Community: Bunch