Construct Note: A Local-First, Privacy-Focused Kanban Desktop App

This is a submission for the Built with Google Gemini: Writing Challenge

What I Built with Google Gemini

I built Construct Note, a fast, local-first Kanban and task management desktop application.

Many modern productivity apps rely heavily on cloud syncing and subscriptions, which can be a privacy concern for users who want complete control over their own data. I wanted to build a Trello-like application that lives entirely on the user's machine, offering the same rich drag-and-drop experience without the data leaving the local file system.

The Tech Stack:

• Frontend: React, Vite, Tailwind/Vanilla CSS, and @hello-pangea/dnd for fluid drag-and-drop mechanics.
• Backend / Desktop wrapper: Electron, Express (running locally inside the Electron main process), and better-sqlite3 for high-performance, synchronous database operations.
• Distribution: Packaged as a standalone Linux AppImage.

Key Features:

• Unlimited Boards, Lists, and Cards.
• Full Markdown support for card descriptions (react-markdown).
• Checklists, Card Notes, and the ability to link/relate cards to one another.
• Card templates for standardizing repetitive task creation.
• Offline-by-default architecture: Everything is saved to a local SQLite database (constructnote.db) operating in WAL (Write-Ahead Log) mode for speed.

What role did Google Gemini play?
I used Google Gemini as my AI pair-programmer throughout the majority of the development lifecycle. Gemini helped me:

1. Architect the Application: I am very bad at planning, which is why I wanted my own little planning helper. Gemini helped me stay in scope and stick to a plan. I put my ideas into simple words and after a few prompts I was able to have a good folder structure to go by and an idea of the general layout with some good suggestions for imports.
2. Database Design & Migrations: Gemini wrote the SQLite schema and helped incrementally add new features (like milestones and accent colors).
3. Complex UI Interactions: It assisted in wiring up the React drag-and-drop logic for reordering both lists and cards, ensuring optimistic UI updates matched the backend database state when I encountered some bugs.
4. Packaging and Compilation: When I ran into native Node module compilation errors trying to bundle better-sqlite3 for Linux, Gemini helped debug the build process and correctly configure the asarUnpack bindings.

What I Learned

• Native Node Modules: I gained a better understanding of how native C++ Node modules behave when packaged into an .asar archive, and how to configure electron-builder to correctly rebuild them for specific target platforms.
• AI Pair Programming: Developing with Gemini changed how I approach roadblocks. Instead of spending hours scouring StackOverflow for edge cases (like React state mismatches during fast drag-and-drop reordering), I could bounce ideas off Gemini and implement robust solutions in minutes.

Google Gemini Feedback

What worked well?
Gemini was surprisingly good at holding context of my project. I did not have to repeat myself too many times and I was able to actually progress much quicker in certain areas by having something to bounce ideas off rather than spending hours reading documentation and trying to figure out edge cases.