Develop Plan · Built with Codex
Ours was August 8, 2026. From an idea for my own phone
to a diary for your life — follow the work, one moment at a time.
Core development · From the first idea to 1.0
I had no app-building experience. I wanted to make something useful for my own iPhone. Working with Codex, I began turning that question into D·Diary — one conversation, prototype and fix at a time.
A calendar tells us the date. I wanted to know where I stood in my own story. The first requirement: choose a D-Day and count the days before and after it.
“Chapters” felt too sequential. Moving, learning and starting again can happen together. Life Anchors became a way to keep those overlapping stories, and switch the one in focus.
A future date matters too. Countdown Anchors let a diary hold the preparation before a meaningful event, as well as the days that follow it.
The name became a tribute to Descartes and the idea of coordinates. Your meaningful beginning becomes an origin; each diary entry finds its place in relation to it.
The early view needed to show more than time passing. We explored origins, branches and diary nodes: a visual language for stories that overlap.
Browser prototypes helped us explore depth, branching lines and switching focus before refining the Descartes view in the app. This page borrows that same timeline language.
We explored richer feedback from diary entries, including a game-like view of personal growth. It opened a question: how can reflection help without turning a life into a score?
We chose to start with what your journal actually records: active weeks, moods, places and returning after a break. A quiet way to notice your life, without judging the days you did not write.
The core journal should be useful on its own. Free brings 3 focused timelines, unlimited diary entries and the Descartes Timeline view. Pro adds room and flexibility as your story grows.
Compare Free & ProRebuilding the timeline during every movement made scrolling and zooming too expensive. We began reusing branch layers and cached layouts, while keeping the original visual character.
Changing scale could make the focus date drift, and releasing a pinch could trigger unwanted scrolling. Background layout work and more careful gesture handling helped the timeline hold its place while moving between time scales.
We kept AI analysis out of the first version so the essential diary could come first. Intelligent features became part of the next chapter of development.
The first major milestone
The core app has come together. Meaningful beginnings, everyday entries, and a clearer view of the life unfolding between them.
The next major release
Your story. A little more connected.
Let friends into the moments and milestones you choose to share.
Explore the timelines your friends share with you, and follow their stories.
Intelligent features for D·Diary. Details and supported devices will be announced closer to launch.
Open direction · No release dates yet
Listen to how D·Diary fits into everyday life, and let that guide the next improvements to its foundations.
There is always more to learn about how people read, write and move through time. The next refinements will grow from that feedback.
After 2.0, the next ideas are still open. We will share specific milestones here when they take shape.
A new way to reflect. A connection we have not imagined.
Some space is better left for possibility.
A curated record of building D·Diary with Codex. Past milestones come from our development notes; future plans may evolve. Event spacing is designed for reading, not elapsed time.
