Minder

Turns your phone into a pair of eyes that watch you work: a body-doubling focus timer for iPhone.

Coming to the App Store.

Body doubling helps people with ADHD, and anyone who works better when someone is watching. Minder has no lists, no feeds and no streak guilt: prop the phone up, slide to focus, and two expressive eyes keep you company and get suspicious if you pick the phone up mid-session.

Features

• Eyes that blink, look around and react with a dozen expressions: attentive, focused, happy, proud, curious, suspicious, stern, sleepy
• Notices when the phone is picked up or moved during a session (Core Motion)
• Optional face following with the front camera (Vision face rectangles, about ten reads a second, frames dropped immediately)
• Check-ins every 15, 25, 45 or 60 minutes with a proud look and a gentle buzz
• An eye designer: iris colours or odd eyes, eye and pupil shapes, brows, whites, size, spacing, glow, lashes, presets
• Keeps the screen awake; tracks focus minutes per day, the week at a glance and a streak

Price

A paid app: one price, no in-app purchases, no subscription, no ads.

Privacy

No network code at all: Minder makes no requests and collects no data. The camera is optional; frames are read on the device and discarded, never recorded or saved. Settings and focus minutes live in UserDefaults. The privacy manifest (Resources/PrivacyInfo.xcprivacy) declares no tracking and no collected data types.

Built without a Mac

This app was written on a Windows PC. No Mac is involved at any point: every build, signature, screenshot and App Store submission runs on GitHub Actions macOS runners, driven by the App Store Connect API.

• project.yml is an XcodeGen spec. The .xcodeproj is generated on the runner and never committed, so the repo can be edited on any OS and there are no .pbxproj merge conflicts.
• .github/workflows/build.yml runs on every push: picks the newest Xcode 26 and iPhone simulator on the runner, builds, then launches the app once per screen with -shot <screen> (sample data, fixed 9:41 status bar) and captures the store screenshots with simctl, uploaded as a workflow artifact.
• .github/workflows/appstore.yml (manual) has three modes: compile, dry_run (build, sign, upload, do not submit) and release (also submits for review). The distribution certificate is imported from a secret into a throwaway keychain; fastlane (fastlane/Fastfile) fetches the App Store profile with the API key, sets the build number one above the latest on TestFlight, archives, and uploads the binary with fastlane/metadata and the committed fastlane/screenshots.
• .github/workflows/review-video.yml records the App Review screen recording: the app is launched with -demoAutoplay and drives its own real screens.
• Store/*.py talk to the App Store Connect API directly from Windows (Python, requests + PyJWT): asc.py registers the bundle id and pushes metadata, listing.py sets the age rating, review details, price and screenshots, and signing.py creates the distribution certificate locally so its private key is never stranded on a disposable runner.

Only one step is manual: Apple's API will not create the app record itself, so that is made once in the App Store Connect web UI.

Build and run

With a Mac and Xcode 26 (the version CI uses; the app targets iOS 17+):

brew install xcodegen
xcodegen generate
open Minder.xcodeproj

Run the Minder scheme on any iPhone simulator. No signing is needed for the simulator; from the command line:

xcodebuild build -project Minder.xcodeproj -scheme Minder \
  -destination 'platform=iOS Simulator,name=iPhone 16 Pro' CODE_SIGNING_ALLOWED=NO

To see it filled with sample data, launch with a screenshot argument, e.g. xcrun simctl launch booted com.mattbusel.minder -shot work.

Without a Mac: fork the repo and push. The Build workflow compiles it on a GitHub macOS runner and attaches the screenshots as an artifact.

Shipping your own build needs these repository secrets: ASC_KEY_ID, ASC_ISSUER_ID, ASC_KEY_CONTENT (base64 of the .p8), DEVELOPMENT_TEAM, DIST_CERT_P12, DIST_CERT_PASSWORD, plus your own bundle id in project.yml and fastlane/Fastfile.

Code map

All app code is in Sources/ (SwiftUI, Observation, no third-party dependencies).

File	What it does
MinderApp.swift	entry point, focus-minute tracking
RootView.swift	the main screen, -shot handling and the App Review autoplay
Brain.swift	decides what the eyes feel and where they look, frame by frame
EyesView.swift	draws the eyes
Face.swift	the shape of one eye and its brow
Look.swift	every appearance setting, persisted key by key
EyeDesigner.swift	the customisation panel with live preview and presets
Sensors.swift	front camera face tracking (Vision) and motion (Core Motion)
Controls.swift	slide to start, slide back to stop

Store/ holds the App Store Connect scripts, fastlane/ the lanes, listing text and screenshots, Resources/ the asset catalog and privacy manifest.

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More apps built the same way: Chain, Ironbook, Quiver, Race Fuel, Baseline Ledger, Fairway Ledger, Odometer, Rooms, Clockout, Curve, Pricebook, Chores, Pawprint, Pocket Beings, Glyphstorm, Clear the Strait.

Hire the author

I designed, built and shipped this app myself. Want one like it for your business? I build native iOS apps from prototype to App Store launch, fixed price. Services and pricing · Email · LinkedIn