Dispatch – A self-hosted task app that you’ll love using

February 28, 2026

Dispatch is a self-hosted workspace that brings everything together in one fast interface, with control over your data and a workflow that is designed for execution.

Why Dispatch Exists

Most productivity tools are either too lightweight to handle real planning or too complex for day-to-day use.

Dispatch aims for the middle:

  • Local-first storage with SQLite on your machine
  • A modern web app experience with keyboard-first speed
  • Connected workflows across tasks, projects, notes, and daily planning
  • Optional AI assistance that can take actions inside the app

An Agentic Engineering Experiment

Dispatch was an opportunity for me to see how far I could push agentic engineering. In today’s world with the emergence of AI I wanted to do something similar to OpenAI’s harness engineering experiment. I started this project prior to the post coming out, but I was shocked to see some similarities in approach. I found a few keys helped make this possible…

I’ve collected and compiled those thoughts into a unified post here:
The New Work Frontier: How Agentic Engineering Is Reshaping Modern Work

What You Can Do in Dispatch

  • Track tasks with status, priority, due dates, and project links
  • Plan work in projects with progress rollups
  • Write notes in Markdown with editing and preview support
  • Run a daily dispatch workflow for planning and carryover
  • Search globally across tasks, notes, and dispatch records
  • Restore deleted items from a recycle bin when needed
  • Sign in with GitHub OAuth or local credentials

Dispatch also includes a Personal Assistant (Beta) powered by the Vercel AI SDK and a local MCP tool server, so the assistant can do real work in your workspace, not just chat.

Built for Local Control

Dispatch runs on a Next.js + Node runtime and stores data in a local SQLite database file (or Docker volume when containerized). Your browser is the client, and your data remains under your control.

If you want a personal productivity system without handing your workflow to a third-party cloud, this is the core idea.

Tech Stack

  • Next.js 16
  • React 19
  • TypeScript 5
  • Tailwind CSS v4
  • SQLite
  • Drizzle ORM
  • NextAuth.js v5

Quick Start

The fastest way to run Dispatch is Docker:

.\dispatch.ps1 setup

Then open http://localhost:3000.

For local Node.js development:

npm install
npm run db:migrate
npm run dev

Try Dispatch

Repository: https://github.com/nkasco/DispatchTodoApp

If you want a private, fast, and extensible system for personal execution, Dispatch is ready to run on your machine today.