Futureself

I built Futureself as a simple app for writing messages today and receiving them later in my inbox. It uses a NestJS API with a React (Vite) frontend, PostgreSQL for storage, Redis + BullMQ for scheduling and background jobs, and Brevo for email delivery.

Users can write a message, choose a delivery date, and let the system handle the scheduling and sending automatically.

Why

Most reminder apps are built around tasks and notifications. I wanted something more personal: a way to leave notes for myself that arrive at the right time.

Sometimes it's a reflection I want to revisit months later, a message for an important milestone, encouragement before a difficult period, or just context I know I'll forget with time. Futureself is built around that idea: delayed personal communication instead of productivity tooling.

Prerequisites

• Node.js 22.x or current LTS
• pnpm 11.x (npm install -g pnpm)
• PostgreSQL and Redis (local install or your own containers)
• Brevo API key only if you want real email (optional locally)
• Docker

Production setup

Setup Futureself in production mode in your VPS or locally.

Step 1: Create .env file from .env.example

cp .env.example .env

Step 2 (optional): Provide email credentials

This step is only required if you want to receive emails.

Provide the following credentials in .env:

EMAIL_SENDER_EMAIL= # Obtain from https://app.brevo.com/senders/list
BREVO_API_KEY= # Obtain from https://app.brevo.com/settings/keys/api

Step 3: Run

docker compose up

Access your Futureself instance at: http://localhost:8010

Note If you are running Futureself from a VPS, then your instance will be available at http://<your-vps-host>:8010

Development setup

1. Postgres and Redis

The configurations for both Postgres and Redis are located in ./compose.yml

Run Postgres locally

Run the local instance of Postgres using the following command:

docker compose up futureself-postgres

Run Redis locally

Run the local instance of Redis using the following command:

docker compose up futureself-redis

2. Install dependencies

pnpm install

This installs dependencies for both apps/api and apps/web in one shot.

3. Configure environment variables

Create .env from .env.example with the following command:

cp .env.example .env

Update .env:

• Set REDIS_HOST=127.0.0.1
• Set POSTGRES_HOST=127.0.0.1
• Set NODE_ENVIRONMENT=local
• Set VITE_NODE_ENVIRONMENT=local
• Set DONT_SEND_EMAIL=true

A few things to note:

• Setting DONT_SEND_EMAIL=true skips sending emails in local development. If set to false, ensure to provide values for EMAIL_SENDER_EMAIL and BREVO_API_KEY
• Use a strong APP_KEY and passwords outside local.

4. Run

Run both from the repo root:

pnpm dev          # starts both api and web concurrently

Or in separate terminals:

Terminal	Command
API	pnpm dev:api
Web	pnpm dev:web

• Web: http://localhost:5173.
• API: http://localhost:5001.

Register, compose a message, pick a future delivery time. With DONT_SEND_EMAIL=true, the queue still runs; email is skipped.

Scripts

All scripts run from the repo root via pnpm:

Command	Purpose
pnpm dev	Start both api and web
pnpm dev:api	API dev server with watch
pnpm dev:web	Vite dev server
pnpm build	Production build for both
pnpm build:api	Production build for api only
pnpm build:web	Production build for web only
pnpm test	Run all tests
pnpm lint	Lint all packages
pnpm format	Format all packages