BaraBara

A small, single-user, browser-based flashcard app with a clean UI, basic spaced review, and localStorage persistence.

The goal of this project is not to be a full Anki/Quizlet replacement, but to explore what a minimal, modern, open-source flashcard experience could feel like – something you can self-host as static files and hack on easily.

---

Why?

There are a lot of great flashcard apps out there, but they all seem to be either proprietary or too complex:

• Anki is too complex for my taste
• Quizlet is full of ads and tracking
• Evernote is too heavyweight for my taste

I wanted something that is simple and without ads or tracking.

---

Demo

A live demo is available at https://barabara.megafarad.com.

Features

Current prototype scope:

• 🗂 Decks

  • Create, rename, delete decks
  • See card counts per deck
  • Select an active deck from the sidebar

• 📝 Cards

  • Per-deck cards with front / back text

• 📆 Simple spaced repetition

  • Each card tracks streak, intervalDays, and nextReviewAt
  • Study mode shows cards that are “due” first
  • “I knew it” / “I forgot” buttons update the schedule with a very simple SRS algorithm

• 💾 Local-only data

  • All data is stored in localStorage in the browser as JSON
  • No backend, no tracking, no accounts

• 🧱 Simple, hackable stack

  • React + TypeScript
  • Vite for bundling/dev server
  • (Optional) Tailwind or inline styles for UI

---

Non-goals (for this prototype)

Deliberately out of scope for this version:

• No user accounts or authentication
• No multi-user or organization features
• No server or database
• No sync between devices
• No imports/exports (Anki / Quizlet) yet
• No fancy card types (images, cloze deletions, LaTeX, etc.)
• No analytics or tracking
• No theming system beyond basic styling

This is intentionally a small, local-first toy that could grow into something more – but doesn’t need to.

---

Tech stack

• React (with hooks)
• TypeScript
• Vite (for dev server + build)
• Browser localStorage for persistence

You can run and deploy this as a static site; there is no backend component.

---

Data model

Internally, the app uses a simple TypeScript model:

type DeckId = string;
type CardId = string;

interface Deck {
  id: DeckId;
  name: string;
  createdAt: string; // ISO
  updatedAt: string; // ISO
}

interface Card {
  id: CardId;
  deckId: DeckId;
  front: string;
  back: string;
  createdAt: string;
  updatedAt: string;

  streak: number;        // times in a row the user got it right
  intervalDays: number;  // current interval length in days
  nextReviewAt: string;  // ISO timestamp for when the card is due
}

The entire state is serialized into localStorage under a single key (for example):

flashcards:v1

---

Getting started

Prerequisites

• Node.js (recommended: LTS)
• npm, pnpm, or yarn (examples below use npm)

Install

git clone https://github.com/megafarad/barabara.git
cd barabara
npm install

Run the dev server

npm run dev

Then open the URL Vite prints (typically http://localhost:5173).

Changes to source files will hot-reload in the browser.

---

Building for production

To create a production build:

npm run build

This will produce static assets in the dist/ directory.

You can serve dist/ with any static file server, for example:

npm install -g serve
serve dist

Or drop it behind nginx, Netlify, Vercel, GitHub Pages, etc.

---

Deployment

Because everything is static, deployment is very flexible. A few options:

• Netlify / Vercel

  • Connect your GitHub repo
  • Build command: npm run build
  • Publish directory: dist

• GitHub Pages

  • Build locally (npm run build)
  • Push the dist contents to the gh-pages branch
  • Or use an action to do this automatically

• Custom server

  • Copy the dist directory to your server
  • Serve with nginx, Caddy, or any static file server

---

Roadmap / Future ideas

This prototype intentionally keeps scope small, but there are plenty of directions it could grow:

• Card editor:

  • Richer editing (markdown, images, code blocks)
  • Tags, search, filters

• Study:

  • More advanced SRS (e.g., FSRS-style algorithm)
  • Session stats and streaks

• Data:

  • Import/export (CSV, Anki, Quizlet decks)

• Multi-user:

  • Accounts, classes/cohorts, instructor decks
  • Self-hosted mode for schools/organizations

• Federation / sharing:

  • Public decks people can subscribe to
  • (Long-term crazy idea) ActivityPub support for publishing decks across instances

There’s no promise that any of this gets implemented – this list is here to sketch possible directions, not define a full product roadmap.

---

License

MIT. See LICENSE for details.