Charter

A macOS app for tracking client projects and engagements through their full lifecycle. Runs as a menu bar popover for quick capture and a full dock window for project management. Local-first via SwiftData with optional iCloud sync.

What it does

Project lifecycle tracking — Projects move through a fixed pipeline: Discovery → Initial Delivery → Refine → Proposal → Won/Lost. Stage-specific checkpoints keep each phase on track.

Contact management — Track everyone involved: internal team members and external contacts. Contacts can include a free-form role, title, email, and notes (preferred contact method, office hours, etc.). Contacts are linked to engagement logs so you always know who was in the room.

Engagement logs — Timestamped notes on every interaction. Log a call, meeting, or email with a summary and the contacts who participated. The full history stays attached to the project.

Tasks — Lightweight per-project task list. Create tasks manually or let a template pre-populate them when the project is created.

Notes — Free-form markdown notes per project, rendered with syntax highlighting. Good for keeping context, open questions, and decisions in one place.

Quick capture (menu bar) — Click the briefcase icon in the menu bar to log an engagement, add a task, or drop a note without opening the main window. Defaults to your most recently active project; tap change to switch.

Export and import — Export projects to JSON or CSV for backup or sharing. Import JSON bundles or CSV files to restore or migrate data. A test dataset is included at examples/test-projects.json.

Project templates — Define JSON template files in a folder of your choosing. When creating a new project, templates pre-fill stage, tags, isPOC, and create an initial task list with custom fields. Three example templates are included in examples/templates/.

Install

Download the latest .dmg from Releases, open it, and drag Charter.app to your Applications folder.

Requirements (building from source)

• macOS 14.0+
• Xcode 16+
• xcodegen — brew install xcodegen

Building from source

git clone https://github.com/greyhoundforty/work-project-tracker.git
cd work-project-tracker
xcodegen generate
open Charter.xcodeproj

Press ⌘R to build and run.

Using templates

1. Open Settings → Templates and choose a folder containing .json template files.
2. Each template defines defaults for a new project:

{
  "name": "Freelance Client Project",
  "isPOC": false,
  "stage": "Discovery",
  "tags": ["freelance", "client"],
  "taskTitles": [
    "Send project proposal",
    "Get contract signed",
    "Schedule kickoff call",
    "Deliver first milestone",
    "Send invoice",
    "Get client sign-off"
  ],
  "customFields": [
    { "label": "Contract Link", "placeholder": "Paste URL…" },
    { "label": "Budget", "placeholder": "e.g. $5,000" }
  ]
}

3. When creating a new project, the template picker appears at the top of the sheet. Selecting one pre-fills stage, tags, and isPOC, creates initial tasks, and adds any custom fields to the project overview.

Three example templates are in examples/templates/ — copy them to any folder and point Settings at it to get started.

Adding new files

The .xcodeproj is generated from project.yml by xcodegen. After adding or removing .swift files, regenerate it:

xcodegen generate

Notes

• Changing the iCloud sync setting requires an app restart.
• Swift is pinned to 5.9 in project.yml to avoid Swift 6 concurrency strictness with SwiftData. Do not bump without testing.
• The ModelContainer is a @State property on the app struct — one instance shared across all scenes. Do not make it a computed property.