HouseCairn

Free and open-source · Self-hosted

What to do in the house, where, when, with what, and for how much.

HouseCairn keeps track of recurring maintenance, like the smoke detector battery or the ventilation filter, and of one-off renovation projects, like repainting the living room or redoing the bathroom. Room by room, for the whole household.

Early development. HouseCairn is not usable for planning yet: the application skeleton runs (sign-in, passkeys, homes), the screens to plan maintenance and projects do not exist. This page describes the planned first version (v1).

Follow the code on GitHubSee the roadmap
Screenshot of the current HouseCairn application on a phone: the Homes list with two demo homes, Example cottage and Example house, and a sign-in confirmation. Demo data.

A house is a long list nobody keeps

Maintenance gets forgotten, references get lost, and renovation budgets live in someone's head. HouseCairn puts it all in one place you host yourself.

  • Recurring tasks

    Batteries, filters, descaling, the yearly boiler service: each task comes back at the right time, by date, after the last time it was done, or by usage.

  • Everything about each room

    Paint references, flooring, photos of the walls before they were closed, equipment with warranty and history.

  • Projects and money

    Quotes, planned, committed and paid budget, so you can decide in which order to do the work.

Planned for v1

The features below are the target for the first version. Nothing here is released yet.

  • Rooms and items

    Equipment with warranty, history and total cost of ownership, organised room by room.

  • Room memory

    Paint references, flooring, photos of open walls: what you will want to know in ten years.

  • Flexible recurrence

    Fixed date, after the last completion, by usage counter (litres, hours), or triggered by a sensor.

  • Today view, one tap: Done

    Sorted by urgency and customisable per person. Every task is marked done in one tap, with Undo.

  • The whole household

    Members with roles: owner, member, and read-only for tenants. Anyone can report a problem in two fields.

  • Stock and supplies

    Manufacturer reference, supplier references, purchase links, last price paid, and needs for the next 30, 60 or 90 days.

  • QR labels

    Print labels to stick on equipment and open its sheet from your phone.

  • Projects and budget

    Quotes and budget planned, committed and paid, compared to decide the order of work. Budget by room, by project, by maintenance task, and an annual envelope.

  • Notifications

    Through Apprise: ntfy, Telegram, Signal, Matrix, e-mail and more than 100 services.

  • Calendar

    Calendar view and an ICS feed for your usual calendar app.

  • Your data, open

    Full JSON export, CSV import, and a complete REST API described with OpenAPI, with scoped tokens.

  • Sign-in

    Local accounts, passkeys, TOTP, and OIDC single sign-on.

The application today

Real screenshots of the current build, with demo data. The planned features above come on top of this foundation.

Account security and API

Passkeys, authenticator app and recovery codes are in the account pages, and the REST API ships with an OpenAPI schema and a test interface.

Screenshot of the More page on a desktop browser: Homes, Account security (passkeys, authenticator app, recovery codes), API documentation (OpenAPI schema and test interface), About, and a Sign out button.
The More page, desktop layout. Demo data.

Built for the phone first

A single-column layout with a bottom navigation bar, large touch targets and a short sign-in form.

Screenshot of the sign-in page on a phone: Email and Password fields, a Remember Me checkbox and a dark Sign in button.
The sign-in page, phone layout.

Optional integrations

All integrations are off by default. HouseCairn works fully without them.

  • Home Assistant

    Import rooms, let sensors arm tasks (a low battery, for example), and relay notifications. HouseCairn never holds a Home Assistant token: Home Assistant pushes to it.

  • Paperless-ngx

    Link an existing document, or send a scan or file to Paperless. Documents stay in Paperless.

  • Sure

    Match an existing transaction to take its amount. HouseCairn never creates transactions.

Later: an MCP server and outgoing webhooks. A native iOS app may come later.

Principles

Your house is private. The software is built around that.

  • Works on its own

    Every integration is optional. Nothing else is required.

  • Least privilege

    Each integration and each token gets only the access it needs.

  • One source of truth

    Each piece of data lives in one place. Documents stay in Paperless, transactions in Sure.

  • For the whole household

    Simple enough for everyone at home, designed for the phone first.

  • No telemetry

    No online account, no outgoing call unless you configure one.

  • Secure by default, exportable

    Safe defaults out of the box, and your data can always be exported.

Open source, built in the open

HouseCairn is free software under the AGPL-3.0-only licence. Self-hosting is free for everyone.

HouseCairn is developed with an AI agent under human review. Every change goes through a pull request reviewed and merged by the maintainer.

Browse the source code

Get started

HouseCairn is not ready for daily use yet, but the container image and the documentation exist: install with Docker Compose, first start, reverse proxy, single sign-on, backups and hardening. The documentation describes only what exists today.

Read the documentation

docs.housecairn.app, in English. The documentation is also available in French. Documentation en français

Support the project

If you would like to help HouseCairn move forward, you can buy the maintainer a coffee.

Buy me a coffee