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Project Decisions

Project Overview​

App: Purrsistence
A gamified time management and habit tracking app where users stay focused, track progress, and earn rewards (cats, items). Includes social features and weekly statistics.

Problem:
Users struggle with consistency due to high effort, low engagement, and lack of motivation in existing apps.

Technology Stack​

  • Language: Kotlin
  • Backend / Services: Supabase

🧠 Reasoning: Kotlin is taught at university → team familiarity. Supabase provides fast setup, auth, and realtime features without needing a custom backend.

Repository Setup​

  • Platform: GitHub
  • Structure: Single repository (monorepo)
  • Guidelines: A CONTRIBUTING.md file is maintained for internal reference and contribution rules

🧠 Reasoning: Simpler setup, easier collaboration for a small team.

Git Workflow​

  • Strategy: Branch-based workflow as defined in CONTRIBUTING.md
  • Branch off main and keep branches focused
  • Open PRs against main, direct pushes are not allowed
  • Required GitHub Actions check Unit Tests (all) must pass before merging
  • No force pushes, no direct deletions of main
  • After merging, branches are deleted or renamed to archive/<name>

Branching Strategy​

  • Branch names follow flexible conventions defined in CONTRIBUTING.md

  • Common prefixes:

    • feature/<name> → new features
    • fix/<name> → bug fixes
    • chore/<name> → maintenance / dependencies / config
    • dev/<name> → optional shared development branch
    • main → stable production branch

  • Naming is not strictly enforced by Git, but consistency is expected

  • Branch names should be short, clear, and descriptive

🧠 Reasoning:
We do not enforce strict naming rules for our branches (e.g. through regex), but we rely on conventions to keep the repository clean and organized.

Commit Conventions​

  • Uses Conventional Commits as defined in CONTRIBUTING.md

Format:

<type>(<scope>): <short description>

Examples:

  • feat(goals): add goal creation screen
  • fix(timer): prevent background crash

Supported types:

feat, fix, chore, refactor, style, docs, test, perf, build, ci, revert

🧠 Reasoning:
We use Conventional Commits to improve readability of our commit history. Furthermore, with this we have support for automated tooling like CHANGELOG generation, if we ever were to add them.

Read more: https://www.conventionalcommits.org/

Code Review​

  • Code reviews are not required for merging
  • If possible, still review changes from others
  • If you do, leave specific, constructive comments
  • Authors resolve comments before merge

Project Management​

  • Tool: Jira
  • Methodology: Scrum (required)
  • Practices: Sprints, backlog, task breakdown into tickets
  • 🧠 Reasoning: Structured workflow required by the MLAB; supports planning and team coordination

Externals of the Application​

  • Authentication: Not integrated yet (planned). The app currently uses local Room data only (User entity plus the seed insert in MainActivity), with no auth SDK wired in.
  • Profile Images: Picked with the Android photo picker. Local content:// images are copied into app cache when needed, then stored in Room as a local file URL through ProfileService. No external image storage service is connected yet.
  • Time: Abstracted via TimeProvider; production uses SystemTimeProvider : TimeProvider, while tests use FakeTimeProvider : TimeProvider for timing.
  • Database: Local storage via Room (Goal, TrackingSession, User entities). No external database or backend integration is fully connected yet, although Supabase is planned for later.
  • Statistics: Implemented locally through Room (Dao.observeTotalTime(goalId) and GoalWithSessions relation). No external analytics/statistics provider is connected yet.

Architecture​

Frontend / Backend Split​

Data Storage​

Domain Model​

Trade-offs​

  • + Fast development (Supabase)
  • + Familiar tech (Kotlin)
  • – Less backend control
  • – Supabase lock-in

Tasks from Class​

Task - April 14th, 2026​

Think about a future data class we might want to add to the app and define it.

data class ShopItem(
    val id: Int,
    val name: String,
    val description: String,
    val price: UShort,
    val pathToImage: String
)