lifty

A self-hosted, privacy-first workout tracker inspired by Strong. No accounts, no cloud, no subscriptions — just your data on your own server.

FastAPI · React PWA · SQLite · Docker Compose

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Screenshots

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Features

Workouts

• Start a workout, add exercises on the fly, log sets with weight + reps
• Previous session's sets shown inline as reference
• Reorder exercises during a workout
• Rename workouts, add notes
• Mark rest days from the home screen

Rest Timer

• Configurable duration (60 / 90 / 120 / 180s) saved per profile
• Web Audio ding + vibration on finish
• Background-accurate — stays correct after screen lock or tab switch
• Push notification fires even when the screen is off (Android + iOS PWA)

Progress & History

• Full workout log with monthly calendar view
• Per-workout detail sheet — stats, muscle group breakdown, sets with estimated 1RM
• PRs per exercise (Epley 1RM), grouped by body part
• Weekly / daily volume bar chart (sets or tonnage)
• Muscle group donut chart
• 26-week activity heatmap

Profiles & Settings

• Multiple profiles on a single instance
• Per-profile: unit (kg / lbs), theme, avatar colour, week start day, rest duration, ding toggle
• Themes: Dark, Light, AMOLED, Tokyo Night, Dracula, Nord, Gruvbox, Rosé Pine, Catppuccin Mocha / Macchiato / Frappé / Latte

Import & Export

• Strong CSV import — bring in your full workout history
• CSV export per profile

PWA

• Installable on iOS and Android
• Offline support via service worker
• Flamingo barbell icon, themed status bar

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PWA & Service Worker

The service worker provides two things:

Feature	How it works
Offline support	Static assets cached on first load; API falls back to cached responses when offline
Background notifications	Rest timer end time posted to SW on start; SW fires showNotification at the right time regardless of whether the page is suspended

Platform support:

Platform	Offline	Background notification
Android	✅	✅
iOS 16.4+ (PWA)	✅	✅ — add to home screen first
iOS < 16.4 / desktop	✅	❌ — in-page ding still works when visible

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Stack

Layer	Tech
Backend	FastAPI + SQLModel + SQLite, Python 3.11
Frontend	React 18 + Vite + plain CSS
Serving	nginx (frontend), uvicorn (backend)
Containers	Docker + Docker Compose
CI	GitHub Actions → ghcr.io (amd64 + arm64)

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Running locally

./scripts/dev_up.sh

Builds both containers and seeds the exercise library.

Service	URL
Frontend	http://localhost:5173
Backend API	http://localhost:8000
API docs	http://localhost:8000/docs

Reset the database:

rm data/lifty.db && docker compose restart backend

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Self-hosting

Images are built and pushed to ghcr.io on every push to main (amd64 + arm64).

Create a docker-compose.yml on your host:

services:
  backend:
    image: ghcr.io/bndct-devops/lifty-backend:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    expose:
      - "8000"
    volumes:
      - /mnt/user/appdata/lifty:/data   # adjust path as needed
    environment:
      - LIFTY_DB=/data/lifty.db
      # - LIFTY_PASSWORD=your-password-here
  frontend:
    image: ghcr.io/bndct-devops/lifty-frontend:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "3420:80"
    depends_on:
      - backend

Then:

docker compose pull
docker compose up -d

Update the volume path to wherever you want the SQLite database stored on your host.

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Security

By default the API has no authentication — fine for local/VPN use, but set a password before exposing to the internet.

Enable instance auth

Uncomment LIFTY_PASSWORD in your docker-compose.yml:

environment:
  - LIFTY_DB=/data/lifty.db
  - LIFTY_PASSWORD=your-strong-password

Restart the backend. The app will show a password screen on load. Once unlocked, a 30-day JWT is stored in the browser — you won't be prompted again until it expires.

• Change/reset password: Settings → Instance Auth → Change Password (or set LIFTY_PASSWORD env var again and restart to override)
• Sign out: Settings → Instance Auth → Sign Out

Project structure

backend/
  main.py              # FastAPI app, all endpoints
  models.py            # SQLModel table definitions
  schemas.py           # Pydantic request/response types
  db.py                # engine + table creation
  seed_exercises.py    # built-in exercise library (runs on startup)
frontend/
  public/
    sw.js              # service worker — offline cache + background notifications
    manifest.json      # PWA manifest
    favicon.svg        # flamingo barbell icon
  src/
    App.jsx            # entire frontend
    api.js             # fetch wrappers for all backend endpoints
    styles.css         # CSS custom properties + layout
  nginx.conf           # proxies /api/* to backend
scripts/
  dev_up.sh            # one-command local dev start
docker-compose.yml         # local dev (builds from source)
.github/workflows/
  build-push.yml       # CI: build multi-arch images, push to ghcr.io

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Acknowledgements

• Inspired by Strong — the best commercial workout tracker, which lifty aims to self-host-replace
• Catppuccin theme palette by Catppuccin