Why We Built What We Built

We have never written a release note before. NeuroSpicy started as a thing one of us built on bad days, to answer a single question: is today actually worse, or does it just feel that way? For a long time the answer lived in a private app and a spreadsheet.

So this is a catch-up. Here is where we are, and why each piece exists.

Going public (1.17)

The app was working for us, so we shipped it. That is most of the story of 1.17. The bet was simple: if a ten-second check-in made our own patterns legible, it would do the same for other people with the same brain. We did not build a wellness app that happens to mention ADHD. We built the tracker we needed, and opened the door.

Going local-first (1.18)

Then we moved the whole engine onto your phone.

There were two reasons, and neither was technical vanity. The first is speed: your data lives on your device now, so the app opens and shows you your day without waiting on a server. That matters more than it sounds, because the cost of one extra beat of friction is that you close the app and never check in. The second is trust. Your energy and mood history is about as personal as data gets, and keeping the compute on-device means the sensitive part stays with you.

The friends update (1.19)

ADHD is easier with someone else in the room, even a quiet one. That is the oldest trick there is, body doubling, and 1.19 is us building it in.

You can share your energy with a small circle, send a wave on a flat day, sit in a body-double session when you need to start something, and mark a good stretch without it turning into a performance. No feeds, no scores, no streak you can lose. Just a few people who get it.

We also split the home card into a pattern view and a forecast view, so you can look at what your energy has done and what it is likely to do next without the two fighting for the same space. And we spent a real chunk of this release on the unglamorous stuff: sign-in that does not trip over itself, a friends tab that loads when the network is slow, fewer rough edges in the places you touch every day.

None of this is gamification wearing a lab coat. It is the smallest set of things that make a hard brain a little easier to live with.

The notes

New

• Friends: share your energy with a small circle, wave, body-double, and celebrate. No feeds, no scores.
• Home: a pattern / forecast toggle on your daily card.
• Apple Health: mood writes to State of Mind, and last night's sleep gives your day honest context (read on-device, never uploaded).

Improved

• Local-first: the app opens on your own device data, fast, and keeps working offline.
• The forecast reads your cycle more honestly (fewer false "slow drift" flags when your numbers are actually improving).

Fixed

• Sign in with Apple no longer gets stuck on a name step.
• The friends tab recovers instead of hanging on a slow connection.