Penguin Nurse

An open-source health tracking web application for recording consumables (foods, medications, supplements) and health metrics (blood glucose, weight, etc.). All data is stored locally in PostgreSQL — you retain full control.

Designed for technically inclined individuals who prefer local-first health tracking without third-party dependencies.

Features

• Track consumables — foods, medications, supplements, and their nutritional/ingredient details
• Record health metrics — blood glucose, weight, and other measurements over time
• Local-first — all data stays on your own PostgreSQL database
• Flexible and extensible data model

History

Penguin Nurse was presented at Everything Open 2026 in Canberra, Australia. Video recordings were not available at time of publication.

Getting Started

Development Setup

This is a Rust-based full-stack application using Dioxus (frontend/WASM) and Axum (backend). The build environment is managed via Nix flakes and devenv.

1. Enter the development shell:

   nix develop

   or

   cd .devenv && source bin/activate

2. Start the Tailwind CSS compiler (in a separate terminal):

   npx tailwindcss -i ./input.css -o ./assets/tailwind.css --watch

3. Start the development server:

   dx serve --platform web

   For desktop platforms:

   dx serve --platform desktop

Production Build

nix build .#default

Linting

Validate database records and check for data inconsistencies:

DATABASE_URL=postgres://user:password@localhost/penguin_nurse nix run .#lint

Or with Cargo:

export DATABASE_URL=postgres://user:password@localhost/penguin_nurse
./lint.sh

See docs/LINT.md for details.

Naming Conventions

Verbs

• Add — add an item to a list.
• Remove — remove an item from a list.
• Create — create a new entity.
• Archive — non-permanently hide or archive an entity.
• Delete — permanently delete an entity.
• Update — update an entity or value.
• View — view an entity or value.
• Change — pending changes to an entity.
• New — pending entity to be created.

Pattern

[noun][verb][subverb]

For example: ConsumableUpdateBasic, ConsumableUpdateIngredients.

License

This project is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (AGPL-3.0). See the LICENSE file for details.