What makes a reminder “persistent”?

Four things, and it needs all four. It comes back on its own without you re-creating it. It changes when you ignore it, instead of repeating identically. It gets harder to ignore over time rather than easier. And it ends only when you answer — done, waited, or deliberately skipped — never because a clock moved past it.

Isn’t this just spam with extra steps?

It would be, without the brakes. Reminders respect quiet hours; you can pause one task or everything at once; after a day unanswered the pulse relaxes to a heartbeat instead of climbing further; and if there is no sign of life from you at all, the engine steps up at most twice and then holds. Persistence is aimed at the thing you forgot, not at an empty room.

How often does it come back?

You choose per task. Gentle waits about two hours, then ninety minutes, then an hour. Steady goes half-hourly down to every ten minutes. Relentless starts at ten minutes and tightens to five. Each tempo holds at its floor rather than speeding up forever, and no tempo ever goes quiet on its own.

Can I get out of one without doing it?

Yes, on purpose. Every reminder carries Wait, which names the real number of minutes it buys you. If today is a write-off, open the task and say you can’t do it today — that skips this one deliberately, with no guilt trip. What is not an exit is forgetting, and swiping the notification away is treated as the deferral it is.

Persistent reminders

A reminder that keeps coming back until the thing is done.

The short version. A persistent reminder is one that survives being ignored. It comes back on its own, it arrives sooner when you swipe it away, it climbs from silent to sound to alarm as it goes unanswered, and it ends only when you give it an answer — done, waited, or deliberately skipped. Time passing is not an answer, so time passing doesn’t close it.

Every reminder app can fire a notification at nine o’clock. The interesting question is what happens at 9:01, when the notification is gone and the pill is still in the packet. This page is the whole mechanism, including the numbers — because “persistent” is a word every app claims and almost none of them implement.

What has to be true for a reminder to be persistent

Four properties. Three of them are common; it is having all four at once that changes the outcome.

It comes back by itself. Not tomorrow at the same time — in minutes, on the same open task, without you re-creating anything.
It reacts to being ignored. A dismissal is a deferral, so the next one arrives sooner rather than on the same placid schedule.
It gets harder to ignore. Quietly at first, then with a sound, and for the handful of things that warrant it, as a full-screen alarm.
It ends on an answer, not on a clock. Done, a wait you chose, or a skip you meant. Forgetting is not one of the options.

Take any one of those away and you have the app you already deleted. Why ordinary reminders don’t work is the long version of that sentence.

How often it comes back: Tempo

Tempo is set per task, and it is a decaying sequence rather than a single interval: the gaps tighten while the loop stays open, then hold at a floor instead of speeding up forever. The first reminder lands exactly at the due time — no polite delay.

Gentle — two hours, then ninety minutes, then hourly from there. You get a quarter of an hour to answer each one before it counts as unanswered.
Steady — half an hour, then twenty minutes, then a quarter of an hour, then every ten minutes. Ten minutes to answer. The sensible setting for most things.
Relentless — every ten minutes, then seven, then five, and five from then on. Five minutes to answer. This is the default when you add a task, because the tasks people add are the ones they have already forgotten twice.
Once — the honest exception. One notification, no repeats, no buttons: for things you want to be told about, not chased about.

No tempo ever goes quiet on its own. A loop that has been open all day slows to a heartbeat, but it does not give up and it does not disappear from the list.

How loud it gets: Intensity

Loudness is a separate dial, so the two never interfere. A course of antibiotics can be quiet and relentless at once; a quarterly bill can be rare and deafening. There is one ladder — silent, then sound, then alarm — and Intensity decides which rungs a given task is allowed to stand on.

Quiet starts silent in the shade and never climbs past an ordinary sound.
Loud starts with a sound and may end as an alarm.
Alarm starts at the top, from the very first reminder.

The climb is earned, not automatic: one rung for every two reminders you leave unanswered. Once a loop has climbed it stays there until it is closed — a task that has already shouted does not go back to whispering while it is still open. And a single switch in Settings caps the whole app below alarm, permanently, if that is what you want; it is stored server-side too, so it applies even to a reminder that was already on its way.

What “Wait” actually buys you

Every reminder carries two answers: Done, and Wait with a number on it. The number is real, it is computed on the server rather than guessed by the phone, and it shrinks as you use it — because a snooze you can tap forever is just a slower way of doing nothing.

Gentle: an hour, then forty-five minutes, then half an hour, and half an hour after that.
Steady: an hour, forty-five, thirty, fifteen, then ten minutes for as long as you keep asking.
Relentless: thirty minutes, then fifteen, then five — and then the button is gone. Not shrunk to a token minute: gone. The only answer left is Done, or opening the task and saying you can’t today.
Anything set to Quiet keeps a flat hour, forever. A task that isn’t allowed to shout doesn’t get to squeeze you either.

Waiting is a legitimate answer and costs you nothing on the loudness ladder. Swiping the notification away is not: it moves the loop straight on to the next, shorter step immediately, without waiting the window out, and the wording gets a shade cheekier on the way back.

Where the persistence stops

This is the half that decides whether an app like this is usable or unbearable. Every one of these is in the shipped engine, not on a roadmap.

Quiet hours. Set a window and silent and sound reminders wait it out — and they do not queue up to arrive as a burst at seven. Only the alarm rung breaks through, which is precisely what you asked for by marking something Alarm.
Pause one task, or pause everything. A paused task doesn’t even generate the slots, so it cannot be “missed” while you’re away. A global pause — until tomorrow morning, three days, a week, or a date you pick — silences every channel including alarms. It is a stronger statement than quiet hours, and it is treated as one.
A day overdue and it relaxes. After twenty-four hours unanswered the pulse drops to a heartbeat — a few times a day, or once a day for something that repeats often — at the loudness it had already reached. It keeps its place; it stops hammering.
No sign of life, no escalation. If nothing at all comes back from you — no app, no notification, no chat — the loop steps up at most twice and then holds. Coming back to your phone after two days should not mean walking into sirens.
The newest one nags. When the next occurrence of a repeating task comes due, every older open one goes quiet. It stays in the list and stays closable, so a missed morning is still a fact — but only one of them is allowed to chase you.

Where the reminders arrive

On Android, as notifications, with the two answers on the notification itself — and at alarm intensity, as a full screen over the lock screen. The same reminder can also land in Telegram, with Done and Wait as inline buttons in the chat; that channel stays silent through quiet hours at every level, by design. Inside a household, a task can be assigned to somebody else, and then it is their phone that rings while the task stays yours.

There is no iOS app and no web app — Android first, because that is where persistent, alarm-grade reminders are least restricted by the platform.

What people point it at

There is no pill database here and no plant encyclopaedia; it is one engine that doesn’t care what the task is, only whether you closed it. The use cases on the home page are the honest list: finishing a course of something on day six, changing lenses on the day rather than when they start to feel odd, water, plants, bills, and calling your parents on the Sunday you meant to. If it is a list of things you keep re-adding, that is the task-tracker side of it.