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Primico

Primico, and why the code says Cadence

The product is Primico. The code still says Cadence, on purpose. Everything a person sees was renamed; everything that is a persisted identity or a published contract kept the old name, because changing it would cost users something and gain them nothing.

What happened

Section titled “What happened”

The app was called Cadence until version 3.x. On 2026-09-14 it was renamed Primico — an unrelated app, “Cadence: Aufgaben & Todo”, had reached the App Store first. The rename landed as a single breaking change, #211.

The rule

Section titled “The rule”

If a person can see it, it says Primico. If a machine has stored it or another program depends on it, it says Cadence.

flowchart TD
    q{"Would changing this identifier<br/>break an install, a file,<br/>a secret or a contract?"}
    q -- "no — people see it" --> p["Primico"]
    q -- "yes — something stored or published" --> c["Cadence (keep it)"]

Renamed to Primico

Section titled “Renamed to Primico”
  • App names, the launcher label, the desktop window title and tray balloons
  • Desktop package names and release asset names — and so the permanent download URLs
  • The website and these docs
  • The desktop data directory: primico on Linux, Primico on macOS and Windows

Kept as Cadence

Section titled “Kept as Cadence”
Identifier Why it stays
Kotlin package de.andi1984.cadence and the Android application id The application id is the app to Android. Changing it means a fresh install for every user, with their data left behind in the old one.
Class names — CadenceViewModel, CadenceRepository, CadenceCore, CadenceSyncEngine, … Churn across every file, no user-visible gain, and every ADR and issue would stop matching the code.
CADENCE_* environment variables and CI secrets Build scripts, forks and repository secrets already use them.
"format": "cadence.backup" in backup files A published contract: existing backup files, and any program that reads them, identify the format by this string.
cadence.db, the database file name A file already on every device.
The macOS bundle id and the Windows installer upgrade UUID The operating system uses them to recognise an upgrade as the same app. A new one installs a second copy.

Moving the desktop data directory

Section titled “Moving the desktop data directory”

The one persisted location that was renamed is the desktop data directory, because people find it in their file manager. That needed a migration, and it lives in PlatformDirs.dataDir():

  1. Work out the parent — $XDG_DATA_HOME or ~/.local/share on Linux, ~/Library/Application Support on macOS, %APPDATA% on Windows.
  2. If the new primico/Primico directory does not exist and the old cadence/Cadence directory does, rename the old one to the new name. Same parent, so the rename is atomic.
  3. If that rename fails, keep using the old directory rather than greeting the user with an empty list next to a full database.

Inside it, the files keep their names: cadence.db, settings.json, workspace.json and the attachments/ blob store. Android needs no migration — Context.filesDir belongs to the application id, which did not change.

Reading older material

Section titled “Reading older material”

The ADRs are history and are not rewritten: they say Cadence throughout, and so do issues and pull requests from before the rename. When an ADR names CadenceRepository, it means the class that still has that name today.

Section titled “Related”