Death Plan Switch, a self-hosted dead man's switch for solo devs
Weekly check-in email that escalates to your next of kin, then contacts, if you go quiet.
A self-hosted dead man's switch for solo developers: it emails you weekly, and if you miss a check-in it asks your next of kin at hour 72, then tells your other contacts at hour 144. It stores no documents or passwords, only messages saying where things are and who to call. Free and MIT licensed, run on your own PHP 8.1 server with cron and SMTP; there's no hosted version or account.
What holds up
- +Free and MIT licensed, no subscription, and you can read or fork the code yourself
- +Clear escalation timeline: next of kin asked at hour 72, others only if they can't confirm you're fine
- +Self-hosted with no accounts, your check-in data stays on your own server
Mind the limits
- −You run your own PHP 8.1 server, SMTP account, and cron job, there's no hosted option
- −Email only, no SMS or app, so a dead inbox means no fallback channel
- −No guarantee: it can't know why you stopped checking in, and fails silently if its server is down
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