How do we cut down on meetings?
Sam · #2
Let the room set the agenda
Retrobrew runs Lean Coffee meetings. Everyone brings topics, votes for what matters most, and talks in short timeboxes, so the conversation goes where the group wants it to.
Free, private, and no sign-up.
Runs in your browser on phones and laptops. Nothing to install.
How Lean Coffee works
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1. Bring topics
Everyone adds the things they'd like to talk about, from their own phone or laptop.
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2. Vote
Each person gets three votes to spread out or stack on one topic. The most wanted topics rise to the top.
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3. Talk in short timeboxes
The facilitator picks the top topic and starts a timer, often five minutes, so no single topic takes over.
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4. Keep going or move on
When time's up, everyone votes to keep going or move on, and the facilitator makes the call.
Why Retrobrew
Free and open source
Retrobrew is MIT licensed. Read the code, or run your own copy, from GitHub.
No accounts, no tracking
There's nothing to sign up for, no analytics and no cookies.
The meeting stays with you
The meeting lives on the facilitator's device, and attendees see a copy while they take part. Messages pass through public relays encrypted, so the relays can't read them.
Made for phones
Run the meeting from your phone, or take part from one. People join by scanning a QR code.
Questions
Where is my data?
On the facilitator's device. The meeting is stored in the browser that started it, and there's no meeting server keeping a copy. Attendees' browsers keep the board only while they take part, plus the meetings they joined and their name in each, and a key that identifies their device. When a meeting ends, the facilitator can back it up to a file from the meeting. That matters most on Safari, which can delete a site's data after seven days without a visit.
What do the relays see?
Messages always pass through public Nostr relays, and also go directly between devices where a direct connection works. Everything is encrypted with a key that sits in the part of the meeting link after the #, which browsers never send to a server, so the relays see IP addresses, timing and message sizes, but not what anyone wrote. A direct connection shows your IP address to the facilitator's device, and to a STUN server run by Cloudflare or Google that helps set it up.
Hidden votes are hidden on screen, not cryptographically secret. The same goes for the vote on whether to keep going: Retrobrew never shows or stores who chose what, but everyone in a meeting shares its key, so an attendee who records the meeting's network traffic could work out who voted for which topic, and who chose what.
What if the facilitator closes the tab?
The meeting pauses. Attendees can still read the board, but nothing changes until the facilitator opens the meeting again in the same browser, from "Your meetings"; then everyone carries on where they were. The same happens if the facilitator's phone locks, so Retrobrew asks it to stay awake while the meeting runs. A private window forgets the meeting when it closes. If the browser won't promise to keep its storage, Retrobrew warns the facilitator when the meeting is created.
Does it work on a work network or VPN?
Usually. Retrobrew needs to reach a few public relays over secure WebSockets, the same kind of connection many chat and collaboration tools use. Some company networks and VPNs block these. If yours does, the app says it can't reach the meeting network, and switching to mobile data or a home connection is the quickest fix.
How many people can take part?
Up to 60 people and 60 topics in one meeting. Very long topics or names in some scripts, such as Chinese or emoji, fill a meeting sooner, and Retrobrew says so when it happens. A typical meeting of 15 people and 30 topics uses about a quarter of the room. Lean Coffee works best for groups of about 5 to 15.
Why is it free?
It's an open-source project with nothing to sell: no adverts, no paid plan and no data. There's no meeting server to pay for either, because each meeting runs in the facilitator's browser.