Crosscue

A crossword app for people who want the puzzle, not the strings attached.

Crosscue is a fast, privacy-first crossword solver for iOS and Android. Import your own .puz or .ipuz files, grab supported daily minis, chase your streak, compare times with friends, and keep solving even when the network is gone. No account. No ads. No analytics. Your puzzles stay yours.

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Why It Exists

Most crossword apps make you bring a subscription, an account, or a tolerance for tracking. Crosscue tries to be the opposite: a serious solver that feels light, capable, and a little playful.

It is built for the daily mini person, the Sunday-puzzle person, the Bluetooth-keyboard person, and the "please just let me solve in peace" person.

What You Can Do

• Solve real crossword files: import .puz and .ipuz puzzles from your device, files app, messages, or wherever your puzzles live.
• Download supported daily minis: Crosshare daily minis can be pulled right into the app, with author credit and source links.
• Use a proper crossword grid: tap to move, tap again to switch direction, swipe, type on-screen, or plug in a hardware keyboard.
• Check or reveal without losing the thread: check a letter, word, or full grid; reveal when you want help; keep mistakes and reveals distinct.
• Pick up exactly where you left off: autosave preserves grid progress, focus, and timer state.
• Solve rebus puzzles: multi-letter cells are parsed, displayed, entered, and saved correctly.
• Track the habit: archive, stats, streaks, completion history, best times, and shareable results are all local-first.
• Make it readable: light, dark, system theme, colorblind-friendly verification colors, and VoiceOver support across the solve screen.
• Glance and jump back in: Home/Lock-screen widgets show your streak and today's puzzle; shortcuts can open today's puzzle, stats, or your last solve.
• Sync only if you ask: iOS uses your private iCloud container; Android uses your Google Drive AppData space. Crosscue does not run a sync server.
• Challenge friends privately: optional invite-only Challenge Boards let a small group compare daily-mini times with pseudonymous handles and avatars.

Privacy, Plainly

Crosscue's default mode is offline. Puzzles, progress, stats, settings, and history live in a local SQLite database on your device.

Network access happens only for things you choose:

• downloading a puzzle from an online source,
• enabling cloud sync through your own iCloud or Google account,
• joining an optional Challenge Board.

Challenge Boards are the one Crosscue-operated online service. They are private, invite-only, pseudonymous, and deletable in-app. They store only the board data needed to compare times with friends. The rest of the app keeps working if you never touch them.

Read the public privacy policy or the source doc at docs/privacy.md.

Current State

Crosscue is actively developed and available on iOS and Android builds.

Core solving, import, archive, stats, settings, widgets, shortcuts, optional sync, and Challenge Boards are implemented. The project is now mostly in the "make it sturdier, smoother, and store-ready" phase: release QA, platform polish, backend hardening, dependency updates, and follow-on features are tracked in GitHub Issues.

As of 2026-08-02 UTC, v1.5.0 is published on GitHub and submitted for review on both stores — TestFlight → App Store review on iOS, and promoted from Play internal testing to the production track on Android. The Challenge Boards Worker is live in staging and production with D1 + R2 avatar storage, plus a new scheduled reconciliation sweep (#291) deployed and smoke-tested on both environments. Multi-statement board/account writes are atomic, and the release workflow validates the version, production configuration, and artifact signing before store upload. The operational runbook and cost-monitoring caveat live in DEPLOYMENT.md.

The current app version lives in crosscue/pubspec.yaml (version:) — the single source of truth, read at runtime and never hardcoded elsewhere (ADR-0005).

Get Started

iOS

Install via TestFlight while the App Store release is being prepared, or build locally with Flutter and Xcode.

Android

Sideload a debug or release APK, use the Play closed test when available, or build locally with Flutter and Android Studio tooling.

Build From Source

cd crosscue
flutter pub get
flutter run

Pick an explicit device when you have more than one attached:

flutter devices
flutter run -d <device-id>

Run the main verification pipeline from the repo root:

make ci

See DEPLOYMENT.md for signing, simulator/device installs, release builds, log capture, and store-checklist details.

Project Map

crosscue/                         Flutter app
crosscue/backend/challenge_boards Cloudflare Worker for Challenge Boards
deeplinks/                        Universal/App Links hosting files
docs/                             ADRs, QA checklists, runbooks, reviews
design/                           Store assets and color references

Developer Docs

Doc	What's inside
PRODUCT.md	Vision, product principles, roadmap themes, non-goals
CONTRIBUTING.md	Commands, architecture summary, contributor workflow
ARCHITECTURE.md	Layer rules, feature structure, data flow, performance budgets
MODELS.md	Model semantics, invariants, ID formats, DB mapping
CONVENTIONS.md	Coding rules for Freezed, Riverpod, Drift, routing, source licensing
DEPLOYMENT.md	Build, install, release, signing, backup/restore, store checklists
SECURITY.md	Vulnerability disclosure policy
docs/index.md	Index for ADRs, design docs, runbooks, QA, reviews, policies
Crosscue Color Guide	Current color system reference
Challenge Boards Worker	Backend setup and local development

The Vibe

Crosscue is opinionated in a quiet way: offline first, privacy first, solve quality first. It wants to be the app you can open every morning without negotiating with anything except the clues.