☭ Oh My Marx

Read Marx like the Bible. An Android app that serves Karl Marx's Capital, vol. 1, in daily bite-sized verses, using the mechanics of bible apps (daily verse, reading plans, streaks, share cards). It also comes with a Hooked mode that labels every one of its own habit-forming tricks and links it to Nir Eyal's Hooked.

A fun prototype and a "learn Android" project. It is sideloaded to a few friends, not on any store.

Language policy: the app speaks German first (Marx wrote in German, the original is German), translations sit on top. End-user text (the install part right below) is German. Everything technical (rest of this README, code, comments, commits) is English.

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📱 Installieren (Android, ~2 Minuten)

1. Auf dem Handy öffnen: https://scagent.de/omm
2. Den roten Knopf „⬇️ Oh My Marx herunterladen“ antippen
3. Download antippen ➡ Android fragt: „Apps aus dieser Quelle zulassen?“ ➡ zulassen (nur einmal)
4. Installieren ➡ fertig. Das Icon heißt Oh My Marx.

⚠️ Google Play Protect warnt evtl. „unbekannte App“ — das ist normal bei Apps außerhalb des Play Stores. Auf „Trotzdem installieren“ tippen. Lieber selbst bauen? ➡ Build it yourself.

🍏 iPhone: geht leider (noch) nicht — Apple erlaubt keine Apps außerhalb des App Stores.

Updates (optional, empfohlen) mit der kostenlosen App Obtainium:

1. Obtainium installieren: https://github.com/ImranR98/Obtainium/releases ➡ die .apk mit arm64 im Namen
2. In Obtainium: ＋ ➡ URL: https://scagent.de/oh-my-marx/ ➡ Hinzufügen
3. Ab jetzt meldet Obtainium neue Versionen ➡ antippen ➡ Update.

Ohne Obtainium: ab und zu Schritt 1–4 wiederholen (deine Daten bleiben erhalten).

Kurz-Tour

• Heute: der Karten-Stapel — nach links wischen = frühere Tage · Amen ☭ = Lesetag zählt
• ganz oben runterziehen = 🔮 Orakel-Karte · Handy schütteln = 📉 Krise!
• Lesen: das Buch — Seite nach links ziehen = umblättern · zwei Finger = Schriftgröße
• Absatz doppelt tippen = 🔖 Lesezeichen · einmal tippen = Menü (Notiz, Teilen, Vorlesen …)
• lange aufs App-Icon drücken = Abkürzungen · Widget für den Homescreen gibt's auch
• ⚙️ Hooked-Modus an = gelbe Zettel erklären jeden Psycho-Trick der App

Daten: Lesezeichen, Notizen und Streak bleiben auf deinem Handy. „Mitlesen“ (abschaltbar in ⚙️) schickt anonym, welche Seite gelesen wurde — kein Konto, keine IP gespeichert. Kommentare sind öffentlich für alle Mitlesenden. Details: What leaves the phone.

Feedback: Screenshot + ein Satz an strix (Signal) oder am0ebe@gmx.de — was war lustig, was nervt, wo hast du dich verirrt?

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Specs

version	0.7.0 (single source: appVersion in android/app/build.gradle.kts) · changelog in-app (⚙️ ➡ release notes, ui/Changelog.kt)
platform	Android 8.0+ (minSdk 26), targetSdk/compileSdk 36
stack	Kotlin 2.4 · Jetpack Compose (Material 3) · Room · DataStore · WorkManager · kotlinx-serialization
build	AGP 8.13 · Gradle 8.14 (wrapper) · JDK 17+ (built with 21)
dependencies	AndroidX + kotlinx only. No Google Play Services, Firebase, analytics, crash reporting or ads. HTTP via plain HttpURLConnection.
permissions	INTERNET (counter + comments, see below) · POST_NOTIFICATIONS (daily verse) · VIBRATE
languages	full book text: DE + EN · app, quotes, devotionals, plans: + IT · ES · PT · 中文 · عربي (RTL)
size	~17 MB APK, the whole book in 2 languages ships inside (offline-first)
package	de.strix.marxversion (dev builds: ….dev, installable side by side)
license	code: GPL-3.0 · book texts: public domain (see Sources)

Build it yourself

Don't trust a prebuilt APK? Good. Build your own:

git clone https://github.com/am0ebe/oh-my-marx && cd oh-my-marx/android
export ANDROID_HOME=~/Android/Sdk          # SDK with platform 36 (Android Studio's default location works)
./gradlew testDebugUnitTest                # JVM tests: content JSON ⬄ Kotlin classes, streak logic, circles, voice DSP
./gradlew assembleDebug                    # ➡ app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk
adb install app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk

• A fresh clone builds with comments switched off: the Matrix registration token lives in the git-ignored android/omm.properties. Everything else (book, cards, plans, streak, voice, widget, counter) works.
• Your build is signed with your debug key, so it installs as a separate app identity. It can't update over the friends' APK and the friends' APK can't update over yours.
• Content (android/app/src/main/assets/content/*.json) is generated by the Python pipeline in bin/ (see Layout) and committed, so you don't need to rerun the pipeline to build.

What leaves the phone

Everything personal (bookmarks, notes, highlights, streak, stamp card, settings) stays in the app's local Room DB and DataStore. No account is needed to use the app.

Two optional online features talk to one host, scagent.de (a small VPS in Germany, run by me):

feature	endpoint	what is sent	stored on the server
👥 Read along (⚙️ switch, currently on by default)	https://scagent.de/omm/api/v1 · server/omm_api.py	page keys you read (p:247) + a random token that changes daily	per-page totals + today's Amen count. Today's tokens are deleted on the first write of the next day. The app doesn't store IPs (held in RAM 1 min for rate limiting), the proxy doesn't keep access logs for this host.
💬 Comments / reading circles (only once you write a comment or join a circle)	https://scagent.de/_matrix/client/v3 · Synapse homeserver, config in server/matrix/	a self-chosen display name, your comments, circle messages	a Matrix account (@<name>-<4 hex>:scagent.de, random password generated and kept on the phone) + your messages. Comments are public to all app users.

The counter API is ~200 lines of Python stdlib (http.server + sqlite3), so it's quick to audit.

Known gaps (honest list)

• 🔑 The registration token for the comment server is compiled into the APK (BuildConfig.OMM_REG_TOKEN). That is by design: it only keeps drive-by bots from signing up. Rate limits do the rest. Extracting it gets you the same thing the app can do.
• 🔓 Circle chats are not end-to-end encrypted: the server admin could read them. Don't put secrets in there.
• 🌐 Synapse keeps its default client-IP bookkeeping (user_ips, ~28 days) for comment accounts. The counter API stores none.
• ✍️ Release APKs are currently signed with a debug key. A proper release key is on the todo list.
• 👥 Read along is opt-out (on by default). It's anonymous, but an opt-in prompt on first start would be cleaner.

Layout

android/            Android Studio project (module app)
  app/src/main/java/de/strix/marxversion/
    MainActivity.kt   1 Activity · Scaffold (top bar + tabs) · NavHost
    ui/               Compose screens: Today (cards), Read (book), Plans, Circle, My Capital, Settings, Hooked
    data/             Room DB · DataStore prefs · assets JSON · i18n · Community (counter) · Matrix (comments)
    logic/            pure Kotlin, no Android: verse of the day, streak, holidays, voice DSP (Freeverb) ➡ unit-tested
    notify/           WorkManager daily notification · widget · quick-settings tile
bin/                content pipeline (Python, local LLM via ollama) + release scripts
data/               pipeline intermediates: verses, alignment, scores, translations cache
server/             counter API (Docker) · Matrix homeserver config · SERVICE.md (what the server side needs)
notes.md            design notes, decisions, research (my own shorthand style)

Content pipeline (rerun order): fetch.py (sources) ➡ split.py (verses, MEW pages, footnotes) ➡ align.py (DE⬄EN paragraph alignment) ➡ score.py + rank.py (LLM picks quotable verses) ➡ build.py (verbatim quotes + plans ➡ app JSON) ➡ andacht.py (devotionals) ➡ translate.py (IT/ES/PT/ZH/AR).

Sources & copyright

what	source	status
German text	Karl Marx, Das Kapital vol. 1, 4th ed. 1890 (ed. Engels), text as in MEW 23 (Dietz), via archived mlwerke.de	Marx † 1883, Engels † 1895 ➡ public domain. We use the text, page numbers and Marx's own footnotes, not MEW's editorial apparatus (endnotes, indexes, introductions). Exception: ~200 one-line MEW translations of Latin/French phrases, kept inline as ⟨…⟩ (e.g. De te fabula narratur! ⟨Über dich wird hier berichtet!⟩).
English text	Samuel Moore & Edward Aveling 1887 (ed. Engels), via marxists.org	translators † 1911 / † 1898 ➡ public domain
portrait	J. J. E. Mayall, London 1875	public domain
Hooked	Nir Eyal 2014	only short quotes + own summaries in the Hooked mode (quotation right). The book itself is not in this repo.
quote selection, devotionals, IT/ES/PT/ZH/AR translations	local LLM (Qwen3 30B via ollama)	generated for this project, GPL-3.0 like the code. Quotes are always Marx's verbatim sentence (fuzzy-matched back to the source).

Credits & contact

Built by strix (am0ebe) with Claude Code (Anthropic) doing most of the typing, plus local models on an RTX 3090 Ti. Questions, bugs, ideas: open an issue or mail am0ebe@gmx.de.