Pensieve

Native macOS markdown writing app. File-first. Source-first. Not Notion. Not Obsidian. Not an unwieldy monolith. A beautiful, fast, local markdown pisak — crafted for Vetcoders, and anyone who appreciates the pure joy of typing.

𝚅𝚒𝚋𝚎𝚌𝚛𝚊𝚏𝚝𝚎𝚍. with AI Agents by Vetcoders (c)2024-2026 LibraxisAI

The Vibe

• .md is the source of truth. Always. No proprietary databases trapping your thoughts.
• SQLite is an index, not a prison. We use GRDB.swift to make search instant, but your files remain just files.
• The feeling of writing > feature count. It’s about the flow.
• Round-trip safety. We never destroy your manual formatting.
• AI is a silent assistant, not the center of the product.

Key Features

• Line Numbers & Syntax Highlighting: Built for people who mix prose with json, swift, python, and rust.
• Preview & Two-Way Links: Rich markdown preview, backlinks, wikilinks, Mermaid, math, and source-first editing.
• Split Modes: SOURCE (Cmd+1), SPLIT (Cmd+2), PREVIEW (Cmd+3), and FOCUS (Cmd+4).
• Fast Native Core: Built on Swift 5.9+, SwiftUI, and AppKit's NSTextView with TextKit 2.
• Agent-Aware Writing: Current-document dispatch and local Vista-powered autocomplete are wired into the native editor.

Requirements

• macOS 14 or newer.
• Xcode command line tools with Swift 5.9+.
• Apple Silicon is the daily-driver target; Intel compatibility is not the current release gate.

Try It Locally

Pensieve is still in a local release lane. The Mac App Store submit, public download, and LFS/provenance decisions are operator-gated, so the honest trial path today is from source:

git clone https://github.com/vetcoders/pensieve.git
cd pensieve
make build
make run

To install the locally built app into /Applications:

make install-app

Developer and release checks:

make test
make lint
make gates

The Mac App Store packaging lane exists as make release-appstore, but App Store Connect submission, signing identities, and the final MAS truth-clicks stay with the human operator.

Background & Heritage

Pensieve is the spiritual successor to an older Objective-C markdown editor (by Satoshi Iwaki) that served as our daily driver for over a year. We kept the essence (and the CSS) but rebuilt the engine entirely in modern Swift to drop legacy debt and gain native Apple Silicon performance.

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Created by Vetcoders.