Ownership boundary

Local-first notes

Your notes should still belong to you when the app is closed.

Why local-first matters

Notes are close to the mind. They include sketches, private sparks, draft arguments, unfinished questions, shared agreements, sensitive details, and fragments whose value may only appear later.

The user's files are truth

Inoteus should help without making itself the only place memory exists. The product may index, search, render, summarize, link, or publish later, but the root memory should remain inspectable.

The first boundary

Markdown plus clear metadata is canonical.
Indexes are rebuildable.
Summaries are derived.
AI context is permissioned.
Sync and publishing are optional seams.

Sync may help

Hosted services can be useful, but they should serve local memory instead of replacing it.

Notes are not feed content

The goal is not endless capture. The goal is to notice, link, review, and remember what matters.

V01 must prove truth

Create, edit, link, search, authenticate, rebuild, and verify before broad platform claims.

Small enough to trust

The first version does not need to be enormous. It needs to be honest: files round-trip, links survive, indexes rebuild, clients use the same API, auth is explicit, evidence exists, and AI access is bounded.