Open source · Local-first · No account required

The IDE
for the Future

A local-first, agentic markdown editor for builders — built on Git. Version control, peer review, and an AI that asks questions instead of writing your docs for you.

Download for Mac View source
macOS 12+ No account MIT license
canonic — product-vision.md
Documents
  • ▾ 0. Vision
  • north-star-metric
  • product-vision
  • ▸ 1. Strategy
  • ▾ 2. Discovery
  • problem-statement
  • user-research
  • ▸ 3. Planning
  • ▸ 4. Implementation
  • ▸ 5. Monitoring
  • README
Product Vision
What we're building and why it matters.
Vision Statement
Canonic is a local-first document editor for builders — built on Git — that makes version control, peer review, and AI-assisted thinking feel native to how good builders already work.
Problem We're Solving
Builders write documents — PRDs, strategies, roadmaps — in tools that treat them as ephemeral notes. Notion, Google Docs have no concept of history, branching, or structured review. Final_v3_APPROVED.docx is still the state of the art.
Notes
AI
History
What assumptions am I making?
1. Local-first is a selling point for PMs
You're assuming PMs care about data ownership as much as developers do. Is there evidence PMs are actually frustrated by SaaS lock-in?

2. Git concepts translate cleanly
The doc assumes PMs will intuitively understand branches/commits/merges.
Agent tools
Index workspace
Read docs on demand
Web search
Post comments
Your files, your machine No cloud sync Git-native versioning Branch your ideas AI that asks, not answers P2P sharing Open source, forever No account required Your files, your machine No cloud sync Git-native versioning Branch your ideas AI that asks, not answers P2P sharing Open source, forever No account required
Philosophy

Built on beliefs,
not features.

Most builder tools are built around either impmlementation or activity metrics. Canonic is here to solve hardest part: deciding what to build.

01
Local is not a limitation
Your documents live on your machine. No subscription holds them hostage. No breach can expose them. No outage interrupts your flow.
02
Version control is for everyone
Engineers have Git. PMs have Final_v3_APPROVED.docx. That's absurd. Every decision deserves a history.
03
AI should challenge, not replace
The best thinking tool isn't one that writes for you — it's one that pokes holes in your reasoning and forces you to be precise.
04
Sharing without surveillance
Share a document directly from your machine to a peer's browser. Token-secured, scoped to exactly what you want, with zero middlemen.
05
Open source by default
The code is on GitHub. Fork it, audit it, extend it. Trust shouldn't require faith — it should come from reading the source.
06
Structure enables clarity
Starting from a product framework isn't a shortcut — it's a forcing function. Good documents require good structure. Templates are the scaffold.
Capabilities

Everything a serious
document needs.

⎇
Git-native versioning
Every workspace is a real Git repo. Branch ideas, commit checkpoints, diff decisions, merge thinking. No terminal required — but it's all standard Git under the hood.
# Under the hood, it's just git
git log --oneline
a3f2c1b Add competitive analysis section
8d91e04 Revise problem statement
2c44a17 Initialize PM Framework workspace
◈
AI that challenges your thinking
The AI assistant has your full document in context. It's configured not to write for you — instead it surfaces assumptions, asks uncomfortable questions, and stress-tests your logic.
// system prompt fragment
"Never generate document content.
 Ask questions that expose gaps.
 Challenge assumptions directly."
⊕
Inline comments with anchors
Select any text to leave a comment anchored to that exact passage. Comments persist across restarts, survive edits, and sync back when you receive a shared document.
◻
PM Framework templates
Start from a blank repo or a production-ready PM framework: Vision, Strategy, Discovery, Planning, Implementation, Monitoring. 12 structured documents, one git commit.
⌕
Full-text search
FlexSearch indexes your entire workspace locally. Instant results, ranked by relevance, with highlighted excerpts. No data leaves your machine.
◌
Markdown-native editor
Built on Milkdown — a clean, beautiful markdown editor that feels like writing. Refs, tags, and interdependency tracking baked in. Your documents are plain .md files on disk.
Sharing

P2P. No middleman.
Just a link.

Hit share. Get a URL. Your peer opens it in their browser and sees your document — served directly from your machine over a secure Cloudflare tunnel. Nothing goes through our servers.

Get started

From download to
first commit in 60 seconds.

01
Download
Grab the .dmg. No installer wizard. Drag to Applications. Open.
02
Open a workspace
Point Canonic at any folder. It initializes a Git repo automatically. Or start with the PM Framework template.
03
Write & commit
Write in Markdown. Hit ⌘S to save. Commit a checkpoint when a decision is made — not on every keystroke.
04
Share a link
Hit Fork or Share. Get a URL that serves your doc directly from your machine. No signup for you or your reader.
Open source

Read the code.
Trust the tool.

Canonic is MIT licensed and fully open source. No telemetry, no analytics, no black boxes. The source is on GitHub — Canonical-AI/canonic — and contributions are welcome.

Canonical-AI/canonic
0
servers touched
0
accounts needed
∞
version history
Your docs belong
to you.

No subscription. No cloud. No surveillance. Just a tool that respects your thinking.

Download for Mac — Free View on GitHub