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# 💧 Tolaria

Tolaria is a desktop app for Mac for managing **markdown knowledge bases**. People use it for a variety of use cases:

* Operate second brains and personal knowledge
* Organize company docs as context for AI
* Store OpenClaw/assistants memory and procedures

Personally, I use it to **run my life** (hey 👋 [Luca here](http://x.com/lucaronin)). I have a massive workspace of 10,000+ notes, which are the result of my [Refactoring](https://refactoring.fm/) work + a ton of personal journaling and *second braining*.

<img width="1000" height="656" alt="1776506856823-CleanShot_2026-04-18_at_12 06 57_2x" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/8aeafb0a-b236-43c2-a083-ec111f903c38" />

## Principles

- 📑 **Files-first** — Your notes are plain markdown files. They're portable, work with any editor, and require no export step. Your data belongs to you, not to any app.
- 🔌 **Git-first** — Every vault is a git repository. You get full version history, the ability to use any git remote, and zero dependency on Tolaria servers.
- 🛜 **Offline-first, zero lock-in** — No accounts, no subscriptions, no cloud dependencies. Your vault works completely offline and always will. If you stop using Tolaria, you lose nothing.
- 🔬 **Open source** — Tolaria is free and open source. I built this for [myself](https://x.com/lucaronin) and for sharing it with others.
- 📋 **Standards-based** — Notes are markdown files with YAML frontmatter. No proprietary formats, no locked-in data. Everything works with standard tools if you decide to move away from Tolaria.
- 🔍 **Types as lenses, not schemas** — Types in Tolaria are navigation aids, not enforcement mechanisms. There's no required fields, no validation, just helpful categories for finding notes.
- 🪄**AI-first but not AI-only** — A vault of files works very well with AI agents, but you are free to use whatever you want. We support Claude Code and Codex CLI (for now), but you can edit the vault with any AI you want. We provide an AGENTS file for your agents to figure out.
- ⌨️ **Keyboard-first** — Tolaria is designed for power-users who want to use keyboard as much as possible. A lot of how we designed the Editor and the Command Palette is based on this.
- 💪 **Built from real use** — Tolaria was created for manage my personal vault of 10,000+ notes, and I use it every day. Every feature exists because it solved a real problem.

## Getting started

Download the [latest release here](https://github.com/refactoringhq/tolaria/releases/latest/download/Tolaria.app.tar.gz).

When you open Tolaria for the first time you get the chance of cloning the [getting started vault](https://github.com/refactoringhq/tolaria-getting-started) — which gives you a walkthrough of the whole app.

## Open source and local setup

Tolaria is open source and built with Tauri, React, and TypeScript. If you want to run or contribute to the app locally, here is [how to get started](https://github.com/refactoringhq/tolaria/blob/main/docs/GETTING-STARTED.md). You can also find the gist below 👇

### Prerequisites

- Node.js 20+
- pnpm 8+
- Rust stable
- macOS for development

### Quick start

```bash
pnpm install
pnpm dev
```

Open `http://localhost:5173` for the browser-based mock mode, or run the native desktop app with:

```bash
pnpm tauri dev
```

## Documentation

- 📐 [ARCHITECTURE.md](docs/ARCHITECTURE.md) — System design, tech stack, data flow
- 🧩 [ABSTRACTIONS.md](docs/ABSTRACTIONS.md) — Core abstractions and models
- 🚀 [GETTING-STARTED.md](docs/GETTING-STARTED.md) — How to navigate the codebase
- 📚 [ADRs](docs/adr) — Architecture Decision Records

## License

Tolaria is licensed under AGPL-3.0-or-later. The Tolaria name and logo remain covered by the project’s trademark policy.