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.
• Staged Opens for Large Files: documents over ~1 MB are read in the background. The window or tab appears immediately with an Opening … placeholder, the visible text is coloured first and the rest of the document follows in frame-sized chunks, so a multi-megabyte note never freezes the app.
• Dictation: Capture speech locally, review continuous transcript text, and insert it at the active Markdown selection with natural spacing and undo.
• Agent-Aware Writing: Current-document dispatch and local AI autocomplete are wired into the native editor.
• Word/PDF Transfer Bridge: Export Markdown to .docx; open or import .docx and text-based .pdf files as editable Markdown drafts.

Word and PDF transfer

Pensieve keeps Markdown as the source of truth while making exchange with Word-first collaborators practical:

• Markdown → Word: choose File → Export Word (.docx)…. Headings, paragraphs, emphasis, links, and lists remain structured in the Word document.
• Word → Markdown: choose File → Import Word or PDF…, use Open File…, or open a .docx with Pensieve from Finder. The source stays untouched and the conversion opens as an unsaved .md draft.
• PDF → Markdown: text-based PDFs follow the same import path. Scanned PDFs without a text layer are rejected with an OCR-required message instead of opening a blank document.

The existing HTML and PDF export options remain available in the File menu.

Agent dispatch lifecycle

Dispatch asks Vibecrafted to start a detached worker and returns a run ID. The launch receipt is not a completion result: the run can continue after the dispatch sheet closes, and closing the optional Terminal status window does not stop it. Pensieve resolves the installed uv-managed Vibecrafted entrypoint by absolute path and supplies the standard agent binary directories that a Finder/Dock launch omits from PATH; custom version-manager layouts can use PENSIEVE_VIBECRAFTED_PATH to select a wrapper that establishes their required environment. The override chooses the Vibecrafted executable; it does not add version-manager shim directories to an agent's PATH by itself.

A positive worker PID in Vibecrafted metadata is shown as Run started. It is a spawn record, not a promise that the worker is still alive. If Vibecrafted exits successfully with a valid run ID but that spawn record does not arrive within the bounded confirmation window, Pensieve shows Run accepted · launch unconfirmed, preserves the run ID and any report path, and does not call the run failed or encourage a duplicate dispatch. Reveal report appears only when the launcher returned a report path. Check status in Terminal appears only when the observer agent is authoritative: either the receipt names it or the dispatch explicitly selected one positional agent. Pensieve does not guess an observer for a default swarm. A genuinely rejected launch keeps its real exit code, run ID and report path when available, and shows the final actionable launcher error without offering a status check for a run that never started. The status action requests one snapshot; the worker itself remains owned by its Vibecrafted/vc-frame session.

Requirements

• macOS 15 or newer.
• Apple Silicon is the daily-driver target; Intel compatibility is not the current release gate.

Download

Download the latest signed and notarized release from GitHub Releases, open the DMG, and drag Pensieve to Applications.

Build from source

Source builds require Xcode 16 command line tools with Swift 6.0+; the package remains in Swift 5 language mode.

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

Runtime testing

dist/Pensieve.app and make run-release use Pensieve's production bundle identity and the operator's existing state. make run is also non-isolated: its unbundled executable uses the normal support and Keychain fallbacks. These lanes are appropriate only when that state is intentionally under test; they are not fresh smoke environments.

Use a repository-owned isolated lane for runtime checks:

make manual-smoke          # new clean interactive experiment
make manual-smoke-reopen   # reopen that same experiment with its state intact
make manual-smoke-verify   # read-only identity and scope verification
make manual-smoke-clean    # retire only that experiment
make ui-smoke              # automated ephemeral smoke with a unique identity

Every new manual or automated smoke receives a unique, manifest-scoped runtime identity and must fail closed rather than read, reset, or delete production Pensieve state. Trusted build provenance and exact executable/FFI payloads are verified before launch; historical or dirty-source experiments are explicitly labelled and are not release evidence. The complete identity, cleanup, compatibility and evidence contract has one canonical home: docs/runtime-testing.md. Read it before adding or changing a runtime test.

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.

Product contract

The canonical definition of keyboard shortcuts and the lifecycle of files, tabs, windows, and recovery is docs/keyboard-shortcuts-and-file-lifecycle-contract.md. Implementations, tests, reports, and external mirrors do not override it.

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.