local-first software

owning state on the device, syncing on the owner's terms.

every product here starts from the same bet: the app should be complete on one machine, and the network should be an enhancement rather than a requirement. sync is opt-in, encrypted, and reconcilable.

these notes cover the state models, content addressing, and quota discipline that make local-first practical — and the honest places where it still costs you.

projects

sound.fish — an indexeddb music library with optional encrypted suite sync.
peopleblade — a contact book that enriches only with evidence you can inspect.
sponge — research notes that live locally and connect by backlink.
lifecharts — a daily chart generated entirely on your machine.

planned lessons

state models where invalid states cannot exist
content-addressed documents and stable identity
encrypted sync with hard quotas and clean recovery
when local-first is the wrong call

these lessons are planned, not published. each ships as a page under this category when it is written.

AI-drafted at Ben Guo's direct request as category seeds; each planned lesson is unpublished until it is written.