Quickstart

Install the desktop app

Download Open Knowledge for macOS. Open the DMG, drag Open Knowledge to Applications, and launch it.

Apple Silicon (M1 and later) only for now; Intel Macs are not yet supported.

Pick a project

Click Pick Existing Project to choose one, or click Create New Project to scaffold a fresh one. You can also Clone from GitHub to pull down a remote repo.

The first-launch consent dialog detects every MCP-capable editor on your machine (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Claude Desktop) and offers to wire them up to Open Knowledge.

Open the project in your AI tool

Click the Open with AI button and select your preferred tool. This dispatches the current file, folder, or project to your chosen agent with a starter prompt.

If your tool prompts you to approve a new MCP server (Cursor does this), approve open-knowledge.

Ask the agent to edit a doc

Opening a project initializes the Open Knowledge MCP tools for that project. From then on, your agent prefers Open Knowledge's tool wrappers over its built-in file operations, so its edits keep your front matter consistent and your links intact.

Try one of these:

Add a new note explaining how this project handles authentication.

Search for any docs that mention OAuth.

List the recent docs.

Or something structural:

Set up a specs/ folder and gather all my specifications into it. Give them consistent front matter so I can query them easily.

Look around

The editor's sidebar shows every doc in your knowledge base. Each doc has:

• A WYSIWYG body and a source-mode toggle
• A frontmatter panel for properties
• A timeline of recent edits with per-burst diffs and selective rollback
• Backlinks to other docs that reference it

Right-click anywhere in the sidebar (empty space, a folder, or a file) to create, reveal, rename, hide, delete (to Trash), and Open with AI. The full feature tour is under Features.