Lore, in a window.
The same application as the browser version, with a native folder picker and no terminal. It runs a local server on your own machine and talks to nothing else — the desktop build is a window onto 127.0.0.1, not a client for a service.
Nothing to install
Lore can open your markdown folder straight from a browser tab, reading it off your disk with nothing uploaded. Read-only, no account, and it works today in Chrome, Edge, Arc and Brave. The download below adds the watcher, page history, the MCP server your agents connect to, local AI, and phone access.
Open your wiki in the browser
Or run it from source
Lore is a web app that runs on your own machine, so you can skip the installer and use it in the browser you already have. The desktop build exists for the folder picker and the dock icon, not for any capability the browser version lacks — on macOS the picker works in a browser tab too.
git clone https://github.com/markksantos/lore.gitcd lorenpm installnpm run dev
About the security warning
Whatever you build is unsigned, and your operating system will say so. That warning means nobody paid to have the binary notarised — it is not a judgement about the code, and it is worth knowing the difference before you click through it.
- macOS refuses it on first launch. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security and choose Open Anyway.
- Windows shows a SmartScreen panel. More info → Run anyway.
- Linux needs the AppImage marked executable —
chmod +x Lore-*.AppImage.
If that trade is not one you want to make, run it from source instead. You get to read every line first, which is the stronger guarantee anyway.
What you need
- A folder of markdown. An Obsidian vault, a
notes/directory, anything — Lore reads it in place and never reorganises it. - Node 20.9 or newer, to run from source. The desktop build bundles its own runtime and needs nothing installed.
- No account, no database, no API key. There is nothing to sign up for because there is nowhere to sign up to.
What it never does
- Upload your wiki, or any part of it, anywhere.
- Listen on anything but loopback.
- Move, rename or reformat your files. The one file it can add is
AGENTS.md, fenced so anything you wrote in it is preserved. - Keep state inside your vault. Config, journal and the verification ledger all live in
~/.lore, so agit diffof your notes stays clean.