the lab
●area

Local-First Software

Software where your data lives on your devices first, the network is an asset rather than a master, and collaboration is offline-capable by default.

The premise: cloud-only software has quietly made us tenants of our own work. Local-first inverts the relationship — the canonical copy of a document is on the user’s machine, the network exists to sync, and nothing breaks when the connection does.

I keep returning to this because it sits at the seam of three things I care about: durability of personal artifacts, performance as felt by the user, and collaboration that doesn’t require a vendor’s permission.

Threads

  • note

    Sync architecture sketch

    Working notes on the sync layer. SQLite + a tiny relay; CRDT on top; end-to-end encrypted.
  • question

    Should the seam fade?

    After a merge becomes visible, when (if ever) does the visible seam disappear?
  • post

    Merge conflicts as design

    Most CRDT writeups stop where the design problem starts — what does the merged document look like to a human?
  • project

    Locust

    A small offline-first reading client that syncs across devices via CRDTs — a testing ground for ideas in Local-First Software.