A note-taker for people who write for a living

A quiet place for
the thoughts that matter.

Kairos is a small, keyboard-first note-taker. It doesn't sync to twelve platforms, doesn't sell you a database, and doesn't ask what your weekly goals are. It just opens, quickly.

Download for Mac · free Read the manifesto

// What it is

A small list of deliberate features, not a long list of reasonable ones.

01 / Open in 40ms

Faster than your memory.

Cold start in under 40 milliseconds on a five-year-old laptop. Because if it's slow, you won't write in it.

02 / Plain markdown

Text files, forever.

Every note is a .md file on disk. No proprietary database, no lock-in, no panic if we close the company next year.

03 / Command palette

Eleven keys and a cursor.

Every action lives behind cmd+k. If you can name it, you can do it. If you can't name it, it probably shouldn't exist.

04 / No AI suggestions

Deliberately empty.

We do not autocomplete your sentences. We do not summarise. The cursor is yours. Your thoughts are yours.

05 / Focus mode

One paragraph, one moment.

Dim everything except the line you are writing. Ten-year-old idea, still good. Toggle with one keystroke.

06 / Exports that fit

Markdown, PDF, pages.

Clean HTML, archival PDF, or a single-page website if you need one. No "export as JSON" — we don't think you'd use it.

// How we think

Six principles we refuse to break, even when asked politely.

01: If the feature would take more than one sentence to explain to a friend, it does not ship.
02: The empty state is the most important screen in the application.
03: Every pixel answers for its presence. Every animation answers for its duration.
04: We charge money so we don't have to sell your data, your attention, or your anxiety.
05: We reply to every email within twenty-four hours, because our customers pay us to.
06: Silence is a feature. We are measured by what we leave out.

A quiet place forthe thoughts that matter.