A markdown second brain

Your notes already
know each other.

Write in plain markdown. Link with [[double brackets]]. Lattice reads those links and keeps the map of what you know — so structure is something you notice, not something you maintain.

Not on the App Store yet
No price, no account, no card
Mac and iPhone

Coming to Mac and iPhone

Write

Blocks on screen. Markdown underneath.

Headings, checkboxes, quotes and code — the editing surface behaves like a modern editor. What gets stored is plain markdown, which is why you can import a folder of .md files and export back to one.

Link

Two brackets, and it is connected.

Type [[ and every note is offered, fuzzy-matched as you go. If the note does not exist yet you can link to it anyway — useful for referencing an idea before you have thought it through.

See

You never draw the map.

The note you pointed at now lists yours, without you editing it. Unlinked mentions sit below: places you talked about a thing without connecting it. That list is useful and slightly uncomfortable.

Find

And you get it back.

Full text and fuzzy, across the vault, on device, with no network. What you wrote at 2am eight months ago is a few keystrokes away.

9:41

Notes

Legibility 2m

A state can only manage what it can see. #ideas#reading

Seeing Like a State 1h

Makes a population legible to the centre. #reading

Q3 planning 3h

Three things, and the one we keep dropping. #work

What we actually measure Tue

The number is legible, the work is not. #work

Coffee with Maya — 14 Apr Mon

She said the metric had become the goal. #people

Why folders stop working 2d

One place per note is a legibility trap. #ideas

Legibility

A state can only manage what it can see. So it simplifies until the thing fits the form.

Where it shows up

Surnames, cadastral maps, standard time

Re-read chapter 2

Connect this to the metrics note

Came from [[See

Seeing Like a State

Second brain, what it is for

New note “See…”

Legibility

A state can only manage what it can see.

Came from [[Seeing Like a State]]

Linked from — 3

Seeing Like a State

What we actually measure

Why folders stop working

Unlinked mentions — 1

Retro — May

Graph

20 notes · 26 links

All Local Orphans

legible

Legibility

A state can only manage what it can see…

Seeing Like a State

…makes a population legible to the centre…

What we actually measure

…the number is legible, the work is not…

Why folders stop working

…one place per note is a legibility trap…

This is the app, running. Open the menu to move between screens — Graph is worth a look.

On the Mac

All of it at once.

Same vault, same links, one shared Swift core — but a desktop window can show you where a note sits, what else is in the vault, what you are writing and what links back, all in one glance. That is the whole difference, and it is enough of one.

My vault — Legibility

Files

Legibility

A state can only manage what it can see. So it simplifies until the thing fits the form.

Where it shows up

Surnames, cadastral maps, standard time — and every metric a team reports upward.

Came from [[Seeing Like a State]], and it keeps turning up in [[What we actually measure]].

Linked from — 3

Seeing Like a State What we actually measure Why folders stop working

The whole idea

You write notes. It builds the map.

No tagging step, no folder decisions, no weekly tidy-up. The structure is read out of the links you were already writing.

A point per note, a line per link, and the shape they make once there are enough of them. An illustration, not a screenshot. Drag to turn it · hover a note to see what points at it

Join the waitlist

Why not just use what you have

Three shapes, honestly scored.

No product names: those columns would be a claim about someone else's software that you could not check and I could not keep current. These are the three shapes the choice actually takes — and two of the rows do not go our way.

How a folder of markdown files, a cloud notes app, and Lattice compare across seven properties.
	A folder of .md files	A notes app in the cloud	Lattice
The note is plain markdown you can take elsewhere	yes	no	yes
The file on disk IS the note, editable by any other tool Lattice keeps notes in its own store and imports/exports .md. If a folder you can open in vim is the requirement, a folder is the answer.	yes	no	no
Links between notes resolve, and resolve both ways A folder gives you links only if you add a tool that reads them; most cloud notes apps link forward but not back.	partly	partly	yes
A graph you did not have to build	no	no	yes
Search that runs with no network	yes	no	yes
Content encrypted before it leaves the device A plain folder is as encrypted as the disk under it. Cloud apps vary, and most hold the key.	no	partly	yes
Works on a Windows or Linux machine today Mac and iPhone. There is a browser build in the repository, but it is a different codebase and I will not count it here.	yes	yes	no

Why I built it

Two things that were never in the same app.

I wanted notes I could take with me — plain text, no export dance, no format that stops being readable when a company changes direction. And I wanted the links between them to be doing something rather than sitting there as blue words.

Every tool I tried had one and treated the other as a plugin. So Lattice starts from the link: the graph, the backlinks and the search all read the same wikilinks you write while thinking about something else. There is no tagging step, because a structure you have to maintain is a structure you eventually stop maintaining.

It is not finished, it is not in the App Store, and the AI layer that is supposed to be the interesting part is still mostly plumbing. That is written on this page in four places rather than one, because I would rather you decide with the real picture than sign up for a better one.

One person No team, no company, no investors
Mac + iPhone One shared Swift core
No analytics No SDK for it exists in the app
Not shipped yet And this page says so everywhere

Price

There isn't one yet — and that is the honest answer.

Not a launch tease. There is no purchase in the app, no subscription and no App Store record, so any figure printed here would be one nobody could actually be charged. When there is a price, it will appear here, in the terms, and in the structured data in the same commit.

What is in the app

Everything below runs on your device and needs no account, no server and no card.

Unlimited notes, in markdown
[[Wikilinks]], backlinks and unlinked mentions
The knowledge graph, built from your own links
Full-text and fuzzy search
Capture from any app via the share extension
AES-GCM-256 encryption, keys in your Keychain
iCloud sync between your own devices
Import a folder of .md files — and export back to one

What is not settled

The honest half. These are open questions, written as questions.

Whether the AI layer is included or separate — it needs a server, and a server has a monthly bill
Whether sync stays on iCloud (your storage) or moves to ours (our storage, our cost)
Whether there is a one-off price, a subscription, or a free tier under both
Nothing here is a pre-order. The waitlist takes an email address and nothing else.

Joining the waitlist does not reserve a licence, a discount, or a place in a queue. It is a mailing list with one purpose: telling you when there is something to install.
If Lattice never ships, you will have given me an email address and nothing else. No card is taken, because there is nothing to take it for.

Questions

The six people actually ask.

Can I use Lattice today?

No. Lattice is not on the App Store yet and there is no public beta build. The waitlist is the only way in, and it exists so I can tell you the day that changes — not to reserve a licence or take a payment.

Where do my notes actually live?

On your device, in the app’s own store, with iCloud sync between your own devices if you turn it on. The content of every note is plain markdown, and you can import a folder of .md files and export back to one — but Lattice is not a folder of loose files the way Obsidian is. If that distinction matters to you, it should: it is the difference between a database that speaks markdown and a text editor pointed at your disk.

Is any of it encrypted?

Yes, and with named algorithms you can look up rather than a badge: AES-GCM-256 for note content, with keys derived by PBKDF2-SHA256 and held in the system Keychain. The source is LatticeCore/Crypto/LatticeCrypto.swift.

What is the AI actually able to do right now?

Less than the roadmap. The plumbing exists — a vault-chat endpoint, a "related notes" call, an embedding service — but the embedding service is still close to a stub and the backend that answers those calls does not run anywhere public. So in a build you could install today, the AI features would fail quietly. I would rather write that here than let you discover it.

Which devices does it run on?

Mac and iPhone, built from one shared core, plus an iOS share extension for capturing from other apps. There is also a browser version in this repository, but it is a separate codebase with a different feature set — so I do not claim the four platforms are equivalent, because they are not.

What will it cost?

There is no price, and that is a statement about the product rather than a marketing tease. There is no purchase in the app, no subscription, no App Store record and therefore no price tier to publish. Naming a number now would mean naming one I cannot honour.

All 16 questions

One link is where it starts

Write it down. Watch it connect.

Lattice is not released yet. Leave an address and you get one email on the day it is — nothing before, nothing after.

Your notes already know each other.

Blocks on screen. Markdown underneath.

Two brackets, and it is connected.

You never draw the map.

And you get it back.

Legibility

Where it shows up

You write notes. It builds the map.

Two things that were never in the same app.

What is in the app

What is not settled

Write it down. Watch it connect.

Your notes already
know each other.