Notes that live
where you put
them.
Capture thoughts spatially. Arrange ideas freely. Export to anything.
Kern is a local-first, privacy-respecting, AI-native canvas for the way you actually think — non-linear, half-finished, sometimes brilliant, often sticky.
Built like the kind of tool
we wish already existed.
- 01
Local-first
Your data lives on your machine. Always. Sync is a feature, not a prerequisite.
- 02
Open format
.kern files are plain JSON — readable without the app, portable to anything you build next.
- 03
Privacy-respecting
No telemetry. No accounts. No funnel. The app doesn't phone home and never will.
- 04
Bring your own AI
Plug in your own API key. Models become canvas participants — not a chatbot sidebar.
- 05
Great exports
PDF, Markdown, JSON, HTML. Flatten a canvas into a document, or take the raw graph with you.
- 06
No lock-in
The door is always open. Your canvas is JSON, your exports are clean, your data leaves with you.
Your data lives on your machine. Always.— a promise, not a feature
A small stack of
excellent pieces.
A small stack, chosen carefully. Kern is closed source — but the file format isn't. Every canvas is plain JSON; every export is clean. If you ever leave, you leave with everything.
In development. Quietly.
Kern is closed source. There's no GitHub, no public roadmap, no build-in-public thread. Just a small thing, made carefully — shipping when it's good. Your data, your exports, your machine. That part won't change.