Linetta

A calm, local-first writing studio for long-form fiction

Plan your story, keep your world consistent, write scene by scene, and work with an optional AI companion — without giving up control of your manuscript.

Mac App Store · Download for Windows or Linux · Report an issue

English · 한국어 · 日本語

One workspace for the whole story

Linetta is made for novelists and web-fiction writers who want their manuscript, outline, characters, places, relationships, and research close at hand — without turning writing into project management.

• Write with focus. Work scene by scene in a quiet editor with your outline always within reach.
• Keep the story consistent. Organize characters, places, relationships, storylines, beats, summaries, and memories beside the manuscript.
• Stay in control of AI. Ask the optional companion to read the current scene or the whole work. It can suggest drafts and structured changes, but you decide what gets applied.
• Keep your work local. Projects live in a local SQLite database with version snapshots and daily backups. No Linetta account or mandatory cloud is required.
• Move your manuscript freely. Import and export Markdown, and optionally sync exported work through Git.

See Linetta in action

Build with context	Research without leaving the scene
The companion can use your manuscript and story structure to offer continuations, revisions, and proposals.	Fact Book keeps source-backed notes next to the writing that needs them.

Your projects stay organized in a library built for multiple works:

Get Linetta

Mac App Store

Linetta is free on the Mac App Store.

Homebrew on Apple Silicon

The direct macOS build is signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple.

brew install --cask devlikebear/tap/linetta

Upgrade an existing Homebrew installation with:

brew update
brew reinstall --cask linetta

Windows and Linux

Every GitHub release includes Windows NSIS and MSI installers plus Linux AppImage, .deb, and .rpm packages.

Intel Mac users can build from source.

AI is optional

Linetta is a complete writing app without AI. If you choose to connect a supported provider, credentials are stored locally and manuscript text is sent only when you make an AI request.

The Cmd/Ctrl+J companion can:

• discuss the current scene or the whole work;
• suggest continuations and rewrites;
• inspect story context with built-in read tools;
• propose structured updates to scenes, outlines, characters, relationships, places, summaries, and memories;
• search or fetch web sources when you explicitly configure and use those tools.

Changes follow a propose → review → apply flow so the writer remains the final editor.

Data and safety

Linetta stores writing data on your device:

macOS    ~/Library/Application Support/com.devlikebear.linetta
Linux    ${XDG_DATA_HOME:-~/.local/share}/com.devlikebear.linetta
Windows  %APPDATA%\com.devlikebear.linetta

Important data includes:

• library.db: projects, scenes, story data, and version snapshots;
• backups/YYYY-MM-DD/: daily database backups, kept for 14 days;
• companion/: local companion transcripts and memories;
• settings.json: app preferences and provider configuration.

Manual and AI-replace snapshots are retained indefinitely. Autosave snapshots are thinned over time, from every save during the first day to daily snapshots after 30 days.

Frequently asked questions

Does Linetta require an account or subscription?

No. Writing, organization, import/export, snapshots, and backups work without a Linetta account or subscription.

Do I have to use AI?

No. AI features are optional and remain inactive until you connect a provider.

Can I bring an existing manuscript?

Yes. Linetta supports Markdown import and export so your writing is not locked into the app.

Is my work uploaded to a Linetta cloud?

No. Linetta has no mandatory cloud. Optional AI and Git features communicate only with services you configure and invoke.

For contributors

Linetta uses a Tauri 2 Rust shell, React 18, Vite, TypeScript, an embedded Go engine, and SQLite. The shell and engine communicate through JSON-RPC envelopes across a C ABI.

See the development guide for architecture notes, versioning, mobile build targets, CI workflows, and troubleshooting.

Build from source

Install the desktop dependencies once:

cd apps/desktop
pnpm install

Start the desktop app:

make dev

Build a desktop release for the current operating system:

make build-desktop

Build the standalone JSON-RPC engine for debugging:

make build-engine

Verification

Run the full local gate:

make test

Useful focused checks:

make test-go
make test-desktop
make test-tauri
make test-mobile-engine

make test runs the Go test suite, frontend Vitest tests, the Vite production build, and Rust cargo check.

Mobile engine development

The repository also builds the embedded engine for iOS and Android. These targets are intended for contributors working on the mobile runtime:

make build-mobile-engine-ios
make build-mobile-engine-android

The iOS target requires Xcode's iOS SDK. The Android target requires ANDROID_NDK_HOME.

Contributing and feedback

Linetta is in active development. Bug reports, writing-workflow feedback, localization fixes, and focused pull requests are welcome through GitHub Issues.

If you are a novelist trying Linetta on a real project, feedback about where the app helps or interrupts your flow is especially valuable.

License

Linetta is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License version 3 only (AGPL-3.0-only). See LICENSE and LICENSE-NOTICE.md for details, including commercial licensing options.