Introducing ink: A Minimalist Markdown Writing App That Lives in Your Browser

ink is a free, open-source, single-file webapp for distraction-free markdown writing and note management — no install required.
productivity
tools
markdown
open-source
Author

Federico Viscioletti

Published

March 21, 2026

Note

Recipe for frictionless writing

Reading time: 3 minutes
Ingredients: 1 open browser, 1 local folder, zero distractions
Difficulty: 🔴⚪⚪⚪⚪

Suggested musical pairing:
A quiet lo-fi or ambient track with no vocals — something that stays in the background and lets the words do the work.

Complexity drill-down:

  • 🔴 Open the link
  • ⚪ Understand what ink does
  • ⚪ Picture how it fits your own workflow
  • ⚪ Realize your files stay yours
  • ⚪ Reward: a writing app that gets out of the way

There’s a particular kind of frustration that comes from reaching for a writing tool and finding yourself distracted — by a cluttered interface, a subscription paywall, or a syncing service you didn’t ask for. ink is my answer to that frustration: a free, open-source, minimalist markdown writing app that runs entirely in your browser, with no account, no cloud, and no noise.

What Is ink?

ink is a single-page webapp built for writing and managing documents in Markdown. You open it, you write. Your files are saved to a local workspace on your own machine using the browser’s native File System Access API, which means your notes never leave your device unless you choose to export them.

The entire application ships as a single HTML file — ink-app.html — with all styles and scripts embedded inline. There’s nothing to install, no server to maintain, and no dependencies to update on your end. You can even download the file and run it offline, if you wish so.

Why I Built It

Most writing apps fall into one of two traps: they’re either too powerful (and thus too complex), or they’re too simple (and miss features you actually need). ink sits in the space between — functional without being bloated, minimal without being crippled.

Core Features

  • Workspace-based organisation — open a local folder as your workspace and browse all your .md files in a sidebar tree
  • Markdown writing — a focused editor with clean, readable typography
  • Tag/frontmatter support — notes support YAML frontmatter tags, parsed and indexed automatically
  • Export options — export the current note as Markdown, or export all notes at once as a single JSON bundle
  • Keyboard-first workflow — everything has a shortcut:
Action Shortcut
New note Ctrl/Cmd + E
Open workspace Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + O
Save note Ctrl/Cmd + S
Refresh workspace Ctrl/Cmd + L
Export as Markdown Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + M
Export all as JSON Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + S

How It Works Under the Hood

For the technically curious: ink is written in TypeScript and built with esbuild and SASS, assembled into a single self-contained HTML file. The source is modular — feature responsibilities are split cleanly across app-controller, ui-events, workspace-io, tree-render, dom, fs-api, and types. The project is fully tested, with both QUnit unit tests and Cypress end-to-end tests covering the core writing workflow.

The use of the File System Access API is a deliberate choice: it bridges the gap between a native app and a web app. You pick a real folder on your disk, ink reads and writes real files, and those files are yours — readable by any text editor, version-controllable with Git, and portable to any other tool.

Who Is It For?

ink is ideal if you:

  • Take notes in plain Markdown and want a lightweight home for them
  • Prefer working with local files rather than a cloud service
  • Value keyboard shortcuts and a fast, snappy interface
  • Want an app you can inspect, fork, and self-host freely
  • Simply want to write without being sold something

It’s a good fit for developers, writers, researchers, and anyone who thinks their notes should be stored in .md files they actually own.

Try It Now

Head to viscioletti.com/ink to open the app directly in your browser — no sign-up needed. The source code is available and open at github.com/feddernico/ink under the MIT licence. Contributions and feedback are very welcome.

Would You Like To Contribute?

ink is an open project, and if it turns out to be useful for your own writing or note-taking, I’d love for you to help make it better. Whether that means reporting a bug, suggesting a feature, improving the documentation, refining the design, or opening a pull request, every contribution is welcome. And if you simply want to support the project and encourage its continued development, that support means a great deal too — the best open-source tools grow because people find them valuable enough to use, share, and improve together.