Writing
Blog
Everything Brainstorm publishes, in one timeline — design decisions, retrospectives, every release, and the demo videos.
July 2026
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Writing and installing a real app inside Brainstorm
A manifest, an entry page, and an install — an app written in Brainstorm's own code editor and installed into the vault without leaving the shell or opening a terminal.
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An app can be two files
The whole platform contract is a manifest and an entry page, so you can extend your own workspace with a tool nobody else would ever build, typed by hand in the code editor or described to the agent and approved into your vault.
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Brainstorm 0.11.1
The most-requested whiteboard feature: grab a corner and resize sticky notes, shapes, images — anything. Plus code that's finally readable in dark mode, and a polish pass across six apps.
- Resize anything on the whiteboard — drag any corner or edge; edges snap to neighbours, Shift locks the aspect ratio, one Undo restores the old size, Alt+Arrows resizes from the keyboard.
- Code, readable in the dark — the Code editor and code blocks in Notes, Journal, and Tasks now follow the app's theme (and re-tint live when you switch), instead of guessing from the OS.
- Database numbers line up — numeric columns right-align from header to footer SUM, like a spreadsheet should.
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Brainstorm 0.11.0
Attachments now follow you across devices — thumbnails instantly, full files on demand. Plus sync over your local network with no server, a reader mode in the Browser, app badges, and every app in five languages.
- Attachments sync — images and files attached to your notes now travel with your vault. Thumbnails are always synced so previews appear instantly; the full file downloads the moment you open it.
- Local-network sync (early) — two devices on the same Wi-Fi sync directly, no server involved. Opt-in under Settings → Sync, end-to-end encrypted, only your signed devices can connect.
- Reader mode — the Web Browser strips a page to a clean article (Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+R), and Save to vault now captures the readable content, not just the link.
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Attachments that follow your vault
Files attached to your notes and entities now travel between your devices, with thumbnails always synced and full files fetched when you open them, and the encryption nests so sharing and revoking access come along for free.
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Brainstorm 0.10.1
Your automations can now write down what they figure out — set a task's priority to the AI's answer, straight from the builder. Plus every menu lines up, and the widget Size menu tells the truth.
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Brainstorm 0.10.0
Design your own forms and layouts — fields, sections and page elements, arranged how you want and rendered live. Plus a browser your automations can read, Notion import without an export file, and an agent that can propose a whole database.
- Sections and page elements — the form designer no longer builds only fields. Group related fields into a section, and drop in real page elements — all from the same add button.
- Arrange it your way — a new grid mode lays fields out side by side instead of one per row, and what you build is what you get: the form you fill in renders through the same layout you designed.
- Summarize this page — ask the browser for the gist of whatever you're reading, right from its ⋯ menu. The summary says where it came from — it's a summary, not the page.
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Brainstorm 0.9.1
Work with the agent: it drafts real objects into your vault — a note, task, event, bookmark, or contact — and you approve what to keep. Plus same-network sync, four new languages, and Notion import.
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Brainstorm 0.9.0
Your agent now builds real things with you — propose a note, task, event, bookmark, or contact right in chat, and approve what you want to keep. Plus same-network sync, four new languages, and Notion import.
- Agent — ask in chat and it drafts real notes, tasks, events, bookmarks, and contacts as cards; edit a field, approve what's right, discard the rest. Nothing is written until you approve it.
- LAN sync — two devices on the same network share a vault directly, with no relay server in between.
- Languages — the shell and every built-in app now speak French, German, Italian, and Portuguese, alongside English and Spanish.
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What the agent can put in your vault
The assistant now drafts real notes, tasks, events, bookmarks and contacts as cards you edit and approve, which makes it safe to ask it for broad, messy work instead of one careful thing at a time.
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Brainstorm Notes in 100 seconds
Blocks, properties, mentions, backlinks and the slash menu — the Notes app doing a full pass over what a note is in Brainstorm, at speed.
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Brainstorm 0.8.1
Your mail reaches Gmail, Microsoft 365, and Fastmail, and your automations react to the outside world — an incoming webhook, a file changing on disk, or the app starting up.
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Your mail accounts, and workflows that start from outside
Connect Gmail, Microsoft 365 or Fastmail over the protocol each provider actually speaks, then give a workflow three new ways to start: an incoming webhook, a file changing on disk, or the app launching.
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When an email can start a workflow
Mail lands in your vault as a typed object, so an automation can trigger on it, an AI step can read it and branch, and every attachment becomes a file you can search, link and reuse anywhere else.
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Brainstorm 0.7.0
Your inbox starts working for you: email triggers automations with an AI-triage step, attachments become real files you can search and link, and the assistant drafts replies straight into your composer.
- Mailbox — a new email can fire an automation, with an AI-triage step that reads the message and decides what to do.
- Mailbox — attachments become first-class File entities you can search, link, and reuse; the reading pane shows attachment chips you open in place.
- Mailbox — reply and forward preserve the original's formatting with HTML-aware quoting.
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Brainstorm in 84 seconds
The product tour — a vault on your own disk, a dashboard of sandboxed apps, and the permission sheet that stands between an app and your data.
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Brainstorm 0.6.0
Your whole mail history: load older mail on demand — the synced window extends in place, page by page — and fix a broken account without removing it.
- Mailbox — Load older mail walks every folder deeper into history, past your sync window; your position is remembered, all the way back to your oldest message.
- Mailbox — big mailboxes render in pages, so thousands of messages stay fast.
- Mailbox — Reconnect opens pre-filled with the account's stored settings: type the new password and keep everything already synced; the sidebar menu gains Edit connection.
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Brainstorm 0.5.4
Mailbox grows up: rich HTML compose, accounts you can see and manage, working remote images, your choice of sync history — and the built-in Browser stops tripping login anti-bot walls.
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Brainstorm 0.5.3
Imports made whole: the Anytype import lands every file — pasted screenshots included, none swapped — plus fixed gallery tiles, self-healing note titles, readable menus, and friendlier IMAP setup.
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Brainstorm 0.5.2
Brainstorm drops the pink: Default Light and Default Dark are the new out-of-box themes, with a violet-indigo app icon, a fresh default wallpaper, and a matching welcome screen.
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Brainstorm 0.5.1
Anytype imports now bring the actual files into your documents — and Database learns rollups, the Agent can write into notes, and every drag has a keyboard twin.
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Brainstorm 0.5.0
Bring your whole Anytype space with you — pages, properties, tags, collections and links arrive as native objects — and Brainstorm now finds its own updates and offers them as a click.
- Anytype import — pages arrive with their full editor structure, original dates, properties and tags; collections become Lists; re-importing updates instead of duplicating.
- Automatic update checks — Brainstorm tells you when a new version is ready and updates in two clicks.
- Contacts merge — duplicate people become one card, reversibly.
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Brainstorm 0.4.6
A patch release: editors outside Notes get their styles back, the Files grid stops overlapping tiles, reminders open what they are about, and four apps get shorter names.
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Brainstorm 0.4.5
Beta usage analytics can talk to Amplitude again, using one anonymous install id and without sending vault ids or other identity.
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Brainstorm 0.4.4
Fixes the Files and Graph typecheck failures that kept CI red since 0.4.3, and caps Rust parallel jobs on release runners so arm64 packaging no longer OOMs mid-build.
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Brainstorm 0.4.2
Graph now shows live collaborator cursors and selection rings on shared boards; Database joins the presence fleet. Twelve apps ship Spanish UI overlays when you switch language in Settings.
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Brainstorm 0.4.1
Live presence avatars now show in Tasks, Chat, Journal, Calendar events, Graph, Code editor, Preview, and Books — plus browser tab fixes and Settings polish.
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Brainstorm 0.4.0
Live presence — when you share a board or a note, you now see your collaborators' cursors and avatars in real time. Plus a per-site trust switch for the in-app browser and an instant light/dark shell.
- Live presence — everyone on a shared whiteboard sees each other's cursors and selection move live across devices, and a note's header shows an avatar stack of who else is viewing it. It's display-only and end-to-end encrypted like everything else.
- Browser trusted sites — a per-site trust switch (Settings → Privacy) lets login-gated sites like x.com work normally, while every other site keeps the strict tracker- and cookie-blocking default.
- Appearance — the shell now flips light/dark in lockstep with your open apps, instead of lagging a beat behind.
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Brainstorm 0.3.1
A task or event reminder now fires even if the app wasn't running when it came due — it catches up the next time you open Brainstorm. Plus a fix for list numbers going missing in composers.
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Brainstorm 0.3.0
Removing someone really removes them: when you take a collaborator off a shared note, page, or channel, they can no longer read anything you write afterward — access removal is now enforced by encryption, not just policy. Plus a PDF crash fix.
- Forward-secret revocation — when you remove someone from a shared item, its encryption key is rotated and re-sealed for the people who remain. The removed person keeps only the old key, so every edit you make after they're removed is unreadable to them, even if their app is still connected.
- Works offline — remove someone while you're offline and the key rotation is queued, then completes automatically the moment you reconnect.
- What they already saw, they keep — like every honest end-to-end encrypted system, removal is forward-looking: it stops future access, it can't un-send what already synced to their device.
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Brainstorm 0.2.1
Small fixes on the back of the sharing release: your own name shows up instead of "Anonymous", a couple of rough edges smoothed, and a fix for a harmless console error in Tasks.
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Brainstorm 0.1.9
A quality release: task and calendar reminders now fire even when the app is closed, duplicate alerts are gone, synced attachments can be cleaned up server-side, and every known dependency vulnerability is patched.
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Brainstorm 0.2.0
Invite teammates to any note or collection, give them Editor or Viewer access, and edit together — changes sync live, end-to-end encrypted, with the relay never seeing your content. Viewers are now truly read-only.
- Share any note or collection from its ⋯ menu — add a teammate by their invite code or by name, and see everyone with access at a glance.
- Roles — grant Editor (can change) or Viewer (read-only) access, and revoke it any time. A Viewer's edits are now blocked at the data layer, not just hidden — so read-only means read-only.
- Live editing — once shared, edits flow both ways in real time, converging cleanly even after you've both been offline.
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Brainstorm 0.1.8
Semantic search arrives — an on-device model finds your notes by meaning, not just keywords. Plus a background-activity center, six new dashboard widgets, a richer chat composer with @-mentions, and editor templates.
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Brainstorm 0.1.7
A fixes release for the public beta — status and select cells now edit as a type-or-pick list, the calendar and preview render cleanly, chat messages stay out of the file browsers, and the assistant shows real titles instead of internal ids.
June 2026
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Brainstorm 0.1.6
A polish release for the public beta — the PDF viewer now fits the page on open, text fields and buttons line up on one control scale across apps, and the entity inspector reads as a tidy property sheet.
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Brainstorm 0.1.5
The first public beta of Brainstorm — a local-first desktop where your apps, your files, and your AI all run on your own machine, with optional end-to-end encrypted sync across devices.
May 2026
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Why Brainstorm is a shell, not an editor
The shell knows how to host apps and nothing about what they mean, which is what lets you install only the tools you want, remove them without migrations, and run two apps over the same data without either of them owning it.