Loom — Data Storyteller
Find interesting data, turn it into a readable chart, and share it — in your browser, on your phone, or as a macOS app.
▶ Try it: loom.ibm.io — no install. Live earthquakes, flights, Wikipedia edits, crypto, and weather are one click away, or load your own CSVs.
The desktop app (Tauri + DuckDB) adds folder mounting, millions of rows, SQL over CSV/Parquet, and WebGPU scatter. Charts are Vega-Lite specs drawn on Canvas / WebGPU; export PNG, SVG, or a link that reopens the exact chart.
Contributors & AI agents: See DOCS.md for architecture and AGENTS.md for a concise repo map and conventions. Platform support: docs/CAPABILITY_MATRIX.md. Verification gates: docs/DEPLOYMENT_GATES.md.
What it does
On your phone (web)
- A home for your data — Open Data library for My data, Bookmarks, Combinations, and Discover. Keep uploads and useful public sources close without copying them. Search your library, inspect a dataset’s origin, or browse one public catalog at a time. Select two datasets to build a saved lookup combination: choose matching fields, check matched and unmatched rows, and name the result. Combinations read their sources again when opened; charts keep the result from that open. Data stays on-device, and workspace backups include bookmark metadata and recipes. Details and limits.
- Find your next story — ✦ What’s interesting right now considers all 70 chart types across live and open feeds, from distributions and relationships to maps, networks, multivariate glyphs, and 3D views. Picks balance observed signals with variety across topics, sources, and questions. Browse Compare & rank, Over time, Distributions, Relationships, Parts of a whole, Connections, Maps & globes, and Many dimensions. Cards explain what stands out with measured evidence; stronger picks receive more space. Related views stay together in a perspective selector, while different questions and statistics get their own cards. Discover also considers category shapes and meaningful emoji for weather, disaster types, transit modes, and day/night fire observations. Use Emoji & shapes to find them; previews, legends, and shared links preserve their encodings. Search and filter types, time windows, facets, comparisons, and transforms; switch between Flow, Tiles, Masonry, and List. Open the previewed recipe and its exact snapshot, inspect provenance, or refresh for new ideas. Data library → Discover also offers curated packs and demos.
- More of what you like — Tap ♡ on a feed, pack, or story (⋯) to see more of it first in Discover, Data & sources, and search; 🔖 saves it to a Saved group; Less like this and Hide push it down or out (an "N hidden · Show" chip brings it back). Data & sources has one search box plus Topic / Where / Freshness / Saved filters and For you sorting. Manage everything in Settings → Your sources; picks stay on your device and travel in workspace backups.
- Fresh daily, fast to reopen — Picks are saved on your device and reused on recent visits. A new local calendar day triggers a background refresh while Loom is open; existing picks stay usable during updates. Manual Refresh checks again anytime. Chart taps display the saved data immediately and reconnect the feed afterward. Smaller phone type, tucked-away filters, and columns that fit the available width put more charts on screen.
- Stay in the story — Each card shows when its snapshot was checked. While Loom is open and its tab is active, a rotating check refreshes the whole source catalog on each feed’s cadence, with a full discovery scan each day and checks when you return online or to the tab. New data ready counts changed sources and lets you bring in updates without moving the cards you’re reading. Unchanged polls update the check time quietly; recently changed data gets a highlight. Closed apps do not refresh. Related chart perspectives share one card, with readable titles and a view selector. Back to stories keeps your search, filters, layout, and scroll position; browsing preferences survive a reload in the same tab.
- Make it yours — Edit opens a half-height sheet so the chart stays visible while you change encoding or look; ✦ Swipe ideas deals more charts to Keep / Skip. Bars flip horizontal on tall screens so long labels stay readable; taps show tooltips and finger-drags scrub them.
- Share — the Share button renders the chart at Square / Portrait / Story / Wide sizes with feed-sized type, then opens the phone’s share sheet (or saves the image). Get link publishes a chart page that unfurls with a preview image in iMessage, Slack, X, etc. (kept 7 days). Copy chart link (and the address bar in Chart view,
#chart=…) reopens the exact chart — dataset, chart type, encodings, headline, look, and framing; live feeds, demo files, and open-data CSVs reopen on load, local files wait for the recipient to open a file with the same name.
This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗
