Prose

Personal software for the AI era — optional AI that doesn't write for you.

Prose is a free, open-source, distraction-free markdown editor for macOS. Prose is opinionated, while offering you choice. We believe that when it comes to creative work, AI shouldn't write for you. That's why Prose ships with three AI modes: Chat, Editor, and Create. Use Chat Mode to bounce ideas, Editor to fix typos and grammar errors, or rip through the rote stuff at lightning speed with Create Mode.

Don't like AI? Use it as a clean, fast, local-first editor.

Your files stay yours. Your API keys are yours. Your writing stays yours.

---

---

Why Prose

Respectful AI.
AI augments your skills instead of replacing them — find a typo, fix grammar, pressure-test an idea, the way a good editor would. It never touches the page silently.

Free and Open.
Free on the Mac App Store, MIT-licensed on GitHub — the same codebase, every line readable. Prose exists to be useful, not to manufacture dependency.

Privacy First.
No accounts, no analytics, no telemetry. API keys live in the macOS Keychain. Crash reporting is opt-in and off by default.

Local-first, Plain Files.
Your documents are ordinary .md / .txt files. Open them anywhere, back them up anywhere — they'll outlast this app.

Bring your own API Key.
Prose talks to Anthropic directly with your key. No middleman, no markup, no subscription, no training on your words.

---

Features

The Editor

• Distraction-free TipTap / ProseMirror editor with full markdown round-trip
• YAML frontmatter parsed, preserved, and rendered elegantly
• Code-block syntax highlighting, live word / character count, light + dark mode, multiple themes
• Multi-tab editing with session restore and single-click preview
• Autosave with debounce; standard markdown keyboard shortcuts
• Tables you can actually edit — insert one from Edit → Insert Table, then add or remove rows and columns from the hover rails; always saved back as a GFM pipe table

AI Three Ways — All optional, all BYOK

• Chat — Talk through a draft; pressure-test structure and ideas without touching the text
• Editor — A copyeditor that flags typos and grammar issues with suggestions you approve
• Create — Let AI take over for the uncreative, rote, or mechanical work you don't need to do by hand

Review and track every change

• AI edits arrive as inline comments and tracked suggestions — never silent rewrites
• Accept or reject each one individually inline, blast through in Quick Review, or dig in with a thorough side-by-side diff
• A persistent, per-document activity log of every AI edit — with the model that made it and the reason why captured for posterity
• Authorship highlighting marks non-human words, so you always know what you wrote vs. what AI did
• Your document stays clean until you say so

Organize

• Pin Projects and Favorites in the file explorer to keep the documents you live in one click away

MCP server

• Prose ships an MCP server! Connect Claude Desktop once and it can read and edit your active document directly
• Tools: read_document, get_outline, suggest_edit, open_file, create_and_open_file

Sync — OSS builds, opt-in

• reMarkable tablet sync via rmapi-js — handwritten notes → markdown via OCR

---

Getting started

Download — Free Everywhere

Mac App Store → — sandboxed, auto-updating, Keychain credential storage

GitHub Releases → — notarized direct download with auto-update

Both are free, from the same codebase. The only differences are sandbox-related; there's no paid tier and no feature held hostage behind one.

Build from source

Requires Node.js 20+.

git clone https://github.com/solo-ist/prose
cd prose
npm install
npm run dev

To build a distributable:

npm run build:mac

---

Configuration

Prose stores settings at ~/Library/Application Support/Prose/settings.json on macOS, and uses the macOS Keychain (via Electron safeStorage) for API credentials. The legacy ~/.prose/settings.json path is migrated automatically on first launch.

{
  "theme": "dark",
  "llm": {
    "provider": "anthropic",
    "model": "claude-sonnet-5-5"
  },
  "editor": {
    "fontSize": 16,
    "lineHeight": 1.65,
    "fontFamily": "IBM Plex Mono, monospace"
  }
}

---

MCP server

Your editor has an API now.

Prose ships an MCP server, so Claude Desktop can read and edit your active document directly — no copy-paste. Install it from Settings → Integrations → Install MCP Server: Prose copies the server, writes Claude Desktop's config for you, and prompts you to restart Claude Desktop. (OSS / direct builds only — the sandboxed App Store build can't install it.)

Under the hood, that adds an entry like this to claude_desktop_config.json — you don't write it by hand:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "Prose": {
      "command": "/path/to/node",
      "args": ["~/Library/Application Support/Prose/mcp-server/mcp-stdio.cjs"]
    }
  }
}

This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗