Kuku is a truly native, local-first markdown editor for macOS — built with Tauri, not Electron. Notes are stored as plainmd files with wikilinks, backlinks, and graph view. Its AI agent doesn’t just chat — it searches, edits, and links your files, with every change shown as Cursor-style diffs you can review. Fast, lightweight, offline-first. No cloud. No lock-in. Obsidian + Cursor, without Electron.
Hey, Product Hunt!
Kuku is a project built by mansuiki and me to explore what a truly native, local-first markdown editor could be.
We like Obsidian, but it’s Electron.
Notion is polished, but cloud-first.
Apple Notes is native, but not markdown.
Kuku is built with Tauri and stores everything as plain .md files on your Mac.
It supports wikilinks, backlinks, and graph view, with an AI agent that actually edits files, not just chat — all changes are shown as reviewable diffs.
Fast, lightweight, offline-friendly.
Designed for people who want native performance and local control.
Congrats! it's niche (macOS-only for now?), and I'd wonder if the AI truly adds value over manual linking or if it hallucinates links in complex vaults. A real-world test on a messy knowledge base would tell. Who's it really for - Obsidian refugees, or broader note-takers?
It feels like the base functionality is buggy. While typing, a trailing space is constantly being deleted (by the auto-save?), leading to garbled input.
Not being to enter a single sentence on first launch makes me stop using this immediately.
Local first is my highest priority recently and Kuku allows me to do so! nice shot!
The "reviewable diffs" concept for AI edits is brilliant - that's the missing piece that makes AI file editing actually trustworthy. How granular can the diffs get? Can it show character-level changes within sentences, or does it work at the paragraph/line level?
I'm using Obsidian now, but i need to change!
I love the feature to make a table easily like notion.
Congrats on the launch! The "Obsidian" 's framing is perfect, diffs idea is a big deal too, I‘ve been using it for ages and love it, is it going to be supporting plugins eventually?
Congrats on the launch! The local-first approach with plain .md files and reviewable AI edits is a strong contrast to cloud-heavy tools. How do you think about conflict handling and versioning when the AI is making direct file edits, especially for users who organize large or highly interlinked knowledge bases?
Love this direction - “native + local-first + plain .md” is such a strong combo.
I’m building in the same offline-first mindset (Chrome extension land), and the trust you get from “your files are your files” is hard to beat. The reversible diffs for AI edits is especially reassuring.
Curious: what’s been the hardest part about doing Obsidian-like linking/graph while keeping everything fast and truly native on macOS?
i love obsidian. would hate to leave the app, but this is making me reconsider that. great work @mansuiki
congrats on the launch! What type of search can it do? Does it have semantic search via embedding?
Local-first note apps often fall apart at the “multi-device reality” stage: what’s your recommended sync/backup story today for Kuku vaults, how do you handle conflicts in practice, and what principles guide whether you’ll build a first-party sync layer versus staying file-system-native?
The Cursor-style diffs for AI edits is the detail that sells me. Actually showing what the AI changed instead of just doing things behind your back-- that's the trust builder. Tauri over Electron is the right call too imo; native performance matters especially for something you keep open all day. Gonna give this a spin..
Obsidian feel without Electron fans spinning? I’m in. Tauri + plain .md + offline hits my brain. The AI doing real edits w/ diffs sounds sane, not chat fluff. I’ll poke at this for my daily notes. Curious how it handles a messy 10k-note vault.
Wow, I was just thinking like two days ago that I'd love a notes app that was like if Obsidian and Cursor had a baby so I'm super excited to try this!
