A friend told me he wanted somewhere to journal that never saved. The more he explained why, the more it stuck with me. How much we instinctively rewrite while we're still writing. How hard it is not to.

So I built this.

Type is one sheet of paper. You type, and what you typed is locked. No backspace into committed lines, no edit. When you're done, you keep it (saves as plain markdown, wherever you point it) or you burn it. Gone. No trash. No undo.

You can arrow back up and X out, like we used to when things were analog. The text stays on the page, just struck through.

It's yours. 100% private

Everything stays on your machine. Nothing syncs anywhere, nothing leaves your computer. No account, no server, no telemetry. What you write is yours, and only yours. If you keep a page, it goes into a folder you choose. If you burn it, no one ever sees it.

Dispatch

I kept my grandfather's WWII records. Dispatches, field notes, the paperwork of a time when writing was something you did once, on a typewriter, on a sheet you couldn't take back. There's a clarity to that. Type tries to bring a little of it back. One of the themes is named after it.

What it's good for

• Morning pages. Three pages, before the day starts, without thinking.
• A distraction-free place to take notes when you just need to write something down.
• Getting a thought out of your head so you can move on with the rest of your work.
• Drafts you fully expect to throw away. The first ugly 80% that has to exist before the good version can.
• A quick journal entry you don't want to overthink.
• Talking to yourself about something hard.
• Practicing being a worse writer, on purpose, so you can become a better one.

What it isn't

• A word processor. No formatting, no images, no folders.
• A note-taking app. No library, no tags, no search.
• A productivity tool. No streak, no goal, no metric tracking you.

Pairs well with Obsidian

Pages save as plain markdown. Point the save folder at your vault and they're already part of your notes. Edit them later if you want, tag them, link them, whatever. Type is where the writing happens. Obsidian is where the keeping happens.

Quotes

I've collected quotes over the years that inspired me, made me think, or stuck with me in some way. Type shows one once in a while, on startup or after you burn a page. Maybe they'll do the same for you.

Kelly

Source on GitHub.