Skein v1.1.0
Everything in the box
Skein has no plugin system. Every feature below is in the app when you download it, works offline, and writes plain Markdown to a folder you chose. Where a comparable Obsidian plugin exists it is named, with its install count, because that number is the honest measure of whether the feature was worth building.
Writing
Plain Markdown files in a folder you chose. Nothing is stored anywhere else, and nothing is stored in a format only Skein can read.
Markdown editor
Syntax hidden as you type, so a heading looks like a heading without the hash disappearing from the file.
Reading mode
The same note rendered: headings, tables, callouts, images and clickable links. One key to switch.
Table editor
Tab to the next cell, Shift-Tab back, Return for a new row. Columns line themselves up as you type, and the file stays an ordinary pipe table.
Obsidian: Advanced Tables, 3.1M installs.
Callouts
All thirteen types, with folding. Note, tip, warning, danger, question and the rest.
Obsidian: Admonition, 946k installs, later absorbed into core.
Templates
Ordinary notes in a templates folder, with dates, the note's own title, a cursor position, and questions the template asks when you use it.
Obsidian: Templater, 4.7M installs.
Quick capture
Option-Command-Space from any app. Type a line, press Return, it lands at the end of today's note. You are not taken anywhere.
Obsidian: QuickAdd, 1.9M installs.
Connecting
The point of a knowledge manager is what sits between the notes, not the notes themselves.
Canvas
An infinite board. Cards, notes from your vault, links and groups, joined by labelled arrows. Saved as JSON Canvas, the same open format Obsidian writes.
The same file opens in either app.
Wikilinks and backlinks
Type [[ and complete. Every note knows what points at it, and renaming a note fixes every link to it.
Local graph
The neighbourhood around the note you are reading, not a hairball of the whole vault. Parents, siblings and children inferred from folders, links and headings.
Tags
Inline or in frontmatter, renameable across the whole vault in one action.
Obsidian: Tag Wrangler, 990k installs.
Finding
A vault you cannot search is a folder.
Live queries
A fenced block that asks a question of your vault and renders the answer as a list, table, board or calendar. Filter by folder, tag, property or date; sort and limit.
Obsidian: Dataview, Tasks, Kanban and Calendar - 13.9M installs between them.
Full-text search
Ranked results across every note, with the matching line shown.
Quick switcher
Command-O, type a few letters, press Return.
Command palette
Command-P for everything else.
Properties
YAML frontmatter shown as a table you can edit, and read back by every query you write.
Spotlight
Your notes are indexed by macOS, so they turn up in system search too.
Keeping
Your notes should outlive the app that made them, including this one.
Version history
Every save snapshotted, with a diff and one-click restore. Stored outside your vault so it never clutters the folder.
Export
A single self-contained HTML file, a PDF, or the Markdown itself. No Skein-specific syntax survives an export, because there is none.
Import from Notion
Point it at an unzipped export. Ids stripped from filenames, internal links rewritten as wikilinks, databases turned into tables, page properties turned into frontmatter.
Obsidian: Importer, 1.45M installs.
Your files, always
Ordinary .md files. Open them in TextEdit, edit them in another app while Skein is running, keep them in git. Skein notices and reloads.
What Skein does not do
The honest half, because a features page that only lists wins is an advertisement.
No sync
Put your vault in iCloud Drive or Dropbox and it syncs like any other folder, but there is no Skein sync service and no plan for one.
No mobile app
Mac only.
No plugins
If a feature is not on this page, you cannot add it. That is the trade this app makes deliberately, and it is not the right trade for everyone.
No AI
Nothing in Skein sends your notes anywhere, because nothing in Skein talks to a network at all.
No drawing or handwriting
The canvas holds cards and links, not sketches.
Platform
All of it, in one download.
10.4 MB· macOS 14+ · No account, no subscription
Get SkeinThe help page explains how to use all of it, and this post argues for why it is built this way.