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What local-first means for your writing

In 2019, Ink & Switch argued that the copy of your work on your own device should be the primary one. Here is what they actually proposed, and what WriteFlow does with it.

920four · October 12, 2026 · 3 min read

"Local-first" gets used as a sticker. The essay that gave the phrase its current meaning is specific. In April 2019, Martin Kleppmann, Adam Wiggins, Peter van Hardenberg, and Mark McGranaghan published "Local-first software: you own your data, in spite of the cloud" with Ink & Switch. The same piece appears in the proceedings of Onward! 2019.

Their complaint about cloud apps is not that servers exist. It is about which copy counts. In a typical cloud app, the server holds the primary copy. The file on your laptop is a cache. If the server does not receive the change, the change did not happen. If the service shuts down, the software stops functioning, and the data created with it can go with the service.

Local-first software, as they define it, swaps that order. The copy on your own device is the primary copy. Servers can still hold secondary copies so you can reach the work from another device. The network helps. It is not the source of truth.

The seven ideals

The essay lists seven ideals. These are goals, not a checklist a product can stamp "done":

  1. No spinners: your work at your fingertips.
  2. Your work is not trapped on one device.
  3. The network is optional.
  4. Seamless collaboration with your colleagues.
  5. The Long Now.
  6. Security and privacy by default.
  7. You retain ultimate ownership and control.

They also argue that conflict-free replicated data types (CRDTs) are a promising foundation for software that is multi-user and still fundamentally local. Ink & Switch's own library, Automerge, came out of that work. The essay is honest that their prototypes did not fully realize the ideals.

What WriteFlow actually does

WriteFlow takes the primary-copy idea literally for a single writer, and it does not pretend to be the whole manifesto.

Your notes are saved in the browser, in IndexedDB, on the device you are using. You can write without an account. Nothing is sent to a server unless you sign in and turn sync on. That is ideal 3 in practice: the network is optional for the act of writing. It is also the part of ideal 7 we can stand behind today. You can export, and you can delete. The privacy notes describe the boundary in more detail, including what a sync request is allowed to read.

Optional sync is a secondary copy in the sense the essay describes. It exists so a note started on your phone can continue on your laptop. It is not a real-time collaborative editor, and it is not a CRDT. We do not claim seamless collaboration (ideal 4). We do not claim the Long Now (ideal 5), which is about your files still opening decades after the company that made the app is gone. A private Postgres database is not that archive. Owning an export of your writing is closer to it than a feed you cannot download, and it is still not the ideal as written.

"No spinners" (ideal 1) is the part you can feel. The page does not wait on a server to show you the sentence you just typed. The words are already on the machine in your hands.

Why the distinction matters

A writing app that calls itself local-first while refusing to open unless it can reach a login server is using the word as marketing. The essay's test is simpler. Where is the primary copy, and can you keep working when the network is not there?

If you want the argument from the people who made it, read the essay. It is free, and the citation they ask for is printed at the top.

Sources

Related: attention residue, and why the page should stay quiet.