Anthracite — Help & User Guide
Dense knowledge, distilled from what you capture.
Anthracite is a free, local-first desktop app that ingests notes from many sources, processes them into a Karpathy-style LLM Wiki, and turns your journals into a prioritized task board. Your vault is plain files on your own disk; nothing is uploaded to a server. (A future Anthracite Cloud will add optional sync and always-on webhooks — none of it is required to use the app.)
This guide documents the app as it ships today. If something here doesn't match what you see, the docs are wrong — please flag it.
Start here
| Guide | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Getting started | Installing the macOS build, first launch, creating/opening a vault |
| Core concepts | The 3-layer model, ANTHRACITE.md (policy), .anthracite/config.json (mechanism), vault layout |
| Capturing content | Every way to get content in: folder-watch, Obsidian, Apple Notes, voice memos, browser clipper, local ingest API, webhook, reMarkable, Notion, Readwise |
| Syncing vaults | BYO iCloud/Dropbox/git sync — what to copy, one-machine-at-a-time rules |
| Working with your knowledge | Wiki, Board, Graph, Ask, Review, Audit |
| Editing ANTHRACITE.md | Policy spine — How I take notes, Notes for the assistant/prioritizer, Board, Languages, Input |
| Settings & local models | Developer settings (ingest token / webhook), Connections, free Ollama one-click install |
| Troubleshooting & FAQ | Backend won't start, Gatekeeper warning, Ollama not detected, port conflicts, where logs/state live |
The 30-second version
Connectors (many) → raw/ (immutable) → process → wiki/ + tasks/
↑
LLM (bring your own, or free local Ollama/MLX)
- Capture — point Anthracite at a folder, an Obsidian vault, your reMarkable, Apple Notes, Notion, Readwise, voice memos, the browser clipper, or POST to the local ingest API. Everything lands as an immutable source.
- Process — Anthracite extracts the text (reading handwriting, transcribing audio, scraping clips), then writes a compressed wiki ("what I know") and a task board ("what I should do").
- Surface — read the Wiki, work the Board, explore the Graph, and Ask questions across everything.
Two ways to run Anthracite
Alpha testers: you have the packaged app. Everything in this guide works from the app's UI — you don't need a terminal.
| Packaged desktop app (the DMG you installed) | Running from source (developers) | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Signed macOS app; the local backend starts automatically inside it | The repo checkout, started with pnpm dev |
| CLI | No anthracite CLI is included. Vaults, processing, settings — all via the UI |
anthracite CLI available (init, vault, serve, …) |
| Backend port | A private port chosen at launch — copy the exact URL from Settings → Developer | Fixed 127.0.0.1:5050 |
Wherever this guide shows an anthracite … command or a 127.0.0.1:5050 URL,
that's the from-source path; as an alpha tester, use the equivalent UI action
and the URL shown in Settings → Developer instead.
Other docs
- PLAN.md — product vision and roadmap
- docs/PACKAGING.md — how the desktop app is built/packaged (for builders)
- docs/CONCEPT.md — the 3-layer compiler model in depth
- docs/INGEST.md — the full connector taxonomy
- docs/ARCHITECTURE.md — technical architecture
What's not here yet
These are intentionally not shipped and documented as "coming later":
- Auto-update — signed/notarized DMG ships today; in-app auto-update is a later step.
- Windows / Linux builds — macOS (Apple Silicon) only for now.
- Anthracite Cloud — hosted sync and always-on remote webhooks. Today
everything runs locally on
127.0.0.1.