Handwriting notes for developers
Write it by hand. Ask it like text.
Write debugging sessions and design discussions by hand on pages of ruled paper and Grape reads the words off the page on the device itself, so a page of a pile of runbooks and notes in your own hand turns up in search like any typed note and the agent can quote it.
Lined, grid, dotted, graph or plain pages, A4 or Letter, up to a hundred of them
Handwriting read into text on the device, so pages are searchable and the agent can read them
Import a PDF to write over it, export the notebook as one
The same pages open on the desk, where you can keep writing on them
Paper that behaves like paper
Pen, highlighter, eraser, shapes and text boxes on pages that stack the way a notebook does.
Your handwriting, searchable
The words are read off the page on the device itself, and nothing leaves it to do so.
The agent reads your pages
Ask what the lecture said on Tuesday and the answer comes from the ink.
Write on the slides
Import a PDF and annotate it page by page, then export the lot back out as one.
Page forty is a tap away
A navigator shows the whole notebook as thumbnails, with a page added or removed from there.
Open the notebook at the desk
The pages sync like any note and open in the desktop app, where you can add to them.
// results
Three bugs in the workflow, closed
No feature tour. What changes when your runbooks can be queried instead of grepped.
1.
You fixed this bug in March and are debugging it again from scratch.
Stop solving the same bug twice
Describe the symptom in search and get the note where you already worked it out.
2.
The decision lives in a Slack thread that scrolled away.
Keep decisions where you can defend them
Ask what you decided about a service and get the note, the date and the reasoning.
3.
The AI tool wants your notes on its server, and you want them on disk.
Point the AI at your own stack
Bring your own key, or run a local model through Ollama, and keep the workspace on disk.
// usage
What that looks like for developers
Three points in a sprint where the tool earns its slot.
Debugging
Write the symptom, the theory and the fix in one note, with the log you kept attached.
Architecture review
Record the conversation and keep the decision log next to the diagram.
New project
Keep the setup steps in a runbook that actually gets found again.
The rest of the app
What Else Grape Does
Every part of the app is built around the same idea: keep what you write, and hand it back when you need it.
AI Agent
Chat that reads your library and can act on it
Open
Memory
The agent remembers what you tell it
Open
Semantic search
Search that works on what you meant
Open
Voice and transcription
Meetings become text, with who said what
Open
Web clipper
Save any page from Chrome into a note
Open
Share to Grape
A page from the share sheet becomes a note
Open
// faq
Questions Before You Install It
The rest of them live in the help center.
- Can I run the AI locally?
- Yes. Grape connects to Ollama and LM Studio as well as OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Groq, DeepSeek, Grok and OpenRouter, and you can add any OpenAI compatible endpoint yourself.
- How does it handle technical notes?
- Inline code, tables, checklists, Markdown paste that keeps formatting, and export back out to Markdown when you want the note somewhere else.
- What is Grape, in one paragraph?
- Grape is a note app for Mac, Windows, Linux, iPhone and Android with AI built into the middle of it rather than bolted on the side. You write, record and collect things the normal way, and then you can search by meaning, ask questions about your own notes, and turn any note into a summary, a set of flashcards, a quiz or a mind map.
- What makes it different from other note apps?
- Most note apps treat AI as an extra panel. In Grape the agent works on your workspace: it can read, create, edit, move, tag and delete notes, and every answer points back to the note it came from. Semantic search, voice transcription, flashcards, quizzes, mind maps and the drawing canvas all live inside the editor rather than in separate tools.
- Where do my notes actually live?
- On your device, in a local database, and you can choose where that file sits. Nothing needs to leave your machine for the app to work. If you turn on sync with a Pro plan, your notes are also stored in the cloud so your devices can stay in step.
- Do I need an account to use it?
- No. Download the app and start writing. You only need an account for the paid plans, which is where built in AI and cross device sync come in.
Find it next time it breaks.
Runbooks, architecture decisions and the fix you worked out at midnight, in a local library you can search by meaning and keep offline.