From here to there
In your hands today
For the full version-by-version history, see the changelog.
Multimodal AI input (images in chat)
Send screenshots, charts, UI mockups, photos to the AI for visual analysis. Drag-drop, paste from clipboard, or click to upload. Routed to native multimodal APIs for Claude, OpenAI, and Gemini, plus vision-enabled Ollama models. Token-cost preview before send. Try it at keepance.com/try.
Shipped May 2026
PDF chat (drop a PDF, ask questions)
Drop a PDF into chat. Native PDF support via Anthropic's API for Claude (full layout, sees figures), local text extraction via PDF.js for OpenAI, Gemini, and Ollama, with a "text extracted" mode chip so you know which path you got.
Shipped May 2026
PDF RAG (workspace PDFs as searchable AI context)
Flip "Include PDFs in workspace index" in Settings, Memory and every PDF in your workspace becomes searchable context for chat. Embeddings via fastembed-rs with the multilingual e5-small ONNX model (384-dim), stored locally in LanceDB.
Shipped May 2026
Long-context [Compress] for marathon chats
When a chat gets long enough to bump into the model's context window, an auto-trigger modal offers to compress older turns through a fast model. Manual [Compress] button always available. Expand back, clear, or keep going. Every compression event lands in the audit log.
Shipped May 2026
Read aloud (text-to-speech)
"Read aloud" button on AI responses via bundled Piper sidecar (local TTS, no cloud, no API). Useful for hands-free workflows and accessibility.
Shipped May 2026
Plugin system (sandboxed runtime + marketplace)
Plugins run in a sandboxed Web Worker with a manifest-declared permission model (workspace read/write, editor selection, AI invoke, network). Plugin contributions appear in the toolbar, sidebar, command palette, and settings. Crash-isolated, with [Restart] when something goes sideways. Four day-one plugins live in the marketplace: Word Counter, Translator, Pomodoro, Mermaid Preview. Developer docs, scaffolder (npx create-keepance-plugin), and a typed @keepance/plugin-api are live.
Shipped May 2026
Templates marketplace (community workflows)
Settings, Marketplace, Templates browses, installs, updates, and uninstalls community workflow templates. Catalog at github.com/keepance/community-templates with six day-one entries, GitHub Action auto-rebuilds catalog.json on PR merge. The 15 founder templates baked into the app stay where they are.
Shipped May 2026
Try in browser at keepance.com/try
Pre-seeded sample workspace, working AI chat. 5 messages or 10 minutes on the shared key, then a download nudge. Paste your own Claude key for unlimited use. Take it for a spin.
Shipped May 2026
Spanish + German localization
421 UI strings translated into Espanol and Deutsch. Settings, General, Language picker, plus auto-detect from your OS locale on first launch. Manually-edited strings are protected by a lock so re-translation passes don't overwrite them.
Shipped May 2026
Opt-in telemetry + privacy panel
Anonymous lifecycle events (app launches, trial starts, license activations) sent only with explicit consent. Settings, Privacy shows exactly what's sent. No content, no files, no AI prompts, no email.
Shipped v1.7.2, April 28, 2026
30-day full-feature trial + license activation
Every Keepance feature unlocked for 30 days, no card required. After 30 days, AI sends and workflow runs pause until license activation; existing files stay readable forever.
Shipped v1.7.0 + v1.6.0 · April 2026
Mac signed + notarized (Apple Silicon + Intel)
Apple Developer ID signed AND Apple-notarized. First launch goes through the standard Gatekeeper "Apple checked it" prompt. No right-click → Open dance.
Shipped v1.6 · April 2026
Memory: local RAG over your workspace
The AI remembers what you wrote weeks ago. Local vector store under .keepance/vectors/, embeddings via fastembed-rs (384-dim e5-small ONNX model). Nothing leaves your device. Use @workspace in chat or toggle "Ask my workspace" per chat.
Shipped v1.5 · April 16, 2026
MCP server: your workspace in Claude Desktop / Cursor / Zed
Keepance ships its own Model Context Protocol server as a one-click .mcpb Desktop Extension. Five tools exposed (list / read / search / write / facts) over stdio. Your workspace becomes a queryable tool inside any MCP-compatible client.
Shipped v1.5 · April 16, 2026
Side-by-side AI editing
Select text, ask for a revision, watch the streaming diff land where your cursor was. Per-hunk Accept/Reject. Every accepted hunk tagged in version history with author: 'ai', the original prompt, and the provider+model. Hotkey: Ctrl+Shift+E.
Shipped v1.5 · April 16, 2026
Voice input + Ollama (offline AI)
Press-to-talk voice capture via bundled Parakeet.cpp / whisper.cpp sidecar (audio never leaves the machine). Ollama as a first-class fourth AI provider, auto-detects models from your local install, $0 per call, fully offline.
Shipped v1.5 · April 16, 2026
Real-time API cost meter + monthly cost dashboard
Bottom-right of chat shows $X.XX this chat / $X.XX today. Settings → AI → Monthly Cost shows cumulative spend by provider, by month. Per-provider, per-model rates updated live as tokens stream.
Shipped v1.5 · April 16, 2026
Document suite (.xlsx, .docx, .pptx, .csv, .rtf)
Edit Excel, Word, PowerPoint, CSV, and RTF files natively in the workspace. Round-trip preserves formatting.
Shipped v1.0.8 · April 2026
Auto-updater + signed releases
Desktop app checks for updates on launch and applies them in the background. Minisign-signed artifacts. No more chasing GitHub releases.
Shipped v1.0.8 · April 2026
Building right now
After the May 2026 mega-release, the only thing actively in flight is the dedicated mobile reader. Everything else on the previous "next" list shipped.
Mobile reader (iOS, then Android)
A dedicated Tauri 2 mobile reader for browsing your Keepance workspace from iPhone, iPad, and Android. Read-only first (browse, search, tap through wiki-links), edit later. The desktop app stays where the AI work happens.
Currently blocked on Apple Developer signup. The reading workflow already works today via iCloud Drive, Dropbox, Syncthing, or Google Drive, the dedicated app is a polish layer on top.
Blocked on Apple Developer signup, then TestFlight beta
Won't build (and why)
Honest about what Keepance is NOT going to be. Each of these would compromise a core differentiator.
Real-time collaboration (multi-user editing)
Local-first means single-user. If you want real-time collab, Notion does this well. If you want your data on YOUR machine, Keepance.
Cloud sync (built-in)
"No Keepance server in the data path" is a core promise. Sync via Dropbox, iCloud, or Syncthing on your own terms. The workspace folder works the same way against any synced folder, and the mobile access guide walks through every option.
Autonomous / agentic AI workflows
"AI proposes, user decides" is a core principle. If you want autonomous multi-step AI, use Cursor (for code) or Claude Code (for code) or ChatGPT Operator (for browsing). Keepance is for workspaces where every change is reviewed before it lands.
Subscription tier ($X/month)
Pricing is locked at $0 trial, $49 Pro, $99 Lifetime, $29 Founder's Launch (first 100 buyers). One-time pricing is a pillar. Adding a subscription tier dilutes the message and creates pricing complexity. Re-evaluable in year 2 if the math forces it, but the default is no.
Vertical SKUs (legal, medical, academic editions)
Premature. The product is general-purpose for now. If buyer signal ever demands a vertical, I'll revisit.
What should I build next?
Vote for whatever you'd actually use. Highest-vote items get prioritized within each release window.
What should I build after the mobile reader?
Which new workflow template would you use most?
Don't see what you need?
Email me a one-liner about what'd make Keepance a daily-driver for you. I read every one.
[email protected]