Chapter 01 · start here

Getting started

From download to a draft that can never be lost, in about six minutes. This chapter covers installing the app, the Library where every session begins, your first project, and the five modes you will move between all day.

6 min read · macOS 15 or later

First runDownload, install, license

1. Download roono for Mac from roono.app. The app is signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple, so Gatekeeper opens it without a warning.
2. Drag roono to Applications. There is no installer, no account, and no sign-in — the app is local-first and works entirely offline.
3. Activate your license. On first launch, paste the license key from your purchase email. The key is verified on your device; you only do this once per Mac.

Where every session beginsThe Library

roono opens into the Library, not into a blank document. It greets you with the date, picks up where you left off, and shows your projects as cards — each with its type, live branch and evidence counts, and when you last touched it. The Vault tile sits apart, darker, locked until you ask for it.

Press ⌘K anywhere to search across everything: drafts, transcripts, canvas cards, and evidence text. The Library is a hallway, not a filing cabinet — you should pass through it in seconds.

Blank page, full safety netYour first project

Choose ＋ New, name the project, and you are in Write mode on a blank page. There is no save command. roono saves continuously, and every save becomes aMoment — an immutable, content-addressed snapshot taken after two seconds of idle and at every explicit action. Moments are append-only: no code path in the app physically deletes your history.

That is the deal from the first sentence: write freely, because every version of every sentence is recoverable. The Timeline chapter shows how far that goes.

One window, five ways to workThe five modes

The mode switcher sits in the title bar. Each mode replaces the center of the same window — a mode is never a drawer or a separate document. Try the switcher below; it is live.

The five modes, in facsimile. Each has its own chapter in this manual.

Write is where prose happens. Canvas is your research on a board.Timeline is the whole history of the work. Studio turns interviews into linked, quotable text. Agent is a real terminal where a supported agent works under your rules. Press ⌘J to jump to Agent and back to whatever you were doing.

Read once, remember foreverThe rules roono never breaks

• Your draft is yours. Agents propose edits on separate branches; nothing writes to your manuscript but you.
• History is append-only. Moments are immutable. You can archive a branch, but no delete button erases the past.
• The Vault is absent, not hidden. Encrypted items have no path into agent workspaces, exports, mirrors, or Spotlight.
• Publishing passes the gate. roono will not publish a draft with unresolved evidence pins. Ever.
• No account, no subscription. Your library lives on your Mac. Sync, if you enable it, is your own iCloud.