Structured data in ordinary Markdown files

A folder of Markdown, with structure

A collection is a folder of Markdown records, plus type definitions that say what their fields mean. Frontmatter holds fields that apps can validate and query, while the body stays prose.

---
type: project
title: Website redesign
status: active
owner: "[[people/sam.md]]"
---

The new site should make mdbase
easier to understand.

Because they’re plain files, they work with git, backups, and any text editor. If you stop using mdbase, you still have a folder of Markdown.

One collection, many apps

Apps built on mdbase work directly with these files instead of importing them into their own databases. Use TaskNotes for tasks, Reader for papers and web pages, Writer for long documents, or the Editor for any collection.

Several apps can use the same collection at once, so nothing has to be exported from one app to another.

Edit from anywhere

Open the same record in a text editor on your laptop and in an app on your phone. mdbase works out what each edit changed, field by field.

Edits to different fields are combined, so one copy of the file never silently replaces another.

Every device has the whole collection

Turn on sync and your laptop, phone, and other devices each keep their own complete copy as ordinary files. Each one keeps working without a connection and catches up when it’s back online.

No device is the main one, so you can switch any of them off, or lose one, and still have your whole collection.

Your changes are locked on your device before they leave it. mdbase passes them between your devices without being able to read them.

Choose what mdbase can see

There are two ways to sync a collection. They differ in whether mdbase can read it, which decides how your devices and apps reach it.

Cloud copy, the default, also keeps a readable copy with mdbase, so web apps keep working while your devices are off, and a new device joins when you sign in.

Private is end-to-end encrypted: only your devices can unlock it, and mdbase never holds the key. Apps reach the collection through one of your devices. To add a device, you sign in and unlock it with your encryption password or recovery key.

Both sync the same way.

Apps ask first

An application asks for access to one collection and lists the operations it needs. You might let a project planner find, create, and edit project records while leaving deletion blocked.

The permission travels with the collection, so every copy checks it, whether on your devices or in the cloud copy.

Share it, and take it back

Invite viewers who can read, or editors who can read and change records. Their devices keep a full copy too, and each person can connect their own applications within the role you gave them. Cloud copy and Private collections can both be shared; in a Private collection, an owner or editor approves a new member’s first device by comparing a six-digit code with them.

You can change a member’s role or remove them at any time. A removed member stops receiving changes but keeps the files they already had.

Applications work the same way: narrow or revoke any permission. Removing an application never removes the collection, and other approved applications keep using it.

Get started

Sign up for mdbase Connect, the account that lets apps use your collections, and syncs and shares them. Your account starts with a small Cloud copy collection that you can open in any app. To sync a folder on your computer, as Cloud copy or Private, use the desktop app.

Building an app? Any app can work with an mdbase collection. Read the SDK documentation and the specification. The specification, Connect, Reader and Writer are open source under the MIT licence, on GitHub.