Desktop app & Local wiki

Exponential runs in the browser, and it also runs as a desktop app that wraps the same web app in a native window: its own dock icon, sign-in that hands off to your system browser and comes back, and, in the newer shell, a Local wiki that lives on your disk rather than in the cloud. The desktop app changes where Exponential runs, not what it does; every guide on this site applies unchanged.

Where to find it

There are two shells, both in the open-source repository (github.com/positonic/exponential):

• Exponential (Electron) for macOS, Windows and Linux: the established desktop app, with an overlay title bar on macOS.
• Exponential Beta (Tauri, macOS only): a newer, lighter shell that adds the Local wiki and native macOS window tabs. It installs beside the first, with its own icon and bundle.

Neither is offered as a download inside the app yet; they are built from the repository (npm run electron:build and npm run tauri:build). If you are not building software, use the web app or install it as a mobile app.

How sign-in works on the desktop

Click Sign in; the app opens your default browser, you sign in there as usual, and the browser asks whether to Open Exponential to hand the session back. Allow it once and the window is signed in. Nothing about your password passes through the shell.

How to use the Local wiki

The Local wiki appears as Local wiki at the top of the sidebar only inside the Beta shell; a browser never shows it. It is a folder of Markdown files on your machine, ~/Documents/exponential-wiki by default, kept under git so every change has a history, and maintained by Zoe's librarian agent as well as by you.

1. Open Local wiki in the sidebar. The list shows every page; Search the wiki… filters it.
2. Open a page to read it, or edit it in place. Write Markdown; [[wikilinks]] point at other pages and become links.
3. Page actions lets you Rename a page (give it a New path); History shows the commits that touched it.
4. Ask Zoe to add to the wiki ("write up what we know about the onboarding funnel"); she writes files into the same folder and commits them.

The wiki belongs to the device, not to a workspace: it is the same whichever workspace you are in, and it never syncs to the server. Point a build at a different folder with EXPONENTIAL_WIKI_ROOT when you start it.

How it connects

• Mobile app — the phone equivalent, installed from the browser: Mobile app.
• Knowledge base — the cloud-side store Zoe searches; the Local wiki is deliberately separate: Knowledge base.
• Pages — workspace documents that live on the server and can be published: Pages.
• Self-hosting — building either shell against your own installation: Self-hosting.

FAQ

Is there a download? Not yet. Both shells are built from the repository; release builds point at exponential.im.

Will the wiki sync between my laptop and desktop? No. It is a local folder under git; sync it yourself (push the repository somewhere) if you want it on two machines.

Can the web app read my Local wiki? No. The wiki is only reachable through the desktop shell's own bridge, and nothing on a remote page can read files outside the wiki folder.