Launched this week
Guace
Turn local files into an AI-native knowledge base
13 followers
Turn local files into an AI-native knowledge base
13 followers
Guace is a local-first personal knowledge base for macOS. Browse notes, PDFs, webpages, images, and code; ask questions with source context; save useful answers back to ordinary files; and delegate heavier follow-up work to Claude Code or Codex when needed.
Hey Product Hunt — I’m Lest, the solo maker of Guace.
My knowledge is spread across Markdown notes, PDFs, saved webpages, images, and code. AI chats can answer questions, but useful results often remain trapped in conversations. Agent tools can execute work, but their outputs often live somewhere disconnected from my long-term knowledge.
I built Guace as a local-first, AI-native personal knowledge base for macOS:
• Point it at ordinary folders instead of migrating into a proprietary workspace
• Ask across files while keeping the source visible
• Save useful conclusions back into files you own
• When needed, delegate follow-up work to Claude Code or Codex in isolated workspaces
Guace is currently a free public beta and uses your own model provider. Managed agents are optional — the knowledge-base workflow works without them.
If you try Guace, honest and specific feedback would be incredibly helpful — especially about onboarding, usability, and bugs.
I’d especially love feedback on three things:
1. How smooth was it to get from installation to your first useful result?
2. What felt confusing, awkward, or unnecessarily complicated?
3. What bugs or missing features would stop you from using Guace regularly?
honestly the local-first angle is what got me interested, but one thing that would make this way more useful for me is a quick capture hotkey that lets you drop in a snippet or screenshot without opening the full app. right now it kind of feels like you have to commit to opening guace every time, and sometimes i just want to toss something in there from whatever im doing and get back to work
Love that it just sits on my disk as normal files instead of locking everything in some proprietary format. Asked it a question about a PDF and it actually showed me the exact line it pulled the answer from, which is the kind of transparency I want from a local knowledge base.
Really liked how it treats my files as just files instead of locking everything in a database, and the source citations on answers make it actually trustworthy. Delegating follow-up work to Claude Code feels like a natural extension rather than a gimmick.
A cross-device sync option would be huge for this. Right now local-first is great for privacy, but I'd love to pull up notes on my phone or a work laptop without manually exporting. Even something like an opt-in encrypted sync folder via iCloud or a self-hosted endpoint would keep the local-first promise while making it usable across devices.
Love that it saves answers back to plain files instead of locking everything inside its own database. Honestly that kind of respects how people already organize their stuff on disk, and it's the kind of small decision that shows the team actually thought through the local-first angle instead of just slapping it on the landing page.
Would love to see a quick-capture shortcut that lets me drop a snippet or file into Guace from any app without opening the window first. Right now the friction of switching contexts makes me reach for a plain text file instead.