Getting started

Chronal Studio is a desktop app for notes, facts, and events that change over time. You write and review the project in Studio. Chronal Engine is the logic underneath that works out what was true at a chosen time and shows the source behind the answer.

Chronal Studio is coming soon. This guide previews the first useful workflow; the availability page will add verified platform and installation details when the first public build is ready.

What to expect

Chronal Studio is designed around local project folders you control. Release-specific backup, compatibility, and system guidance will be published with the build it applies to.

Local AI is always local, always reviewable, and always optional. Writing, timelines, relationship maps, point-in-time views, questions, project checks, and source tracing work without it.

Your first project

A Chronal project is an ordinary folder that you control. A simple project might look like this:

Greyhaven.md
Greyhaven.chronal.json
John Baldwin.md
John Baldwin.chronal.json
Council Election.md
Council Election.chronal.json
timeline.chronal.json

Files ending in .md use Markdown, a plain-text format with simple marks for headings, links, and emphasis. They hold the prose you write.

Files ending in .chronal.json hold the dated facts, events, and relationships you approve. JSON is a common text format for structured data. These small companion files are sometimes called sidecars because they sit beside the note they describe.

Your first useful workflow

1. Create or open a project folder.
2. Write about a person, place, thing, or event in a Markdown note.
3. Add a dated fact or event with a guided action, or review a suggestion from local AI.
4. See that approved information on the timeline, relationship map, or point-in-time view.
5. Open the source trace to see which record supports the answer. The technical name for this history is provenance.

Your prose remains normal writing. A suggestion becomes a tracked project fact only when you explicitly accept it.

Where to go next

Read Core concepts for the few ideas Chronal tracks, then Projects and files for the on-disk structure.