Lightweight Local Wiki
A lightweight, locally hosted wiki for personal notes and technical documentation—browser-based, offline, and fully under the user’s control.
Lightweight Local Wiki enables users to create, edit, organize, browse, and search personal knowledge pages. All content is stored directly on the local computer as readable and portable Markdown files. This eliminates the need for cloud services or an external database while keeping the data accessible and suitable for version control.
Tech Stack
The frontend is built with React, TypeScript, Vite, React Router, and Tailwind CSS. The backend uses Kotlin and Ktor and is built with Gradle. Communication between the frontend and backend is handled through a REST API.
Wiki content is stored as Markdown files in the local file system. No relational database or external storage service is required for the application’s core functionality.
Architecture
The project is organized as a monorepo with separate frontend and backend modules. The React application runs in the browser and communicates with the Ktor backend through a REST interface.
All access to the local file system is handled exclusively by the backend. For distribution, the compiled frontend is intended to be bundled with the executable backend package. This will allow the entire application to run locally through a single startup process.
Implementation Status
The fundamental project structure, Kotlin backend, and React frontend have been set up. The frontend already includes a basic application shell and client-side routing.
The backend provides local server configuration, a configurable wiki directory, and initial REST endpoints. Shared data models for the frontend and backend, as well as the first automated tests, are also in place. By default, the server is only accessible through the local loopback interface.
The core features for managing and displaying wiki pages are still under development.
Outlook
The next steps include implementing secure Markdown file management and the corresponding REST endpoints. Users will then be able to create, read, edit, rename, move, and delete pages through the browser interface.
Additional planned features include folder and page navigation, full-text search, a Markdown editor with preview, internal wiki links, and automatic detection of external file changes. Finally, the application will be packaged as a self-contained local application with a simple, single-command startup process.