onQYour prompts. Your files. Ready on cue.

A local-first desktop prompt vault with portable Markdown, a protected local index, and fast keyboard search.

Search first

Open the palette from anywhere with Win+Q, Meta+Q, or ⌘+Q. Keyword search works immediately; local semantic search is optional.

Portable by design

Prompt bodies and metadata live in ordinary Markdown files with YAML frontmatter. The search index is derived and disposable.

Local control

No cloud account and no telemetry. Choose a master password or a generated key held by the operating-system keychain.

Organized without lock-in

Use projects, tags, favorites, recent prompts, smart folders, templates, and per-prompt history.

Recoverable backups

Export the full vault as a versioned .onqbak archive, with an optional archive password independent of vault authentication.

Open source

GPL-3.0-only. Built with Rust, Tauri 2, Svelte 5, and MongrelDB. Development and architecture documentation are public.

What is onQ?

onQ is a desktop prompt manager built around a global command palette. Press the configured shortcut, type a few words, and copy a prompt without moving your library into a hosted service.

Each prompt is a Markdown file under the vault's prompts/ directory. onQ stores search state, history, backups metadata, smart folders, and plugin state under the vault's .onq/ directory. See the vault layout for the exact paths and the security guide for what is and is not encrypted.

Design promises

Local first: no account, hosted database, subscription, or telemetry.
Portable source files: the prompt library remains useful without onQ.
Optional network use: keyword search is offline; the local embedding model downloads only after you ask for it. The app also checks its GitHub release feed for update metadata.
Explicit recovery: keychain vaults show one 24-word recovery phrase. Password vaults have no recovery mechanism.
Honest status: shipped behavior and scaffolded future paths are separated in the feature status.

Choose a path

New user: install onQ, then follow the quick start.
Existing user: browse the feature guide, security model, and backup guide.
Contributor: start with build and test, then read the architecture.
Plugin author: read the plugin guide and its current runtime limitations before building.