Puranjay Savar Mattas
2d0972de1e
Right-click a selection -> "Comment on Selection..." -> opens the comments sheet straight into composing, with a removable chip showing what's being anchored to (clearing it falls back to a plain document-level comment). Posts via comments.create with anchorText set to the selection. Only wired on rendered panes (main reader pane, Split View's preview pane) - not the raw-markdown pane, since a selection there would capture literal Markdown syntax as the anchor instead of clean prose. NSMenuItem has no closure initializer, so this needed a small target-is-self subclass (ClosureMenuItem) to wire a Swift closure into onBuildContextMenu's NSMenu without a separate selector per action. Also moved the comments sheet's .sheet(...) modifier off the toolbar badge button (which only exists once the doc already has comments) onto the view root, since a document with zero comments still needs to be able to open the sheet to create its first one. Reader now refetches its own comment list after any create/reply via the sheet's new onCommentsChanged callback, so a freshly anchored comment's inline marker appears without reopening the document.
Outpost
A native Apple ecosystem client for Outline — built for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS from a single SwiftUI codebase, aiming for full editing parity with Outline's web app, including realtime collaborative editing.
Early alpha — macOS only for now. Expect missing features and rough edges. iOS/iPadOS support is planned but not in the current build. See the releases page for changelogs, and open an issue if you hit anything.
Why
Outline's web app is great, but there's no native Apple client with full editing parity. This project connects to a self-hosted Outline instance over its REST API and realtime collaboration socket to provide a proper native experience across the Apple ecosystem.
Requirements
- Xcode 27+ (currently developed against an Xcode 27 beta — this is a hard minimum, not a suggestion)
- macOS 27+. iOS/iPadOS support is planned but not in the current build (see the alpha note above) — same 27+ minimum will apply once it lands
- A self-hosted (or hosted) Outline instance with API access
Setup
- Clone the repo and open the
.xcodeprojin Xcode. - Generate a scoped API key on your Outline instance (Settings → API Keys).
- On first launch, enter your instance URL and API key — these are stored in Keychain, never in app config or source.
Architecture
See CLAUDE.md and docs/ARCHITECTURE.md for the full technical breakdown: REST layer, Yjs/Hocuspocus realtime sync via YSwift, and the ProseMirror-schema-to-native-editor mapping.
Disclaimer
This project is being built to solve a personal problem — I wanted a genuinely good native knowledge-base client for my own self-hosted Outline instance and none of the existing options fit. It's a personal-use tool first, not a polished product with support guarantees.
Parts of this codebase are AI-assisted (built with the help of AI coding tools). Treat that however you like — review, use, fork, or ignore the code accordingly. No warranty of quality, security, or fitness for any particular use is implied beyond what's stated in the license below.
License
Outpost itself is licensed under the Business Source License 1.1 — the same license family Outline's own server uses, for the same reason. In short: free to read, self-host, and modify for personal or non-commercial use; not free to repackage as a competing hosted product or to distribute under a name/branding that claims official or affiliated status. It converts automatically to Apache License 2.0 on the change date stated in LICENSE. "Outpost" and its logo are trademarks of the project — see the license's trademark notice.
This project is a client only — it does not include, vendor, or redistribute any of Outline's own (also BSL 1.1 licensed) server source.
Credits
The native markdown editor is built on swift-markdown-engine by Luca Chen, licensed under Apache License 2.0. It's vendored directly in Vendor/swift-markdown-engine (see its LICENSE); local fixes made in that copy haven't been upstreamed yet.
Privacy
Outpost collects nothing about you — no analytics, no telemetry, no crash reporting of its own, no age or demographic data, nothing. The only thing stored locally is your Outline server URL and API token (in the device Keychain) and, optionally, a local offline cache of what you've viewed. Everything else goes straight from your device to whatever Outline server you configure — there's no backend in between, and the developer has no access to your data or your server.
Full policy, terms of service, and data-processing statement are on the wiki:
Not affiliated with Outline
This is an independent, unofficial client. Not affiliated with or endorsed by General Outline, Inc.