Free, open source, and local-first. Install it, tell it what you're thinking about, and you have your first thoughtbase in about a minute.
Apple Silicon · signed & notarized
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Coming eventuallyYour first minute
Minerva doesn't drop you in front of a blank page. Tell it what you want to think about, and it builds you a starting structure to grow from.
Download Minerva for macOS (Apple Silicon) — or build it from source. Drag it to Applications and launch. No account, no sign-up, no cloud; it runs entirely on your machine. The app is signed and notarized by Apple, so it opens without security warnings.
The opening wizard asks what you want to build a thoughtbase of, who it's for, and how deep to go. A research topic, a book you're studying, a decision you're working through — anything.
Minerva generates an overview set of linked notes to orient you — the antidote to the blank canvas. Every note is yours to keep, rewrite, or delete.
Write, ask, link, cite. When the AI suggests a claim or a source, you review and approve it. Your thoughtbase grows into a real map of what you know — and it's plain files on your disk the whole time.
🔑 Bring your own Anthropic API key
Minerva is free and local-first, but its AI features — the onboarding wizard, chat, claim and source suggestions, and skills — run on Claude. Turning them on requires your own Anthropic API key, which you add in Settings; usage is billed to your Anthropic account. Everything else — writing, linking, the knowledge graph, search — works with no key at all.
Where to go next
The editor, the knowledge graph, sources, and the full skills library. See features →
Notes on building Minerva and thinking with AI, on the Dancing with Robots Substack. Read the blog →