Drifting

A cross-platform, AI-native novel-writing app.

With the ease of a Markdown editor, the scaffolding of a classic writing studio, and an AI Agent for the whole book, it's built to help you write your first bestseller.

Download for Mac and Windows · Website · Documentation

macOS 13+ · Windows 10/11 · Early development

English | 简体中文

Interface: 简体中文 · 繁體中文 · English · 日本語 · 한국어 · Español · Deutsch · Français · Português (Brasil). Localization.

Drifting is an open-source, local-first novel writing app for Mac and Windows. It writes like a Markdown editor, builds a book the way classic writing studios like Scrivener do — chapters and outline, characters and world, storylines and research — and comes with an AI Agent that can read, search and edit the whole project.

Early development. Drifting is used daily by its author and changes often. Keep independent copies of manuscripts that matter, and read the known issues.

Download

From GitHub Releases:

• Mac: macOS 13 or later on Apple Silicon. Download the .dmg.
• Windows (preview): Windows 10 or 11. Download Drifting_<version>_windows_x64-setup.exe, or …_arm64-setup.exe for a PC with an Arm processor, and run it; it needs no administrator rights. See Windows.

The app tells you when a new version is out; you choose when to install it. The first launch opens two sample projects you can explore or delete: Pride and Prejudice, and Lu Xun's The True Story of Ah Q (in Chinese), left half written for you to go on.

Writes like a Markdown editor

• One quiet page and the keyboard. Type #, ## or ### to start an H1, H2 or H3; **bold**, *italic*, > and --- take shape as you type.
• Every project is also a folder of Markdown files. Edit chapters and ideas in Obsidian or any text editor, and the changes merge back into Drifting.
• Copy or save any document, or the whole book, as Markdown. Import .md, .txt and .docx.

The scaffolding of a classic writing studio

• Write chapter by chapter, or read and edit the whole book in one view.
• Acts sit on the timeline; inside a chapter, H1, H2 and H3 are three levels you give your own meaning, listed in the outline beside the text.
• Ideas hold fragments that have not found a place yet. Turn one into a chapter or an element when it is ready.
• Elements for characters, places, objects and lore, grouped into categories. Patches record how an element changes, next to the passage that changes it. Typed relations connect elements, chapters and storylines.
• Storylines, a timeline in book order or narrative time, and a plot grid for each chapter.
• Materials for research: notes, images and PDFs in folders, each opening as a tab. Comment on a region of an image or PDF.
• Full-window views: Element overview, Story graph, and TODO & Materials. Project Home gathers progress, quick creation and the Agent's proactive suggestions.
• Comments and TODOs are anchored to the text. History snapshots, word counts, daily goals and streaks.
• Export the book, or chosen chapters, as EPUB, PDF or Word.

An Agent for the whole book

• Bring your own key for DeepSeek, Anthropic or OpenAI, or sign in with a ChatGPT subscription (experimental). Writing never requires AI.
• The Agent reads, searches and edits your project: prose, elements, relations, storylines, materials, TODOs. Its edits are marked in the text and can be undone from history.
• Project Memory keeps the preferences and rules you give it. TODOs, chapter reviews and suggestion cards can run as background Agent sessions.
• After you write, Project Home offers to file what you wrote into elements, patches and relations; it runs only when you open that card and never edits prose on its own.
• External agents: Codex, Claude Code and Antigravity connect once through MCP and can read and change whichever book is open. See external agent setup.

Your data

• Everything is stored on your computer and works offline. No account needed.
• Export every project as a Markdown ZIP, or back up the whole library as a restorable .drifting file.
• Deleted projects stay in Recently Deleted for 30 days.

With an account you can sync between computers and share a chapter as a web page that readers can comment on. Synced projects are not end-to-end encrypted. See the privacy policy and terms.

Compared with Scrivener and Novelcrafter

Scrivener is a long-standing desktop writing studio with no built-in AI; Novelcrafter is a web app for writing with AI that needs a connection. Drifting keeps the scaffolding of the first and adds an Agent for the whole book, in a free, open-source app for Mac and Windows that keeps your manuscripts on your computer as Markdown files.

	Drifting	Scrivener	Novelcrafter
Runs as	Mac and Windows apps	Mac, Windows and iOS apps	Web app
Price	Free	One-time purchase	Subscription
Source	Open source (AGPL)	Closed	Closed
Offline	Yes	Yes	Needs a connection
AI	An Agent for the whole project, on your own key	None built in	Your own key or a local model

Help

Support · Known issues · Report a bug · Security

Build from source

Drifting is built with Tauri, Rust, React and TypeScript. Source builds run locally without an account; the Hosted sync service is operated separately and is not part of this repository. Running on macOS needs Xcode and your own Apple Development certificate; see the contributor quick start. On Windows, see Developing on Windows.

pnpm install --frozen-lockfile
pnpm dev:check
pnpm dev

Documentation · Contributing · Releasing

License

Project source is AGPL-3.0-or-later; packages/prose-metrics is Apache-2.0. Third-party code and assets keep their own licenses.

Third-party notices · Trademarks · Client privacy boundary · Source history