Tisty documentation

Tisty is not a to-do app you empty and forget. When you finish a task it moves to the archive with everything it gathered — the description, the journal, the steps, the files, the documents you leaned on — and search reaches all of it years later. How did I solve that last time? Tisty has it.

Beside the tasks lives a Markdown notebook that goes far beyond plain text: callouts, tables you can resize, Mermaid diagrams, math, live widgets, code with names and colours, documents with pages, and its own PDF. And it stays plain Markdown on your disk, readable by any other editor.

If you work with an assistant, Tisty opens an MCP door for it — on your machine, with no account and no network — and you decide what it may do.

Start here

Installation — Microsoft Store, winget, Homebrew or a direct download.
First steps — what Tisty asks the first time, and the guide it writes for you.
Keyboard shortcuts

A Markdown notebook that stays Markdown

Everything below is syntax other readers already understand, so your files survive without Tisty. Diagrams and formulas are drawn by code inside the app: nothing is fetched, and it all works offline.


The editor	Writing, the `/` menu, the side column, when a file opens read-only
Callouts and highlights	`> [!NOTE]` and friends, four pens, icons, checklists
Tables	Rows, columns, alignment, and widths that survive in plain Markdown
Diagrams (Mermaid)	Flowcharts, sequences, pies — drawn under the block
Math	Formulas set from a `math` block
Widgets	A small HTML page inside a document, sealed off from the network
Code blocks	Coloured by language, with a file name, numbered lines
Pages and PDF	A document in chapters, page breaks, and Tisty’s own PDF
Link cards	A link on its own line becomes a card

Your assistant, through MCP

Tisty has no AI inside, and none is coming. But it speaks MCP, so the assistant you already use — Claude Code, Codex, any MCP client — can file tasks and write documents here, on this machine, with no account and nothing over the network.

Assistants and MCP — connecting one, and letting it in.
What an assistant may do — the limits, «Allow agents», and To confirm.
MCP tools reference — every tool the server offers.

Tasks and the archive

Tasks — capture, views, the Eisenhower matrix, lists, tags, steps and parts.
Natural language — what the capture bar understands.
The spread and reminders — dealing work onto days.
The archive — stories, routines and the trace.
Documents — folders, tags, attachments, import and export.

Your data

Sync and backup — two machines through a folder you already sync.
Privacy — what is stored, and the few requests Tisty ever makes.
Command line — tisty mcp, doctor, sync, export.
FAQ

Tisty is free and open source under the AGPL-3.0. The source, the issues and the releases are in the main repository.