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Making software got easy. What stayed hard is everything around it: signing people in, standing up a database, paying for a server, and becoming the custodian of someone's data. General Text removes that cost, because the back end is something that already exists. Your own files.
The shift
An app here has no server of its own. It reads and writes plain text files in a folder you control: synced across your devices, shared with whoever you choose, with full history, and never leaving for anywhere you did not send it. The app is just a front end. The folder is the database. The sync is ours to run.
That one move is what turns a weekend script into something that lasts: no setup, no account juggling, no deploy, no monthly bill for a tool only you use.
How it goes
Point your AI at one file
Give your assistant the app guide at generaltext.org/llms.txt. It is everything needed to build a working app, written for a model to read in one pass.
Describe the tool you want
A habit tracker that keeps one line per day. A reading log. A small ledger. The AI writes a single self-contained HTML file that reads and writes plain files.
Paste it in, or install by URL
Drop the file into General Text, or point it at a URL. There is no build step, no account to wire up, no server to deploy.
It is instantly real
The moment it loads it syncs live across your devices, saves its data as plain files on your disk with full history, works offline, and installs on your phone.
It is yours, and open
The code lives in your folder and keeps running even if its maker moves on. The source is right there to read and take with you, so hand it back to your AI any time to change it into the tool you actually wanted.
For free, by default
Live sync
Real-time collaboration, no socket code to write.
Cross-device
The same workspace on desktop, phone, and browser.
Plaintext backup
Every change saved as readable files on your disk.
Full history
Versioned automatically, nothing to set up.
Offline-ready
Keeps working with no connection, syncs when it returns.
No back end
No auth, no database, no hosting bill, no data custody.
Because an app is just readable code over a file format, its source is right there to read, copy, and take with you. And because every app runs in a sandbox that physically cannot phone home, running someone else's tool is safe: the worst it can do is touch its own folder. That guarantee is visible in your browser's own dev tools, not a promise on a trust page.
Software should be small enough to make in an afternoon, safe enough to share with a stranger, and built on files you will still be able to open in ten years.