The AI Markdown editor for thinking.

Native Mac. Connects Claude, Cursor, or Windsurf to your notes in one click. Built on a simple belief: writing is how you think — better notes make better thoughts.

Works with AClaude CCursor WWindsurf CCline CContinue ZZed

No signup. No credit card. Cancel by quitting. macOS Sonoma+ · $79 one-time · BYO API key

Eyrie — research-notes.md
Eyrie editor showing the sidebar, an open Markdown document, and the right-side chat panel with citation chips

Connects to the AI tools you already pay for

AClaude Desktop CCursor WWindsurf AClaude Code CCline CContinue.dev ZZed VVS Code

How it works

Three problems with AI notes. One Mac app.

Your Markdown notes are the substrate that makes your AI smart about you. Eyrie fixes the three things that get in the way.

01 · The context problem

MCP

Your AI doesn't know you

Claude and Cursor are brilliant, but they start every conversation from zero — no memory of what you've decided, tried, or already written. Eyrie connects them to your notes folder in one click, so the AI you already pay for finally has context.

02 · The maintenance problem

⌘E

Notes pile up faster than you organize them

Every vault eventually becomes a swamp — half-thoughts, scattered drafts, an inbox that grows and never shrinks. Eyrie is purpose-built for keeping the substrate sharp: Smart Categories auto-classify, semantic search finds anything, ⌘E rewrites inline. Maintenance is the leverage.

03 · The trust problem

⌘⇧A

Every AI answer cites its sources

When the AI claims you've "argued before that X," you need to see which note. Eyrie ships a clickable chip for every file the AI reads. Click to verify. No invented citations, no confident lies. Every AI edit shows you a diff before it touches disk.

Our belief

Writing is a tool for thinking. If we can build a tool that helps you write and organize your ideas more effectively, we help you have better thoughts — and solve otherwise intractable problems. Eyrie exists to be that tool.

Built for

People who live in their own notes.

Founders + operators

Cite every claim.

Ask Eyrie about your customer notes, decisions, retros. Every answer ships with chips you can click to verify. No hallucinated authority, no invented citations — exactly what you wrote, when you wrote it.

"Three months ago I argued for usage-based pricing. What did I write? Why did I switch?"

Eyrie

Two of your October customer-interview notes contradict it — three users said they preferred one-time over freemium for tools they'd use daily…

📄 pricing-research.md📄 customer-interviews.md📄 launch-thesis.md

Claude Desktop · via MCP

I'll use search_notes to find your last quarter's retainer notes…

→ Calling Eyrie's search_notes tool

→ 12 files retrieved

Agencies + consultants

Plug into your existing stack.

Already in Claude Desktop? Already pay for Cursor? Connect them to your client notes folder. Same agent you trust, same shortcuts, no second subscription.

"Pull last quarter's notes on the Acme retainer. Draft this month's status update in the same voice they liked."

Writers + creators

Capture, then ship.

Clip articles by URL. Cross-reference notes from months ago. Ask the agent to draft an outline from your reading, then refine inline with ⌘E.

"That essay I was drafting in October — the one I gave up on. Find the three good paragraphs and rebuild around them."

User

Save this article and pull the key bullets:
https://example.com/indie-pricing-2026

Eyrie

Saved as Indie-Pricing-2026.md · key points:

→ fetch_url(...)

→ create_note(...)

Features

A real Markdown editor. With an AI that explains itself.

Every AI surface is summoned, never imposed. Every edit is gated. Every retrieval is cited.

Native, not Electron

SwiftUI + AppKit. Launches instantly, sips memory, feels right at home on macOS.

Hybrid + semantic search

Local NLEmbedding vectors fuse with BM25 scoring. HyDE rewrites queries before retrieval.

Plain .md files. Yours.

No proprietary blocks, no cloud lock-in. Your notes are a folder of plain Markdown on disk.

Transparent agent edits

Every agent-proposed change appears as a diff. ⌘↵ accepts, ⌘⌫ rejects. Nothing auto-applies.

Sidebar, outline, tags

Bookmarked folders, document outline (⌘⇧O), unlinked mentions, tag browser. Polish you'd expect.

URL clipping by chat

Paste a link in chat. Eyrie fetches it via Jina Reader, strips noise, proposes saving it.

Why Eyrie

The Markdown app for people tired of subscriptions.

Most AI-notes apps lock your data into their cloud and your wallet into a monthly fee. Eyrie does neither.

Eyrie
Notion AI
Obsidian
Bear / iA Writer
Plain .md files on disk
~
AI built in (not a plugin)
via plugins
Cites every file the AI reads
Works with Claude Desktop / Cursor
One-time payment
$8–20/mo
$5/mo sync
$15/yr+
Runs entirely on your Mac

Eyrie vs Obsidian — full comparison → Best Markdown editors for Mac in 2026 →

A note from the founder

Why I built Eyrie.

My Markdown notes are how my AI gets smart about me. Across a dozen projects — startups, code, research, journals — the notes are the substrate Claude, Cursor, and Windsurf read when they need to know what I've already decided, already tried, already written.

The better that substrate is — organized, well-categorized, rewritten for clarity — the better every AI conversation goes. A messy vault means generic answers. A sharp vault means an AI that actually knows my situation.

So the real work isn't taking notes. It's maintaining them. Finding what I wrote six months ago. Reorganizing the inbox. Rewriting clunky paragraphs. Auto-categorizing as I go. Each one of those tasks compounds every AI answer I'll get later.

No existing tool treated notes that way. Notion locked them in a cloud. Obsidian + plugins meant assembling seven things on top of Electron. Mem put them behind a subscription. None of those are the substrate I want my agents reading from.

So I built Eyrie: a native Mac editor purpose-built for keeping your Markdown vault sharp — search, organize, rewrite, restructure — all with AI built in. Then any agent (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf) connects to that vault in one click.

The notes are the leverage. Eyrie maintains them. Your AI compounds.

I'm a solo founder. No VC on the cap table. $79 once is all it will ever cost. Email [email protected] — I'll personally answer.

Malte Wagenbach

Founder, Vantar AI

The math

$79 once is cheaper than any other path.

You're already paying for AI somewhere. Eyrie just connects what you have. Here's what three years looks like.

You currently pay for…
3-year cost
Files stay yours?
Notion AI$20/mo Plus + AI
$720
No — on Notion's servers
Obsidian + Smart Connections + Sync$50 license + $8/mo Sync + your API costs
$338 + API
Yes, but plugin sprawl
ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro$20/mo, but your notes live elsewhere
$720
No — answers don't see your vault
Eyrie$79 lifetime + your existing AI key
$79
Yes — on your disk, in your Markdown

Already paying Claude Pro or have an Anthropic API key? Eyrie adds zero monthly cost. You connect once, your existing agent reads your notes, and the $79 pays for itself the first month you'd have given Notion.

Pricing

Pay once. Use forever.

No subscriptions. No seat tiers. No AI-credit metering. One $79 charge, and the AI you already pay for does the rest.

Coming soon: Setapp listing for subscription users.

FAQ

Common questions.

How long until I'm productive in it?
Three minutes. Install, point Eyrie at your existing folder of Markdown (Obsidian vault, Notion export, anything), and your vault is indexed and searchable. AI chat works as soon as you've connected Claude Desktop or pasted an API key — about 60 more seconds.
Is $79 really worth it when Obsidian is free?
If you'd assemble Smart Connections + Copilot + Text Generator + Dataview + Sync on top of Obsidian, you're paying ~$8/mo for Sync ($288/3yr) plus API costs, plus the maintenance tax of keeping five plugins healthy. Eyrie ships the same capability stack as one native app for $79 once. If you wouldn't have assembled that plugin stack anyway, stay on free Obsidian — you don't need Eyrie.
What if Eyrie goes out of business?
Your notes are plain .md files in a folder you own. They open in TextEdit, VS Code, Obsidian, or any other Markdown editor on day one. If we vanish tomorrow, you lose Eyrie's AI features — you don't lose a single note.
Do I need to pay for an Anthropic API key?
No, if you already pay for Claude Desktop, Cursor, or Windsurf. One click connects them to Eyrie via MCP — they handle the AI calls, Eyrie handles your notes. You only need an API key if you want Eyrie's built-in chat without an external agent. Either way, you pay the AI provider directly, no markup.
How is this different from Obsidian + plugins?
Obsidian's great. But plugin sprawl, theme drift, and maintaining five separate extensions gets tedious. Eyrie ships the focused stack out of the box: semantic search, ⌘E inline commands, chat with citations, MCP integrations. One developer maintains all of it together. Nothing to assemble. Full comparison →
Will my notes leave my Mac?
Only if you send them to an LLM yourself. Search and embeddings run locally via Apple's NaturalLanguage framework. When you use AI chat, the relevant notes go directly from Eyrie to your chosen provider — never via our servers. No telemetry, no analytics, no remote sync.
Can I trust an "AI editor" with my files?
Every file edit — from any agent — is a proposal. You see it as a diff and accept (⌘↵) or reject (⌘⌫). Nothing ever auto-writes. The diff-approval architecture exists precisely because we don't trust agents either.
What about Windows or Linux?
Mac-only by design. SwiftUI, AppKit, system shortcuts, sandboxing, QuickLook extension. Cross-platform tools exist (Obsidian, Logseq); Eyrie is the one that's truly at home on macOS.
Is there a team plan?
Not yet. Eyrie is solo software — your folder, your AI, your Mac. If your team needs shared notes, Notion or a wiki is better. We may add team licensing later, but if you're buying Eyrie for collaboration today, you're buying the wrong tool.
Do I really get a personal email from the founder?
Yes. [email protected] reaches Malte directly — solo founder, no support queue. Most replies come within 24 hours. Use it for bugs, feedback, refund requests, anything. It's the cheapest moat in indie software and we lean on it hard.
What's the refund policy?
30 days, no questions. Buy, use, decide. If it's not for you, email [email protected] and we'll refund via Lemon Squeezy. (Most refund requests we treat as feedback — what didn't work? Tell us, we'll likely fix it.)
What if I get stuck?
Help → Reindex Embeddings (resets search). Help → Export Diagnostic Log (attach to support email). Email [email protected] — replies usually within 24 hours, often faster.

Open your existing Markdown folder. See for yourself.

14 days free, no card. 30-day refund if you change your mind. Support email goes straight to the founder.

Download Eyrie — $79 once