Getting started with Thoute

Thoute gives you two fast outlines: Today, a date-based surface where everything you think lands on a day, and the Library, an optional hierarchy for the things worth keeping. One bullet at a time. Everything you write is end-to-end encrypted — see Privacy for what that means.

1. Sign up

Thoute is in private beta. Request an invite at app.thoute.com.

When you get an invite code, register at app.thoute.com/register with your email and the code.

2. Create your first vault

A vault is one encrypted space. Most people only need one. You can create more later.

Pick a passphrase. This is your only key. Thoute derives your encryption key from it — there is no recovery if you lose it. The last step of creating a vault shows the passphrase once and asks you to confirm you've saved it somewhere safe. Use a password manager.

Once your vault opens, you're looking at Today — today's date and one question: What's on your mind?

3. Write your first block

Type a thought into the card, pick Note, Task or Event, and press Enter. From then on Today is an outline: click anywhere and start typing. Press Enter for a new sibling bullet, Tab to indent it under the previous one, Shift+Tab to outdent.

That's the whole writing model. Bullets all the way down. Drag bullets to rearrange.

4. Find what you wrote

Hit Cmd+K to find anything — or to capture from anywhere. It opens on a launch pad: Capture a thought, Add a task, Add an event, Ask your vault, then your pinned lines and the days you were last in. Start typing to search.

Hit Cmd+. to zoom into a bullet — it becomes the new top of the outline. Cmd+, zooms back out.

5. Make it yours

Open a line's ••• menu and choose Task or Event to change what it is — or type /task then space, if you'd rather not leave the keyboard. See Tasks for the full task model.

Type (( to embed a reference to any other bullet. See Capture for more on references.

Type #followup for an inline tag.

6. Organize as much (or as little) as you want

For many people, Today is the whole system. Enter thoughts, tasks, and attachments into today, add a #tag when something belongs to a theme, and let search, tags, and Ask AI do the re-finding. There is no requirement to organize beyond that, ever. A vault that is nothing but dated bullets is a perfectly good vault.

When something deserves a life beyond the day you wrote it, that's what the Library is for. It's a second outline with no dates: a hierarchy you arrange by hand. A project and its moving parts, the people in your organization, reference material you keep returning to. Pull items up from Today when they've earned a durable home, or write there directly. Today stays your inbox; the Library is the shelf.

Neither surface is more "correct." Start with Today alone, and let the Library grow only if and when you want it.

What's next