folio

# Folio **The vibe-coded, open-source alternative to Notion and Confluence.** Your team's wiki lives in Git. People write in the browser, together, in real time. AI agents read and write the same pages. One command to run it yourself. Website: <https://foliowiki.online>  Folio was built to replace Confluence and Notion for a real team — and it was built by AI agents, in the open. The plans, specs and hand-off notes the agents work from are in this repository, next to the code they wrote. [More on that below.](#vibe-coded-and-not-hiding-it) ```bash git clone https://github.com/evergreen-it-dev/folio.git cd folio docker compose up -d ``` Open <http://localhost:4870>, create the first account, start writing. --- ## Why Folio - **You own the content.** Every page is a plain file in a Git repository you control. No export step, no lock-in: stop using Folio tomorrow and the files are still there, readable in any editor. - **It works the way a wiki should.** Real-time editing, a page tree, search, access rights, history, sharing — and it keeps working offline. - **Agents are first-class users.** Not a chatbot bolted on the side: a built-in assistant, your own agent in every space, a full MCP server, and Markdown links made for agents. - **Documents, tables, whiteboards, diagrams and files in one tree.** A roadmap table next to the spec, next to the architecture board, next to the signed PDF. - **One command to run.** Docker, and nothing to configure for a first start. --- ## See it in action Short walkthroughs, no slides. The voice in the videos is synthetic. - [A team wiki that lives in Git](https://youtu.be/tm1xB9x9HeY) — edit a page in the browser, press Sync, and it is a real Git commit; a teammate edits from the terminal and the change shows up on the page (0:37) - [An AI agent updates your wiki over MCP](https://youtu.be/3ORtBgYlIeY) — one request: the agent reads the release process, writes release notes and adds a roadmap row (0:53) - [Onboarding a sales rep with Folio AI](https://youtu.be/T4JXTNRrsMg) — answers from the team's own pages with sources, a weekly check as a form, and the results in a table (1:22) - [Whiteboards that live in Git](https://youtu.be/HNK17qafhtc) — draw together, embed the board in a document, and keep every version in history (0:51) - [The editor and Mermaid diagrams](https://youtu.be/MfK7bhKoxSs) — live Markdown, a source view of the same page, and diagrams you edit visually or as code (1:04) --- ## Git-first, all the way down Most wikis keep your content in a database and offer Git as an export. Folio does the opposite: **the Git repository is the wiki**. The database holds the index, access rights and the state of live editing — never the only copy of your words. This is what a space looks like on disk: ```text acme-handbook/ ├── index.md ├── welcome-to-acme.md ├── engineering.md ├── engineering/ │ ├── onboarding-checklist.md │ ├── release-process.md │ ├── incident-runbook.md │ └── how-folio-fits-together.excalidraw.svg ← a whiteboard ├── meeting-notes.md ├── meeting-notes/ │ └── product-sync-september-28.md ├── roadmap.table.md ← a data table ├── onboarding-feedback.table.md ├── onboarding-feedback/ │ └── onboarding-feedback.form.md ← a form ├── security-policy.md ├── security-policy.pdf ← files are pages too └── security-policy.docx ``` And this is its history — ordinary commits, with the people who made the changes as authors: ```text $ git log --format='%h %an %s' be529a0 Maria Chen folio:update aeac3bb Maria Chen folio:update 6c2c061 Sam Rivera folio:update 026d9ec Maria Chen folio:update ... 4e9ec49 Folio init: create space ``` What that gives you: - **Edit anywhere.** Change a page in the browser or in your IDE and push — both land in the same history. Links between pages are ordinary relative Markdown links, not a private dialect. - **Bring your own repository.** Start with an empty space, clone an existing repository, or connect one later. Several spaces can share one repository, each in its own folder — so documentation can live right next to the code. - **Review like code.** Merge requests, blame, diff and revert work on your wiki because it *is* a repository. - **Nothing is lost quietly.** Sync state is always visible — clean, ahead, behind, conflict — and conflicts are listed for the whole space. "Take the version from Git" resets a space to the remote branch and saves what was there into a backup branch first. - **Readable formats.** A whiteboard is an SVG that opens in any browser and still carries the editable scene. A data table is one Markdown file — the column types and saved views in the front matter, the rows as a table you can read: ```markdown # Roadmap | Initiative | Status | Owner | Team | Due | Effort, days | Urgent | id | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | ---: | --- | --- | | Single sign-on for enterprise plans | In progress | @alex | Engineering | 2026-10-09 | 8 | [x] | 1787nfg3 | | New onboarding flow | In review | @sam | Design | 2026-10-02 | 5 | [ ] | b227mwwh | | Pricing page redesign | Planned | @sam | Design | 2026-10-16 | 3 | [ ] | ndxvtpa3 | ```  --- ## Write together Documents, data tables and whiteboards are edited by several people at once. You see who is on the page and where their cursor is; changes appear as they are typed. When the page goes quiet, Folio commits — with the person who edited as the author.  --- ## Works offline On a train, on a plane, on bad hotel Wi-Fi — keep writing. - Pages and whiteboards you have opened stay editable without a connection. - New pages and whiteboards can be created offline and appear in the tree straight away. - Everything is kept on the device and reaches the server by itself when the connection returns — at the same address, with no duplicates. - Nothing is lost if you switch pages or close the tab. - An indicator in the header shows what is waiting to be sent.  Data tables, forms and file uploads need a connection. --- ## Documents A Markdown editor that does not make you think about Markdown. Three modes — **Reading**, **Live edit** and **Source** — so that writers and engineers are both at home.  - Callouts, checklists, tables with merged cells and colors, code blocks, collapsible sections, highlights. - Paste from Excel and Google Docs keeps tables and formatting. - `[[` links a page, `@` mentions a person, `/` inserts anything. - `::pagetree` puts a live tree of child pages right into the text. - Outline and notes panel, backlinks, page icons and covers, templates, glossary terms with hover cards. - Light and dark themes, following the system or chosen by hand.  --- ## Diagrams you draw, not type Mermaid diagrams come with a visual editor. You build the diagram on a canvas, and Folio writes the Mermaid code for you — or you type the code and watch the canvas follow. Both sides stay in sync.  - **Click to build.** A plus on a node adds a connected one, a plus on a link inserts a node into it, a handle drags a new link from node to node. - **Nine diagram types from templates**: flowchart, sequence, classes, states, ER, Gantt, timeline, pie, mind map. - **Code and canvas side by side**, full screen when you need room, and a readable message instead of a broken picture when the syntax is wrong. - **Still plain Markdown.** The diagram is stored as an ordinary `mermaid` code block, so GitHub and GitLab render it too. --- ## Data tables Spreadsheets that belong to the wiki: typed columns, saved views, filters and sorting — a small database you can link from any page and query from any agent.  - Column types: text, long text, number, date, checkbox, select, status, user, link. - Views as tabs, each with its own columns, order, widths, multi-column sort and `and`/`or` filters — including "me", "today", "this week". - Edited together in real time, stored as one readable file in Git. - Import and export; up to 20,000 rows per table. **Forms** turn a table into a questionnaire: every answer becomes a row. A form can be public, so people answer without an account.  --- ## Whiteboards Excalidraw boards inside the wiki — architecture, flows, workshops. Drawn together in real time and saved as SVG files that render anywhere.  The board above was not drawn by hand. An agent created it through MCP from a short description of boxes and arrows; people then keep editing it like any other board. --- ## Document preview PDF, Word, Excel and PowerPoint files are pages too. Drop one into the tree and it opens right inside Folio — no download, no other application, no conversion on the server.   - **PDF** in the browser's own viewer: thumbnails, zoom, search, print. - **Word, Excel and PowerPoint** rendered in the browser. - The file sits in the space's Git repository next to the pages about it, in the same tree, under the same access rights. - Open in a new tab or download with one click. - Folio never rewrites your file: what you uploaded is byte for byte what is stored. These files are for viewing: they are not edited in Folio, and search finds them by title. --- ## Folio AI An assistant in the side panel that works with your wiki, not next to it.  In the screenshot the assistant was asked to add an initiative to the roadmap and say which ones are urgent. It read the table's schema, inserted the row — it appears in the table on the left — and answered from the data. - **Ask** — read-only. Find, summarize, compare, explain across the pages you have access to. - **Agent** — reads and writes. Drafts a page, updates a table, draws a board, restructures a section — inside your rights, never beyond them. - **Runs live on the server.** Close the browser and the work continues; come back and pick up where it was. - **The same tools as everyone else.** The assistant works through the very tools an outside agent gets over MCP — there is no second, weaker implementation, and in Ask mode the write tools are switched off on the server, not just hidden. ### Is the assistant actually helping? Folio collects three signals about answer quality, without asking anyone to fill in a form: - **👍 / 👎 on an answer.** Every saved assistant answer can be rated "Helpful answer" or "Not helpful". One rating per answer, and you can change or remove it. - **A short survey.** After every third answer in a conversation the panel asks "Did the assistant solve your question?" — Yes, Partly, No or Not now — with an optional comment. - **Questions without an answer.** When the pages do not contain the answer, or the assistant is not sure of it, it records the question and what was missing, then still answers the person plainly. Instance administrators see all of it on one page, **Assistant analytics** (`/admin/assistant`, from the account menu): the conversations with their ratings and survey results, and a second tab, "Questions without an answer", which is a ready list of what your documentation is missing — the person's own words first, the assistant's restatement below. Both tabs filter by space, user and date. A space administrator sees the same page limited to the spaces they administer: only conversations that ran there, and only the messages of those runs. An administrator can open a conversation to read it; the conversation page lists who opened it and when, and every opening is written to the audit log. Other people do not see this page.  ### Your own agent in every space: `.agent` Every space has a `.agent` folder. Whatever you put there becomes the assistant's instructions **for that space** — and it is written as ordinary Folio pages, not as configuration. - **Build an agent by writing pages.** Its role, its tone, the glossary, the rules it must follow, the templates it should use, the process it should walk people through. - **A different agent for every team.** The support space gets an agent that answers like support. The engineering space gets one that knows the release process. Legal gets one that never improvises. Same Folio, different agents. - **Versioned like everything else.** The instructions live in Git: you can see who changed the agent's behavior, review the change, and roll it back. - **Owned by administrators.** Only space administrators see and edit `.agent`; everyone else just gets a better assistant. The instructions apply to every run in the space, in Ask and Agent modes alike. ### Bring your own subscription Folio does not resell AI and does not mark it up. You connect the subscription you already pay for, and the assistant runs on it. | Provider | Status | |---|---| | Cursor | **available** — each person connects their own key, or the operator sets one for everyone | | Others | coming soon | Without a subscription everything else in Folio works as usual. --- ## Built for agents **MCP server.** 21 tools over `/mcp` with personal access tokens: list and search spaces, read and write pages, create and edit whiteboards, query and update data tables, read history. ```bash claude mcp add folio --transport http https://wiki.example.com/mcp \ --header "Authorization: Bearer folio_pat_…" ``` **Markdown for an agent.** Any page — with its child pages, if you want — is one link that returns clean Markdown. No scraping, no HTML, no login flow: ```bash curl https://wiki.example.com/share/<token>.md ```  **Export in the formats agents and people need**: Markdown, YAML, PDF, DOCX, or a zip of a whole space. **Safe by design.** A token never has more rights than its owner, a `read` token cannot write, and administrative actions are not available to tokens at all. Details: [docs/MCP.md](docs/MCP.md). --- ## Moving from Confluence Point Folio at a Confluence page or a whole tree and it brings the pages over as Markdown — with images, code, checklists, and panels converted into callouts. Pages come from Confluence Cloud and from on-premises installations; whiteboards from Confluence Cloud become Excalidraw boards. Run a test import first: not every macro has an equivalent. [What is not there yet](docs/LIMITATIONS.md) is written down honestly. --- ## Access management Who sees what is decided in one place, and it is visible at a glance.  - **Roles per space**: administrator, editor, viewer. - **Private or open spaces.** A private space is visible to its members only. A space open to the instance gives everyone read access, and edit rights still have to be granted. - **The access matrix.** People down the side, spaces across the top, a role in every cell. Change one cell or many at once. - **An administrator is not a reader.** The instance administrator manages people and access but does not see the content of a private space they are not a member of. They can grant access to themselves — and that is written to the audit log and marked for everyone to see. - **Audit log.** Every grant, revoke and visibility change is recorded with who did it and when. **Page-level access.** Any page can be narrower than its space: open to all members, to you only, or to selected people with view or edit rights.  **Getting people in** - **Invitations by link** with preset spaces and roles, an expiry date and a usage limit. - **Access requests.** Someone who opens a space they cannot see can ask for access; administrators are notified at once and choose the role. - **Sign in with Google**, limited to the email domains you list. A new person gets an account and no access until someone grants it. - **Deactivate** an account without deleting what the person wrote. **Sharing outside** - Share links for people without an account: view or edit, one page or a whole subtree (pages with their own access restrictions are left out), revocable at any time. - Forms that accept answers without an account. **For agents and scripts** - Personal access tokens with `read` or `write` scope. A token never has more rights than its owner, and administrative actions are not available to tokens at all. - The `.agent` folder is visible to space administrators only. --- ## Run it You need [Docker](https://docs.docker.com/get-docker/) and [Git](https://git-scm.com/downloads). Nothing else. ```bash git clone https://github.com/evergreen-it-dev/folio.git cd folio docker compose up -d ``` The first start builds the application and takes a few minutes. Then open <http://localhost:4870> and create the first account — it becomes the administrator. A short welcome takes it from there: pick what to create first — a document, a whiteboard or a data table — look through what Folio can do, and land in your first space with that page open. Connecting an existing Git repository is one link away on the same screen.  | Where | How | |---|---| | Your computer | `docker compose up -d` | | A server or VPS | the same, plus `--profile https` for automatic HTTPS | | Container platforms (Railway, Render, Fly.io, Coolify and similar) | from the `Dockerfile`, with PostgreSQL, Redis and a persistent volume — see [requirements](docs/INSTALL.md#other-platforms) | | Vercel, Netlify and other serverless hosting | not supported — Folio is a long-running server that keeps Git repositories on disk and holds live connections | Domains, HTTPS, updates and backups: [docs/INSTALL.md](docs/INSTALL.md). --- ## Vibe-coded, and not hiding it Folio is written by AI coding agents. A human product owner decides what to build, tries every change in the browser and decides what ships; agents plan the work, write the code and the tests, and document what they did. From the first commit on August 21, 2026 to version 0.1.0 on September 29, 2026: 39 days, more than 400 commits upstream, roughly 90,000 lines of TypeScript and another 50,000 lines of tests. It runs in production for a real team. We publish how it is made, not only what was made: | File | What it is | |---|---| | [AGENTS.md](AGENTS.md) | How the work is organized and the rules agents follow in this repository | | [docs/HANDOFF.md](docs/HANDOFF.md) | The current state: how Folio is put together, what must never break, what is open, and the lessons that cost us something to learn | | [DEV-PLAN.md](DEV-PLAN.md) | What has been built, in the order it was built, and what comes next | If you are building with agents yourself, this repository is a worked example of a non-trivial product made that way. If you only want a wiki, none of it gets in your way. --- ## Documentation - [Website: foliowiki.online](https://foliowiki.online) - [Installation, HTTPS, updates, backups](docs/INSTALL.md) - [Features](docs/FEATURES.md) - [What is not there yet](docs/LIMITATIONS.md) - [MCP and REST for agents](docs/MCP.md) - [Changelog](CHANGELOG.md) ## Development ```bash cp .env.dev.example .env docker compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml up -d # PostgreSQL, Redis, MinIO npm install npm run dev # http://localhost:4871 ``` Node.js 22.12 or newer (22.13 or newer for the assistant). See [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md) — and [AGENTS.md](AGENTS.md) if your contributor is an agent. ## Help and security Questions and bug reports: [SUPPORT.md](SUPPORT.md). Please report vulnerabilities privately, as described in [SECURITY.md](SECURITY.md). ## License [MIT](LICENSE)