Palette: a free app that asks first and shows its work

It asks first. Then it shows its work.

A free app for your computer. Give it one folder. It lists what is there without opening a file, reads only what you allow, and builds a document from the facts you accept. Every line leads back to the sentence it came from.

Mac Windows Linux

Free. No account. Version 0.3.10, released 23 September 2026. Mac is signed and notarised. Windows is not yet signed, so SmartScreen will warn you once: what to click, and how to check the file.

The design Palette is being built toward: a compliance review with an annotated building section, a table of components and a written summary, beside the conversation that asked for it. — The design we are building toward. The app as it ships today is below, screen by screen.

§ 01See it work105 seconds, unedited

Ask, change, read it back.

One take on the sample notes: a spoken request finds nineteen facts and the document appears; a spoken change and a clicked one each become a new version; then it reads the document aloud in a voice that runs on the machine.

Recorded 21 September 2026 on a build of 0.3.8 with the two changes that shipped in 0.3.9: the note bar sits at the bottom, and spoken requests apply without a confirm card. Download the recording, 5 MB

§ 02The rules it keepsEach one can be checked in the app

Most AI apps tell you what they will do for you. This one is easier to describe by what it will not do without you.

01
It never goes looking.

It works on the folders you hand it, one at a time. It does not search the rest of the computer on its own.
02
It reads nothing until you say so.

Listing a folder opens no file. Reading starts when you press Grant, and every file it read is listed afterwards.
03
Nothing in the document is made up.

Today the document is the facts you accepted, in a fixed layout. If a fact is not in your notes, it is not in the document. Written summaries come next, held to the same rule: every sentence leads back to a source.
04
Nothing it keeps is hidden.

On Home, what you asked for is kept and listed on screen in the same turn, and every version of the document is kept. In a matter, your words wait on a card until you keep them.
05
It does not need a model to work.

The sample runs with no AI model installed and no key. The app says so on screen.
06
It keeps a list of what it connects to.

The app keeps a list of the connections it has made. On a fresh install, after the whole sample, that list reads “none yet”.

§ 03The first five minutesScreens from version 0.3.7, not drawings

What you will see, in the order you will see it.

These are the app’s own screens, taken from version 0.3.7 running the sample notes. Since then the note bar has moved to the bottom, and requests on Home no longer wait on a card. The steps are the same, and they run on your own folder.

Palette: It opens empty, with one button — **It opens empty, with one button**Nothing to set up and no account. “Try it with sample notes” places four invented notes in the app’s own folder, so you can see the whole thing work before it touches anything of yours.

Palette: It shows you a folder before it reads it — **It shows you a folder before it reads it**Names and counts only. No file is opened to make this list. It says what it would read, what it would skip and why, and waits for you to grant the folder.

Palette: You say what you want. It asks before keeping anything — **You say what you want. It asks before keeping anything**Type it or hold the mic. It finds the facts in the notes you granted and holds them on a card. On Home in 0.3.9 it keeps them in the same turn and lists what it kept.

Palette: The document is the facts you accepted — **The document is the facts you accepted**Today it is a template, filled in, so there is no sentence in it that nobody wrote. The panel on the right says which model wrote the draft: none.

Palette: Every line leads back to its sentence — **Every line leads back to its sentence**Each claim sits beside the words it came from and the file they are in. Nineteen claims, nineteen sources.

Palette: Click a value to change it — **Click a value to change it**Or say the change out loud. It shows the change on a card, you confirm, and the document becomes version 2. Version 1 is kept.

§ 04What it is forAnd what it is not

Good for

A review, brief or summary sheet assembled from scattered notes
Finding out where a number in a document came from
Seeing what is in a folder before anything is allowed to read it
Work where a wrong sentence is expensive

Not for

Searching the web
Your inbox or your calendar
Booking, buying or doing errands
Free writing: emails, essays, posts

Today It reads plain text: .txt, .md, .csv, .json and .ics. PDFs and Office files are listed and skipped, and it tells you so. It is an early build, and it is honest about where it stops.

§ 05InstallVersion 0.3.10 · 23 September 2026

Mac

Open MissionCanvas.dmg and drag the app into Applications. It is signed and notarised. If macOS still says it cannot be verified, right-click the app and choose Open.
Download for Mac, 112 MB
Windows

Run MissionCanvas-Setup.exe. The installer is not yet code-signed, so SmartScreen shows “Windows protected your PC”. Click More info, then Run anyway. If you would rather check the file first, its SHA-256 is below.
Download for Windows, 94 MB
Linux

Open MissionCanvas.deb with your software installer, or run sudo apt install ~/Downloads/MissionCanvas.deb.
Download for Linux, 81 MB

The files are still named MissionCanvas. They are Palette.

SHA-256Check the file you downloaded

MissionCanvas.dmg: 8b53c41c9e3c0dd7de5e8d2f22ca2778d78ae38312aadb52fcbb2faf33985d65
MissionCanvas-Setup.exe: 87cf67dd9bf8d43ed14e769e37a0023cbd4d8a369da3e82779ee96b046b105c5
MissionCanvas.deb: 4710e728380162469407b12317bf08f23d4821054159b9fecfcec7574f81365e

Mac and Linux: shasum -a 256 <file>. Windows: certutil -hashfile <file> SHA256. These are the digests GitHub publishes for release desktop-v0.3.10-north-star.20260923; this page reads them when it is built.

Price

Free. No account, no card, no trial clock.

Who makes it

Palette is the app. Mission Canvas is the company.

Mission Canvas builds a business its own application, shaped to the way it works, and hands it over to keep. That is a different thing from Palette, and it starts with a conversation.

Book an audit

Try it on the sample notes. Then on one folder of your own.

Download Palette

™

Ask, change, read it back.

It never goes looking.

It reads nothing until you say so.

Nothing in the document is made up.

Nothing it keeps is hidden.