BasaltOffline-first, not offline-tolerant
After the first sync you do not need the internet. Browsing, search, links, tags and the graph all work on a plane, on the tube, or with no signal at all.
Your entire vault, in your pocket.
Offline. Writable. Free.
Search, backlinks and the graph all work with the network off — and every edit commits to your own GitHub repo the moment it comes back. No subscription. No account with us.
Free · Android · No account with us, ever · Try the bundled sample vault with no repo at all
Vault not in a repo yet? That is the one piece of setup — push the folder you already have to GitHub once, and Basalt takes it from there.
The app
Six screens, all of them offline.
Real screenshots, not mockups. Taken on the sample vault with the network switched off, which is exactly what you get before you connect anything.
Why it lasts
What makes notes survive is not the app.
Nobody still has their notes ten years on because they found a cleverer app. They have them because of what the notes are made of, and where they live.
01
The files stay yours
Plain markdown, in a repo you own. No proprietary format, no account with us, and no export to dread later. There is no server holding a copy of your notes.
02
One vault, not five apps
The same folder at your desk and in your pocket. Obsidian writes to it, Basalt writes to it, and the repo keeps them in step. Your notes never half-live in two places.
03
Capture where the thought happens
Which is hardly ever at your desk. Write it on your phone with no signal at all, and it commits itself the moment you are back online.
04
Nothing is ever quietly lost
Every save is a real commit to your repo. The whole history is one git log away, on something you can clone onto any machine you will ever own.
Those four lines are a standard, not a boast. The first two are just Obsidian and git doing their job. Basalt exists because the last two are the ones that break the moment you are away from the desk.
Your setup
Basalt is the pocket half. Obsidian keeps the desk.
This is not trying to replace Obsidian. It is the missing piece of something you probably already do — the part that works when your laptop is nowhere near you.
Obsidian
The long sessions. Plugins, canvases, the heavy restructuring you only do sitting down.
Your GitHub repo
The spine. Plain markdown, full history, one clone away from any machine — and no third party in it.
Basalt
The other twenty-three hours. Read, search, link and write from the phone, online or not.
Features
Everything the desk version taught you to expect.
All of it runs on the phone, and none of it waits on the network.
Edit offline — commits when you are back
A proper markdown editor, with a toolbar for the characters that are painful to type on a phone. Write now, and it commits itself later.
Review before you push
You see exactly what is about to be committed. If GitHub changed while you were away, you choose what happens: overwrite, discard, or keep both.
Search that answers instantly
Every note is indexed as it syncs, so results come back instantly with the matching line highlighted. There is a quick switcher too, if you just want to jump by name.
Backlinks and linked mentions
[[wikilinks]] work the way you expect, and every note ends with a list of the notes pointing back at it.
The connection graph
See the whole vault as a graph, with filters, search and a minimap. Or zoom into just the note you are reading and what surrounds it.
Real Obsidian markdown
Callouts, footnotes, ==highlights==, frontmatter, tags, tables, code blocks and Mermaid diagrams all render properly, instead of showing you the raw syntax.
Tick a box without opening the editor
Tap a task straight from the page, no editor needed. A dated checklist draws itself as a calendar, which is all a habit tracker really has to be.
Highlights that survive a re-sync
Mark a passage and it stays on the right words, even after the note has been edited on your laptop and synced back down.
- Several vaults side by side
- Public repos work without signing in
- Lock it with your fingerprint or face
- Syncs in the background when the repo changes
- Browse by tag, the way you browse folders
- Eight themes, light and dark
Questions
Things you are probably wondering.
Short answers, and all of them about what the app does today.
Do I have to keep my vault in a GitHub repo?
Yes — the repo is how the syncing happens. If your vault is just a folder today, pushing it to GitHub once is the whole setup. You can also try Basalt on the sample vault it comes with, without a repo or an account.
Does it work with private repos?
Yes, and most vaults are private. Sign in with GitHub and they work exactly like public ones. Public repos do not need you to sign in at all.
Where does my GitHub token live?
In your phone keystore, and nowhere else. There is no Basalt server to send it to. The app only ever talks to GitHub, and nothing leaves your phone except the commits you push.
What happens if the repo moved on while I was offline?
You get told before anything is written. You see what is about to be committed, and if the repo changed first, you pick what happens: overwrite, discard, or keep both.
Does it download my whole vault?
Once, in a single download. After that your notes live on the phone, and only what is needed to find them is kept in the database. Later syncs fetch the newest commit, not the whole history.
Is there an iPhone version?
Not yet — Basalt is Android for now. Nothing about it is tied to Android, so it is a matter of time rather than a rewrite.
Built on
Expo SDK 57React Native 0.86React 19SQLite · FTS5expo-routerTypeScript strict
Your notes are just a repo. Keep them that way.
Point it at the vault you already have, sync once, and carry the whole thing around with you. Readable, searchable and writable, with the network off.
Android, arm64. No iOS build yet.
Support
Free, and staying that way.
No subscription, no account, no server of mine. Nothing is locked behind paying, and nothing changes if you never do. But if Basalt has earned a place on your phone, you can buy me a coffee. It covers the developer accounts and the late evenings, and buys you nothing but my thanks.