Vincet Chen
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Project Beta

An experiment in restraint — see how much can be removed before a tool stops being useful.

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Project Beta cover

Premise

What is the minimum a note‑taking app needs to be useful? The conventional answer is “a lot”: tags, backlinks, full‑text search, sync. Beta started by removing all of them and reintroducing only the ones that earned their place.

Result

Three features survived: a single text area, autosave to local storage, and a keyboard shortcut to wipe everything. Nothing else.

I use it every day.