The README grew a section per feature and is a good reference, but nothing said where to begin. docs/wiki now has a getting-started page, a guide that walks through one day with the workspace and explains each part where it comes up, and a page per part of the app, each with screenshots of what it describes. Three pages are read out of the code rather than written, so they cannot drift from it: the keys and commands from Help.svelte and commands.ts, the same lists `:help` draws; the settings from .env.example, which gains a heading for the vault, trash and history settings so they no longer sit under mail; and the API from the README's table. `make wiki` writes them, and `--check` fails when one is stale or a link between pages leads nowhere. `--publish` lays the pages out for a GitHub wiki: links without `.md`, images beside them, `[[` escaped so the wiki does not take a command's help text for a link to a page. The screenshots are taken by `make screenshots`: the debug binary on a temporary data directory, with a password made up for the run, filled with an example workspace over the API, and a headless Chromium driven over the DevTools protocol through the views the docs show. Nothing outside the temporary directory is touched but docs/images, and the pictures are cut to 256 colours, a third of their size, which a dark UI does not show. The README opens with the banner, a CI badge, the guide, the features grouped by what they are for, and six of the screenshots.
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Getting started
Run it
You need Rust (1.96 or newer) and bun to build it. The result is one binary with the whole frontend inside, so the machine it runs on needs neither.
git clone https://github.com/narrrl/narl-workspace
cd narl-workspace
cp .env.example .env
Open .env and set three things:
WORKSPACE_USER: the name you log in with.WORKSPACE_PASSWORD: the password. The server will not start while it is stillchange-me.WORKSPACE_SECRET: 32 random characters that sign the login cookie. Make one withopenssl rand -base64 32.
Then build and start it:
make build
./target/release/narl-workspace
and open http://127.0.0.1:4242.
With Docker instead, docker compose up -d --build does the same; see
Deploying. Every other setting has a default that works on
your own machine. Configuration lists them all.
Log in
The workspace has one account, the one in .env. Wrong passwords are answered
more slowly each time. A browser that has logged in before is slowed only by
its own mistakes, so someone guessing from elsewhere cannot lock you out.
Find your way around
A new workspace has three spaces: diary, work and uni. The bar along
the top shows them as numbered pills. 1, 2 and 3 switch between them,
and Tab steps to the next one.
The screen has four parts:
- the bar, at the top: the spaces, where you are in the tree, how many cards are late or due today, and the clock;
- the list, on the left: what is in the folder you are in;
- the tiles, on the right: the documents and files you have open;
- the status line, at the bottom: the mode you are in, and what the last key or command did.
The rail of buttons on the right does the same as the keys, for a mouse.
The first ten minutes
- Press
2to go towork. - Press
o. A new document opens in the editor, in insert mode. Write something. - Press
Escto leave insert mode, then type:name Plans for the weekandEnterto give it a name. There is no need to save: the document is saved a couple of seconds after you stop typing.:wsaves at once anyway. - Type
:qto close it. It is in the list now, under today's date. - Press
O(capital). The command line opens with:mkdiralready typed; add a name and pressEnter.lorEnteron the folder goes into it, andhcomes back up. - Press
c, typetry the board, and pressEnter. That is a card in the inbox of this space's board. Pressbto see the board, andbagain to go back. - Press
T. That is today's diary entry, started for you. - Press
?for the list of every key and command, andEscto close it.
On a phone the same things are buttons: the dock at the bottom has a new
document, a new folder, the board, today's entry, an upload and a search, and
the ⋯ on a row (or a long press on it) has what can be done to that row.
Next
The guide goes through a whole day with the workspace and explains each part as it comes up.

