In memoriam
Carnal
“Your local knowledge base.”
- Active
- August – September 2023
- Closed
- Lived at
- carnal.derekxwang.com
What it was
Carnal was an open-source macOS app that turned your computer into a knowledge base working with OpenAI’s GPT. The pitch fit in one line: no extra setup, no uploading files.
I built it in public during buildspace Nights & Weekends. The week 4 update, posted on September 4, 2023, brought a brand new UI and a tray app.
What I built
- The macOS app itself, open source on GitHub.
- A Remix and Tailwind landing page at carnal.derekxwang.com, whose “Download for macOS” button fetched the latest
.dmgfrom the GitHub releases, next to the week 4 update.
How it ended
The last change to the landing page was that download button, in September 2023. The page stayed up until I closed it on 2026-10-07; the code is still on GitHub.