Quill

A Mac Markdown editor where Claude is a collaborator inside the document — it answers comments and proposes tracked changes you accept or reject, right where you're writing.

Quill is for writing and revising Markdown documents — briefs, memos, specs, docs drafted with Claude Code — when you want a second set of hands in the draft, not in a separate chat window. You select a passage, ask Claude to tighten or fact-check it, and its edits land as tracked changes in the margin. You keep the ones you like. Your files stay ordinary .md on disk, so anything else can still read them.

It works like Google Docs' suggesting mode, but the reviewer is Claude, the file is plain Markdown on your own Mac, and Quill keeps to itself — no telemetry, no update server, no account of its own to sign into. The requests you make to Claude run through your own Claude account.

The one thing to know before you start: Quill is an internal Trussworks build, installed by copying the app from the team's Google Drive (see Installing Quill), and its AI features need the Claude Code command-line tool signed in on the same Mac (see Turn on the Claude features). Everything except the Claude features works without it.

What it looks like to use it

The core loop is select → ask → review:

1. Open a Markdown file — or just type into the Untitled document Quill starts with — and select a sentence or paragraph.
2. A + button appears next to it. Click it and the composer opens, anchored to your selection, with two buttons: Add note (a private note — not sent to Claude unless you later promote it with Ask Claude about this) and Ask Claude. The highlight frames your request, but Claude receives the full current document, so it can answer or edit wherever the request calls for — not only inside your selection.
3. Type a request — "tighten this," "is this accurate against the interview notes?" — and click Ask Claude (or press ⌘↩).
4. Claude's answer streams into the comment thread. If you asked for edits, its revisions appear in the document as tracked changes attributed to Claude — each with an Accept / Reject card in the right-hand panel. The proposed text stays visibly marked until you accept or reject it — Quill never silently commits a final version.

For a whole-document pass — "make this 20% shorter," "check every date against the source" — open the Chat panel (⌘/) instead of commenting paragraph by paragraph. Chat reads the full document every turn and returns its edits as the same reviewable tracked changes.

The Chat panel works on the whole document; its edits come back as tracked suggestions you accept or reject, and it never leaves margin comments.

Alongside the Claude features, Quill is a capable Markdown editor in its own right: two color themes, a left-edge formatting rail, find & replace, tabs for several documents at once, comments and manual tracked changes without any AI, and export to a clean PDF. The User Guide is a plain-language walkthrough.

Requirements

What you need	Version	How to check	You should see
A Mac	Apple Silicon or Intel; built and tested on macOS 26 (older macOS is untested)	Apple menu → About This Mac	Your Mac model and macOS version
Google Drive for Desktop	Any current version, signed into your Truss account	Finder sidebar under Locations	A Google Drive entry that opens the shared drives
Claude Code CLI — only for the Claude features	Any current version	Run claude --version in Terminal	A version line, e.g. 2.1.208 (Claude Code)

Google Drive for Desktop is at google.com/drive/download; the Claude Code CLI is at claude.com/claude-code. You can install Quill and edit Markdown without Claude Code — you just won't have the Ask Claude or Chat features until it's installed and signed in.

Installing Quill

Quill is shipped inside Trussworks as a ready-to-run Mac app on the team's Google Drive. It is not Apple-notarized, so how you copy it matters: a copy that arrives through Google Drive's Finder sync normally has no download quarantine and opens cleanly, while one pulled from the Drive website (or any browser download) is typically quarantined and trips macOS Gatekeeper. Use Finder.

1. In Finder, open your synced Google Drive and go to Shared drives → Truss → Engineering → Tools.
2. Drag Quill.app from that folder into your Applications folder.
3. Open Applications and double-click Quill.

Check it worked: Quill opens to an empty Untitled document with a formatting rail down the left edge and a status bar along the bottom. No "unidentified developer" or "Apple could not verify" dialog should appear. If one does, you copied a quarantined file — see Troubleshooting.

That's the whole install. Your documents are saved wherever you choose — never inside the app. Quill keeps its own local data under your Library folder (identifier com.trussworks.quill): your preferences (theme, zoom, recent files, model choices), a workspace.json crash-recovery snapshot in Application Support, and a rotating log in Logs. The recovery snapshot holds your open tabs — including the contents of any not-yet-saved document — so unsaved work survives a crash or restart.

If you used an earlier, pre-Trussworks build of Quill, this one starts with fresh settings (theme, zoom, recent files, model choices) because the app's identity changed. Your documents and their .comments.json companion files are untouched. Details are in the v1.1.7 release note.

Updating

After it opens, Quill checks once for a newer build in the synced Truss Drive folder. You can also choose Help → Check for Updates… at any time. Both checks are local: Quill reads a tiny Quill.version file beside the Drive app (or the app's own version as a fallback) and makes no network request to Google or any update server. If a newer build is available, Install and Restart copies it from Drive into the location where Quill is installed. Your documents and settings carry over.

If you choose Later, Quill will not mention that version again; it will prompt when Drive contains something newer. Check Stop checking automatically in the update notice to turn off the launch check. The Help menu check keeps working.

You can still update manually: quit Quill, drag the new Quill.app from the synced Drive folder into Applications (replacing the old one), and open it again. Do not use the Drive website's Download button; browser downloads are quarantined by macOS.

Turn on the Claude features

The Ask Claude and Chat features run Claude through the Claude Code CLI on your Mac, under your own Claude account — there are no API keys to set up, and the requests count toward that account's usage. Quill sends no telemetry. Its launch and on-demand update checks only read the Truss Drive folder already synced to your Mac; Quill makes no network request for them.

1. Install and sign into Claude Code. Follow claude.com/claude-code to install the CLI, then run claude once in Terminal and complete the sign-in. Confirm it works: claude --version prints a version line. Quill finds the claude command automatically afterward, even when launched from the Dock.
2. Link the document to a session. A session is one Claude Code conversation; linking it lets Claude answer with that conversation's memory. In Quill's status bar, click ✦ Link session, then pick an existing session — or, for a document Claude didn't write, save it first and choose Start new session to give it a fresh conversation of its own. If Claude Code wrote the document's text, Quill usually suggests the right session the moment you open the file.
3. Ask. Select text, click +, type a request, and press Ask Claude (⌘↩).

Check it worked: the reply streams into the comment thread within a few seconds. Ask for an edit ("tighten this sentence") and a tracked change with Accept / Reject appears in the document. If the reply fails instantly, see Troubleshooting.

Everyday use

The User Guide walks through Quill in plain language; the essentials:

• Comments and Ask Claude — Select text → + → Add note (private — not sent to Claude unless you promote it with Ask Claude about this) or Ask Claude. A Claude thread takes follow-up replies that continue with Claude; a private note has an Ask Claude about this button to hand it over later.
• Suggesting mode — The top-bar Editing / Suggesting switch. In Suggesting mode your own edits become tracked changes too (insertions, deletions, and formatting like bold or strikethrough), each with an Accept / Reject card; Accept all / Reject all clear the batch. Editing mode applies changes directly.
• Chat about the whole document — The Chat tab in the right panel, or ⌘/. It reads the full document each turn and returns tracked-change suggestions; it never leaves margin comments.
• Reference folders — Click REFERENCE FOLDER in the status bar and point it at a folder of source material (notes, PDFs, data). Claude may then read those files, so you can ask it to check the document against them.
• Model and effort — Two status-bar dropdowns pick the Claude model (AUTO, or fable / opus / sonnet / haiku) and effort (AUTO, or low … max) for the next request. AUTO lets Claude Code choose; after a request, an AUTO dropdown reports the most recently observed value — the model family it saw (like OPUS) and the effort.
• Tabs, find, zoom, themes — Several documents open as tabs (⌘N for a new one); ⌘F is find & replace; ⌘ +/−/0 zooms 60–240%; the button at the bottom of the rail toggles the Paper and Gruvbox themes. Your open tabs reopen the next time you launch.
• Sharing — File → Export to PDF… (⌘P) makes a clean copy for people who don't have Quill. To share the editable document, move its files yourself; there's no cloud sharing (see What Quill is not).

In Suggesting mode, every change — your own or Claude's — is tracked: insertions, deletions, replacements, and formatting each get an Accept / Reject card.

Saving and data safety. A saved document autosaves in the background — a couple of seconds after you stop typing, and whenever you switch away from it. An Untitled document has nowhere to save to yet, so save it once (⌘S) to start autosaving. If a file changes on disk while you have it open — which happens when Google Drive syncs an edit from another machine — Quill won't overwrite blindly: it pauses saving and shows a banner offering Overwrite, Save a Copy, or Reload. Unsaved and Untitled work is also kept in the crash-recovery snapshot, so your tabs come back if Quill or your Mac restarts.

Files and privacy. Each saved document is a portable <name>.md, plus a <name>.comments.json companion file next to it whenever there's review data to store. That companion holds your comments, private notes, suggestions, chat, and the links to the Claude session and reference folder (including the session id and folder paths). A private note stays out of Claude's context unless you later promote it with Ask Claude about this — but it is always written to .comments.json, so sharing that file shares your notes too. To pass a document along without the review data, share only the .md; if it still has unresolved suggestions, accept or reject them first (a pending suggestion leaves both the old and proposed text in the .md) or use Export to PDF for a clean, accepted copy.

One more privacy note: like any Markdown viewer, opening a document that contains a remote https:// image fetches it, which tells that image's host that the file was opened and reveals your IP address (the request carries no document content). Local and relative images stay on your Mac.

What Quill is not

• Not a real-time collaboration tool. One person edits a document at a time. Quill has no account or sign-in of its own, no cloud sync, and no shared live cursors. Multiple documents open as tabs in a single window, not multiple windows. If you need Google-Docs-style multiplayer editing, use Google Docs.
• Not a general chat client. Claude works on the open document (a comment thread or the whole-document chat), not as a free-standing assistant.
• Not cross-platform. macOS only. The AI features rely on Unix-style discovery of the Claude Code CLI, so Windows and Linux are not shipped.
• Not a signed, public release. This is an internal build that isn't Apple-signed or notarized, distributed over Google Drive rather than the App Store or a website. Treat it as internal Trussworks software.
• Not a full-fidelity Markdown converter. Footnotes and raw HTML aren't supported; Quill warns you when you open a file that uses them, because saving from Quill would alter those parts.
• PDF export is a clean copy only. It renders the document as if every suggestion were accepted; there is no "export with the tracked changes and comments visible" markup view.

Troubleshooting

Quill won't open: "Apple could not verify 'Quill' is free of malware" or "Quill Not Opened" with only a Move to Trash button. Cause: the copy you have is quarantined — most likely pulled from the Drive website's Download button or a browser rather than the synced Finder folder. Fix: delete that copy and reinstall by dragging Quill.app from the synced Shared drives → Truss → Engineering → Tools folder (Installing Quill). If you must use a copy you already have, open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll to the message about Quill, and click Open Anyway, then authenticate.

Ask Claude or Chat fails immediately, or the ✦ link picker is empty. Cause: the Claude Code CLI isn't installed or isn't signed in — or you simply haven't picked a session yet. Fix: in Terminal, confirm claude --version prints a version and that running claude signs you in. Then, in Quill, click ✦ Link session; if the list is empty, save your document and choose Start new session to create one for it — you don't need to open a session in Terminal first. See Turn on the Claude features.

A document opens with a warning about its comments file. Cause: the <name>.comments.json companion file next to the document couldn't be read (corrupted or truncated). Fix: Quill opens the Markdown text safely with an empty review panel and refuses to overwrite the damaged companion file, so your comments may be recoverable from a backup or from Google Drive's version history. The Markdown itself is unaffected.

Settings, recent files, or a linked session reset after an update. Cause: expected only when moving from a pre-Trussworks build — the app identity changed once, so local settings start fresh. Your documents are untouched. This does not recur on later updates.

For anything else, open an issue on the trussworks/quill repository — or, if you don't have repo access, reach the owning team, Trussworks Engineering. Include your macOS version, what you did, and what happened; Help → Copy Diagnostics (app version and OS) and Help → Show Logs are handy to attach, and for a Claude problem, note whether claude works in your Terminal.

Build and run from source

You only need this if you're developing Quill; to just use it, follow Installing Quill above.

Quill is a Tauri 2 desktop app — a React 19 + TypeScript frontend (built with Vite, edited through Tiptap) over a thin Rust backend. Building needs Node.js 22+, a Rust toolchain, and Tauri's system prerequisites.

git clone https://github.com/trussworks/quill.git
cd quill
npm install
npm run tauri dev   # launches the desktop app with hot reload

CONTRIBUTING.md has the full check bar — typecheck, lint, formatting, Vitest, Playwright, and the Rust checks — that a change must pass before it lands, and PRD.md is the as-built product spec. Releases are macOS-only, built as a universal app and shared over Google Drive; there's no automated public release channel.

License and attribution

Quill is licensed under the Apache License 2.0 (see also NOTICE).

This is an internal Trussworks fork of sam-powers/quill, the original open-source project by Sam Powers. Trussworks maintains the fork; the upstream copyright and Apache-2.0 license are retained.