Terry Davis had a point. Not the most comfortable quote to open with in 2025, but the idea sticks: if you rely on tools without understanding them, you don't really own your work.
I've been using Draw.io and Excalidraw for years. Great tools. But every time I needed to explain an architecture, sketch a flow, or share a quick diagram during a call, I found myself fighting the tool instead of thinking.
So I built Markasso.
The name is straightforward: Marker + Picasso. A whiteboard engine for the browser, built from scratch — no dependencies, no framework, no runtime. Just the canvas API and a keyboard-first philosophy.
Why from scratch?
Because I wanted to understand every line of it. And because "zero dependencies" isn't a performance optimization — it's a design constraint that forces clarity. When you can't reach for a library, you have to think harder. The result is something lighter, faster, and fully yours.
Understanding what you're building doesn't mean doing everything alone. I used Claude as an AI agent throughout the process — for architecture decisions, code review, and working through edge cases. Lorenzo Cataldi (github.com/lc-d) helped with the visual design side. The point isn't to be a lone genius. It's to stay on top of every decision, even the ones you delegate.
What it does:
- Keyboard-first navigation and shortcuts (fully documented)
- Mermaid diagram support out of the box
- Custom export/import format so you can move your work between sessions
- Dark theme by default (20+ years of screens will do that to you)
- No profiling, no tracking — just Cloudflare for analytics and CI/CD
Who is it for?
Developers who need a whiteboard for system design, architecture reviews, or explaining things to a colleague on a call. But also anyone who wants to draw on a dark page without logging in somewhere first.
It's young. It'll break. But it has potential.
Try it, break it, tell me what's wrong. Every report, complaint, or comment is welcome.
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