A while ago, I made a small Mac app called NoTabsConfusion. It highlights the windows I used most recently, and it saves me from opening the wrong window while I work.
It was useful to me. Sharing it was the difficult part.
I could give another developer the source code. I could pay for Apple's developer program and distribute a signed Mac app. But I could not simply send the tool to someone using Windows or Linux. Even on a Mac, the person receiving it would have to trust an app they did not write.
AI makes this problem much bigger.
People can now ask Claude for a grocery list, a habit tracker, or a tiny tool made for one specific job. Creating it may take minutes. Giving that app to another person is still a software distribution project.
I am building Krate to test a simpler model: small apps should be shareable like documents.
With Krate, Claude can create an app from one request:
krate create "Make a grocery list app with milk, eggs, and bread" \
--agent claude \
--output groceries.krate
The result is one .krate file.
That same file opens locally on Mac, Windows, and Linux. Before any code runs, Krate shows what the app wants to access, such as a window, a folder, or the network. The user chooses, and the runtime gives the app only what was approved.
What works today:
- Claude can create a Krate app from a plain request
- the result is one shareable file
- the same file opens on all three desktop operating systems
- permission choices are enforced by the runtime
- local app data survives closing and reopening
- the runtime, format, authoring tools, and MCP interface are open source
Krate Cloud is the next product, not something I am claiming is already built.
It will let people publish, find, share, and update these small apps while the
apps continue to run locally under the same permission controls.
Right now I care about the first user journey. I want to know whether someone who did not build Krate can make a small app, open it, understand the permission screen, and send the file to somebody else.
If you use Claude Code, try making one small app and tell me the first point where the process becomes unclear or fails.
Make an app:
https://incyashraj.github.io/krate/docs/pages/make-an-app-with-ai.html
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