Local-first storage

Portable documents, native files

Varve keeps project references portable inside a document while preserving the real filesystem semantics of the location you choose. A Linux document can travel to Windows or macOS without turning a drive, network share, Unicode name, or external volume into a malformed path.

Designed for real storage

• Documents can live on local, removable, network, and cloud-backed locations.
• Fonts and optional models remain durable user data, separate from regenerable cache.
• App data, configuration, recovery, logs, and cache use each operating system's supported application directories.
• Packaged builds do not write beside the executable or into a read-only app bundle.
• Recent files survive missing or unplugged locations: a moved document shows a clear missing state instead of silently vanishing from your history.

Offline is a feature, not a fallback

Everything essential works with no connection: creating and editing documents, saving, undo history, fonts, printing, and export. The design assistants — contrast checks, design-debt scans, layer-name suggestions, and spacing harmonization — run entirely on your device with no model downloads and no data leaving the document. What offline actually changes is surfaced honestly: online font and icon search are unavailable, and nothing pretends a "sync" is pending that a local-first product does not have.