Anky — Obsidian Plugin

an implementation of the anky protocol for obsidian.

forward-only writing. no backspace. no editing. no performance. just you and the blank page.

what it does

press Cmd+Shift+A (or Ctrl+Shift+A) and a full-screen writing session begins. the screen goes dark. a cursor blinks. you write.

the rules are simple:

• forward only. no backspace, no delete, no arrow keys, no enter, no paste. typos stay. hesitations stay. the mess stays.
• 8-second silence ends the session. stop typing for 8 seconds and the session is sealed. you can't go back.
• 8 minutes is the threshold. the progress bar fills over 8 minutes. sessions that cross this line are called ankys. everything shorter is just a session.

when the session ends, your keystrokes are saved as an .anky file — one line per keystroke, with millisecond-precision timing. the filename is the SHA-256 hash of the file contents. the file is never modified after creation.

the .anky format

each file follows the anky protocol spec:

1776098721818 w       <- first line: unix epoch ms + character
48 r                  <- subsequent lines: delta ms + character
131 i
173 SPACE             <- spaces are encoded as SPACE

no metadata. no headers. no comments. every line is a real keystroke from a real moment.

filesystem layout

sessions are stored in your vault:

ankys/
  2026/
    04/
      13/
        a1b2c3d4...f0.anky
        e5f6a7b8...d9.anky

the folder is configurable in plugin settings (default: ankys).

features

writing session (Cmd+Shift+A)

• full-screen, distraction-free writing environment
• orange idle bar appears after 3 seconds of silence, depletes over the remaining 5 seconds
• rainbow progress bar tracks the 8-minute journey
• countdown timer flips to count-up after 8 minutes
• all editing keys are blocked — you can only move forward

session viewer

• opens automatically when you click any .anky file
• shows the reconstructed text with session stats (date, duration, word count, flow score)
• navigate between sessions with arrow keys
• delete sessions you don't want

anky map (Open anky map command)

• visual grid of all your sessions — purple squares for ankys (8+ min), dark squares for shorter sessions
• hover or arrow-key navigate to preview any session
• press space to open the full session view

flow score

each session gets a flow score (0-100%) based on:

• rhythm (30%) — consistency of typing cadence
• velocity (25%) — words per minute relative to 60 wpm baseline
• attention (25%) — absence of long pauses (3s+)
• duration (20%) — how close to the 8-minute mark

installation

1. clone or download this repository
2. install dependencies and build:

   npm install && npm run build
   

3. copy main.js and manifest.json into your vault:

   {your-vault}/.obsidian/plugins/anky/
   

4. enable the plugin in obsidian settings > community plugins
5. press Cmd+Shift+A and write

the full experience

this plugin captures the core writing practice. for the full anky experience — reflections, ai-generated insights, chain anchoring, and more — download the mobile app:

download on testflight

the protocol

the anky protocol is a minimal specification for capturing forward-only keystroke sessions as immutable, hash-verifiable plain text files. one file format. one hash function. one optional public anchor.

read the full spec: anky.app/protocol.md

the writing is the seed. everything else is fruit.