Ethos is a handwriting-first notebook for e-ink tablets, built on an old conviction: writing by hand is how you untangle your own thinking.
For five centuries, serious readers kept commonplace books: passages copied out by hand, argued with in the margins, indexed into a private map of one mind. The habit built essayists, scientists, and presidents, and then it lost its home when reading moved to glass.
Ethos gives it a new one. You write with the pen on a screen that reads like paper. The page sets your handwriting in type so every line is searchable, and your own hand stays exactly as you made it.
Ink goes down the instant the pen moves and stays exactly as you wrote it. The ink engine already runs on real e-ink hardware, and it has to feel right there before anything else gets built.
Every note is a plain markdown file with your pen strokes saved beside it, in a folder on your device. Delete the app and your notes still open anywhere.
Your handwriting becomes searchable text on the device itself. Notes can travel on to Notion or Obsidian, and sync only flows outward, so nothing ever edits your originals.
The ink engine already feels right on real hardware; the vault and sync land next. Leave your email and the first build comes to you when it's ready. Nothing else gets sent in the meantime.