Mahanu for builders and learners

Mahanu guide · FAQ · Vision · Why Mahanu · Safety for parents · Hosted-service policies

Written for people who might use Mahanu. Short answers to common questions are in the FAQ; this page is the overview.

What is Mahanu?

Mahanu is where you and your people turn an idea into real work and get better at a shared pursuit together — not a feed to scroll or an audience to perform for, but a project: your study circle, your band, your robotics team, the app you're building, your drawing practice. Start the moment the idea strikes: bring in your buddies, make a plan, build it.

One idea makes it different: your project lives on your own computer, as open-format files you can open in any app — even if Mahanu disappeared tomorrow. When you want backup or collaboration, Mahanu syncs those files across your devices and your teammates', remembers every version, and gives you good ways to see the work: calendars, checklists, tables.

The one rule about what belongs here: a project is for its members to get better at a shared pursuit — sciences or arts, craft or sport, anything pursued honestly. Not audience-farming, not personality worship. The longer version: Vision.

How it works

Every project has a public card — its name, tagline, and purpose, screened and shown in Explore. Everything else is private to your team unless you deliberately publish it.
People join by invite (a link or QR code) or ask to join from your card — you decide, and you set what they can do (edit, comment, or read).
Publish deliberately. Choose Publish on a document or image, and only that appears on your project's public page. You can always see exactly what's public; nothing leaks by accident.
Clone what you like. Found a good project? Take its structure — folders, schedule, checklists — as a starting point, with a "cloned from" credit that travels with it.
Everything has a Timeline. Every change by every member is remembered: see who changed what, revisit any earlier version, restore it. A restore is just another entry in the story.
An assistant, on your terms. Ask it to draft a plan or summarize what you collected; it proposes edits and waits for your OK. Every approved edit is labeled and undoable, and it follows instructions your team writes in a plain file it can't hide from you.

What you own

On desktop, everything, from the first save: a project is a folder of open-format files on your own disk — no upload required — and if you stop using Mahanu you keep every note, plan, and image in a form any computer can open (If Mahanu disappears tomorrow). Backing it up and syncing across your devices and teammates is a choice you switch on, not a precondition for the files existing. (A browser-only project is server-backed, because a browser has nowhere else to keep it; download it as a folder anytime.) Teams choose per project between managed-cloud processing and encryption, with the recovery trade-offs explained first.

No feeds, likes, follower counts, or behavioral ads — and your data is never sold. When a project needs a grant, discount, or useful service, its owners deliberately search the Support & Resources directory; sponsors never receive your work or identity and never buy influence (the full promise). Open source and self-hosting make the harmful alternatives structurally hard to add.

Starter projects & portfolios

Mahanu launches with clonable starters — real, lived-in projects you make yours. Pick the one that matches your life, change one thing, invite someone — all in the browser, and a project of one counts. Over time a project quietly becomes a portfolio: published work lands on its public page, the "cloned from" credit makes your influence visible, and because the Timeline keeps every draft, your work carries its own provenance — showing the making, better proof than showing the result.

Safety, plainly

Projects are invite-only inside; only screened cards and knowingly-published work are public, each with a report button. Independent accounts are 18+ and invite-gated; a parent can create a supervised sub-account for their child and control its devices, access, privacy mode, and assistant route. We don't scan private notes — safety comes from structure, clear choices, and public-surface review, plus a visible conduct bot in bigger projects and any with kids that answers to members and parents, not to us. Written for parents: Safety, for parents.