Install & run

Parlance is a local desktop application. It runs on your machine, reads and writes your project's files directly, and needs no account, no server, and no internet connection.

Get the app

Grab a build from Download — macOS (Apple Silicon), Windows (x64), or Linux (AppImage or .deb). On macOS, drag Parlance to Applications.

First launch. Current builds are unsigned, so each desktop platform warns once. On macOS you may see "Parlance is damaged and can't be opened." It isn't damaged — that's the standard unsigned-app warning. Clear the quarantine flag once per download:
xattr -cr /Applications/Parlance.app
On Windows, SmartScreen may say "Windows protected your PC" — click More info → Run anyway.

Open a project

Launch Parlance and point it at a project folder. A project is just a directory containing your narrative files — most often the data/ directory inside your game's own repository, so your story is versioned alongside the game that reads it.

New to it? Start from the demo project, The Mistfall Inn — a complete, tiny mystery with every feature in play. Your first project walks through it.
Starting fresh? parlance init my-story scaffolds the standard layout (CLI reference), or point the app at an empty folder and let it scaffold on first save.
Existing project? Just open the folder. If it has a data/ directory or a parlance.config.json, Parlance recognizes it.

Where your files live

Everything is human-readable JSON in your repo — no database, no library folder, nothing hidden in Application Support:

your-game/
  data/          the narrative — what your game reads
  tests/         route fixtures — regression tests
  lore/          Markdown canon docs
  review/        review threads (invisible to the runtime)
  parlance.config.json   optional

Full details, including how to relocate any of those directories, are in the configuration reference. Nothing outside your project folder is written except a few view preferences (panel widths, node density), which live in the app's local storage and never in your repo.

Command line

The same validator the app runs on every save is available headless for CI — parlance ci-check and parlance route — see the CLI reference and the CI tutorial.

When something's wrong

Symptom	Cause and fix
"Parlance is damaged and can't be opened"	Unsigned build — run the `xattr -cr` command above, once per download
"File changed on disk — reload to see latest version"	Another editor window, a script, or a `git checkout` changed the file since you loaded it. Reload to pull the latest, then re-save — your edit isn't lost, it's just not applied to a stale base
The project opens empty	The folder isn't a Parlance project (no `data/`, no `parlance.config.json`), or `data` is pointed elsewhere in the config. See configuration
Validation shows errors you don't understand	Every code is explained in the validation checks reference
A canvas looks tangled or a node is hidden behind the minimap	Auto layout re-flows the graph; Map toggles the minimap; the density toggle shrinks nodes. See shortcuts

Working from source

If you have access to the Parlance repository, the editor also runs from a source checkout as a local host plus web client — that path is documented in the repository itself, not here. Everything else in these docs applies identically either way: same editor, same validator, same files on disk.