Our story
We build tools for developers who
refuse to rent their stack.
Obsydian Lab started with a stubborn belief: you shouldn't have to choose between cutting-edge AI and owning your code. Every other AI editor asks you to ship your source to a server you don't control. We thought that was backwards — so we inverted it.
An editor should make you faster, not make you the product.
The mission
Sovereign, by design.
The last decade pushed every tool into someone else's cloud. It was convenient — until the bill, the outage, the policy change, or the quiet model swap. We wanted the opposite trade: keep the intelligence, keep the speed, but put the machine you trust back at the center.
So Obsydian Lab runs as a native desktop app that opens your real folders. Your repository never leaves your disk. Flip Sovereign Mode and the entire editor — chat, edits, autocomplete — runs against local models with the network off.
And because AI should be a feature of a great editor rather than a wrapper around a prompt, we built the boring, essential things too: a real debugger, language servers, a streaming terminal, and a git graph. The agents just make all of it faster.
Sovereign by design
Your code never leaves your machine.
Files stay on your disk. Flip on Sovereign Mode and every byte is processed locally — no cloud, no telemetry, no exceptions. Privacy isn't a setting here, it's the foundation.
Why “sovereign”
Ownership is a feature.
Sovereignty isn't a marketing word for us — it's the architecture. Three guarantees shape everything we ship.
Opens your real folders
Point it at an actual project on disk and work the way you already do. No sandbox, no import dance — your repository, in place.
Sovereign Mode goes dark
One switch routes chat, edits and autocomplete through local models with the network off. Nothing leaves the machine.
Intelligence, included
Top models ship inside every plan. Open the editor and ask — the cost is one simple monthly price, nothing to wire up.
What we stand for
Principles we won't trade away.
Sovereignty over convenience
Your code is yours. Every feature is designed so the default keeps your files and history on your machine — not on someone else's server.
AI that's simply included
Frontier intelligence is built into the price. No keys to paste, no usage meter to babysit, no surprise API bill at the end of the month.
A real editor, not a chat box
Debugger, language servers, terminal, git graph, multi-file agents. We build a flagship editor first and weave AI through it — never the other way around.
Respect for the craft
Premium, fast, and quiet. Tools should disappear into the work, so we sweat the latency, the typography and the keystrokes.
Build on a stack you own.
An AI-native desktop editor with frontier intelligence included — and your code never leaves your machine.