Why We Built Clarus
The story behind Clarus — a markdown editor built for writers who want their tools to work as hard as they do.
We built Clarus because we were tired of writing tools that got in the way.
Every markdown editor we tried fell into one of two camps: too minimal to be useful, or too complex to stay focused. The minimal ones left us jumping between tabs to look up sources, check facts, and find links. The complex ones buried us in features we never used.
We wanted something different. A writing environment that stays out of the way when you're in flow, but quietly handles the research busywork in the background. A tool that treats writing as the primary activity — not formatting, not configuration, not context switching.
The Research Problem
If you write anything that requires sources — essays, documentation, newsletters, blog posts — you know the dance. Write a sentence, open a browser, search for a source, copy a link, paste it back, lose your train of thought, repeat.
It's death by a thousand tabs.
We wanted to flip this. What if your editor could research while you write? What if it could suggest relevant links, verify claims, and surface sources without you ever leaving the document?
What Clarus Does
Clarus is a focused markdown editor with AI research agents. You write your draft in a clean, distraction-free environment. In the background, Clarus agents:
- Find relevant sources for your topic
- Check facts against current information
- Suggest links where they add value
- Surface research without interrupting your flow
The result is a writing experience where you stay in the zone, but your work is better sourced and more authoritative.
Why Markdown
Markdown is the lingua franca of writing for the web. It's portable, future-proof, and requires zero ceremony. Your words are just words — not locked in a proprietary format.
Clarus embraces markdown fully. No hidden formatting. No export anxiety. Just clean text that works everywhere.
What's Next
We're just getting started. Clarus is built by writers, for writers, and we're shipping improvements every week. If you write with sources — or wish you could write with sources without the hassle — give Clarus a try.