Gnomad Slate 2.1-beta — Scratchpad, Clipboard, and Vault-X
Shipping the first public macOS Apple Silicon build — global summon, encrypted secrets in Rust, and an in-app updater.
- tauri
- rust
- slate
- desktop
- security
What Slate is for
Gnomad Slate sits in the background until you need it. Option+Space summons a capture surface from any app: ephemeral scratch notes, persistent vault markdown, and a clipboard history capsule — without leaving your current window.
The differentiator is Vault-X: API keys and tokens stored with Argon2id + AES-256-GCM, decrypted only in Rust, zeroized on lock. The React UI never holds decrypted secret values — only metadata for the list view.
v2.1.0-beta.1 highlights
- About menu with version info and Check for Updates (Tauri updater)
- Custom app icon and refined default window sizing
- Cmd+S / Cmd+N shortcuts; platform-aware beta labels
- Clipboard capsule (⌘⇧V) with entropy filtering and prefix blocklist
Release scope
This beta is macOS Apple Silicon only — .app.tar.gz and .zip on GitHub Releases. Windows and Linux alpha builds are next.
Direct downloads also live on davidcole.cloud.
Stack
| Layer | Choice |
|---|---|
| Shell | Tauri 2 |
| UI | React 19 |
| Crypto | Rust — Argon2id, AES-256-GCM |
| Clipboard | macOS pasteboard changeCount polling |
What I learned
- Updater wiring is worth shipping early — beta users on scattered machines need a path off stale builds without manual DMG hunts.
- Security UX is copy — “metadata-only secret list” and rate-limited unlock (5 failures → 30s lockout) need to be visible in marketing, not buried in README footnotes.
- Docs drift fast — the static
docs/index.htmlsite still said v0.1.0 until this release wave; version bumps now ride with the release checklist.
Next
Windows/Linux installers, GitHub Actions release automation, and optional GitHub Pages for the /docs folder.