When you sign up for Arky, you’ll get a workspace by default. You’ll be able to share this workspace and collaborate with others soon.

Workspace

In the Workspace, you can create multiple projects and manage all your supporting materials — like resources and drafts.

• Projects are your main documents — the place where your ideas develop and take shape.

• Resources refer to reference materials like URLs, PDFs, and other external content.

• Drafts are temporary content fragments — notes, outlines, or snippets you're still working on — which can live inside or outside a project.

On the left sidebar, you’ll find everything organized into three sections: Projects, Resources, and Drafts.

• Projects are arranged in a folder structure, so you can organize your work hierarchically — just like in a traditional folder-file system.

• Resources and Drafts live in their own sections. They can either be:

  • Linked to a specific project, or

  • Standalone items at the workspace level.

• In Recents and Favorites, you’ll see projects you’ve recently opened or starred.

💡 In short: Projects are your main documents. Resources and Drafts are flexible supporting materials — whether embedded in a project or floating freely across your workspace.

Project

Creating a Project

A project is where your writing begins in Arky. Ready to create one? Just click the New Project button below.

Once created, you’ll be taken to the Document View — a familiar writing space where you can begin typing just like in any other editor. Each project corresponds to a single Markdown file — fully compatible, from start to finish.

A New Concept: Shells

What makes Arky different is a structural unit called Shells. They're similar to headings in Markdown, but provide more structure and clarity.

A Shell doesn’t just label a section; it also contains everything that belongs to it. You can include paragraphs, images, or even other Shells — grouping related content together in a clean, layered way.

Unlike tools like Notion or standard Markdown editors, Arky enforces a more disciplined structural order. You can’t jump straight to a level 2 Shell (S2) unless there’s a level 1 Shell (S1) before it. Each Shell must follow a logical order: S1, then S2, then S3, and so on.

This structure helps keep your document organized and aligns with how content is visually arranged on the canvas.

At the foundation of every project is the Root Shell (S0) — the starting point for your entire document.

Working with Blocks

When writing in Arky, you’ll work with text blocks as the basic unit of content.

Each piece of content — whether it’s text, an image, or something else — is treated as a separate block.

Adding Blocks with the Slash(/) Command

Press / to open the command menu, where you can choose from a variety of blocks to insert into your document.

Blocks and Block Groups

In the Document View, you might not notice it right away — but when you switch to the Canvas View, you’ll see how blocks are grouped together.

A block group is a set of blocks treated as a single unit. Unlike a Shell, it doesn’t have its own hierarchy. The blocks within the group move together as one.

You can also select multiple block groups and merge them into one. The Command + Enter shortcut makes this quick and easy. (If you're on Windows, use Ctrl + Enter.)

Create Backlink

Use the @ key to reference other Shells — this creates a backlink that helps you jump between related parts of your project.

Currently, you can only reference Shells within the same project, but support for referencing Shells from other projects is coming soon.

Bring in Context

This also works seamlessly in AI Chat. You can reference specific context to give the AI better instructions and assign tasks more effectively.

To start an AI Chat, click the button in the left sidebar or press Command + L to open the right panel. In the chat box, typing @ or clicking Add context button lets you reference a specific Shell from your project.

We’ll cover more about this in the Work with AI section.

Switching Views

Hover over the Docs or Canvas toggle in the top-right corner of the navigation bar to switch between views. You can also use the shortcut Command + Shift + K. (If you're on Windows, use Ctrl + Shift + K.)

Other Settings

Theme Switching

You can change the theme by opening Settings → Preferences. Or simply use the shortcut Command + Shift + L. (If you're on Windows, use Ctrl + Shift + L.)

🤖 You can even ask the AI to change the theme. Sounds like a joke — but seriously, it works.

Invites (Closed Beta Only)

You can invite up to 2 teammates or friends to join Arky.

During the closed beta, Arky is invite-only — others will need an invitation from you to get access. Know someone who’d love Arky? Invite them and earn extra credits!

Export

You can share your work with others or export it as a specific file format for further use.

Export to Markdown(.md)

You can export your project in Markdown format.

Click the … button in the top right and select Export. Your project will be downloaded as a Markdown file, preserving its current structure.

In this Alpha version, only Markdown export is supported. We plan to add more export formats in the future, so if there’s one you’d like to see, let the Arky team know — we’d love to hear from you! 😀

Share to link

You can also share your work via a link. While collaboration isn’t supported yet, you can still let others view exactly what you’ve created on the canvas or in the document. The first feature we plan to add is commenting.