Local Proofreader

Live site: https://baditaflorin.github.io/local-proofreader/

Repository: https://github.com/baditaflorin/local-proofreader

Support: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/florinbadita

Local Proofreader is a local-first grammar, spelling, style, and rewrite assistant for people who want Grammarly-like feedback without sending drafts to a server. It runs as a GitHub Pages app, supports file import, session export, local restore, and a lightweight browser-extension wrapper, and keeps draft text inside the browser.

Quickstart

npm install
make install-hooks
make build
make smoke
make pages-preview

What Works

• Local grammar checks inspired by LanguageTool rules.
• Hunspell-compatible spelling with nspell and packaged English dictionaries.
• Vale-style editorial rules for jargon, hedging, passive voice, and long sentences.
• Deterministic local rewrite suggestions with no hosted LLM call.
• File import for .txt, .md, .html, multi-file batches, clipboard reads, and versioned session .json restores.
• Export of corrected text, analysis JSON, session JSON, and shareable URL hashes for small drafts.
• Local draft restore, persisted settings, and local custom-dictionary management.
• DuckDB-WASM compact local history report from IndexedDB analysis history.
• Manifest V3 browser extension wrapper for lightweight inline checks on editable fields.
• PWA build, local hooks, unit tests, integration target, and Playwright smoke test.

Limitations

• Remote URL import is not built in Mode A because GitHub Pages cannot fetch most external pages through browser CORS.
• Shareable URL hashes are intentionally limited to smaller sessions. Large drafts should use session JSON export instead.
• The extension uses a lightweight shared inline ruleset, not the full worker-based app surface.

Architecture

flowchart LR
  Writer["Writer"] --> App["GitHub Pages React app"]
  App --> Worker["Proofreader Web Worker"]
  Worker --> Rules["Grammar + style + rewrite rules"]
  Worker --> Dict["Hunspell dictionary assets"]
  App --> Store["IndexedDB local storage"]
  App --> Duck["DuckDB-WASM local report"]
  Extension["Browser extension"] --> PageFields["Editable web fields"]
  Extension --> InlineRules["Inline local checks"]

Loading

Architecture docs: https://github.com/baditaflorin/local-proofreader/blob/main/docs/architecture.md

ADRs: https://github.com/baditaflorin/local-proofreader/tree/main/docs/adr

Deploy guide: https://github.com/baditaflorin/local-proofreader/blob/main/docs/deploy.md

Privacy: https://github.com/baditaflorin/local-proofreader/blob/main/docs/privacy.md

Browser Extension

npm run build:extension

Then load extension/ as an unpacked extension. The generated content script lives in extension/dist/, which is intentionally not committed. The extension reuses the shared lightweight inline rules, but it does not ship the full app worker, report, or session-management UI.

Pages Publishing

GitHub Pages serves main branch /docs. make build writes a Pages-ready app into docs/ and keeps ADR Markdown files in place.

The live app displays the version and commit from /version.json.