Your first document
Red Stet is a writing tool that records how the piece was written — keystrokes, pauses, paste actions, cursor moves — and bundles the recording with the manuscript. This doc covers setting up a project, getting comfortable with the editor, and deciding what the recording layer means for your work.
Assumes solo use, not a class. If a teacher invited you, the For students docs fit better.
- A writing tool with provenance
- Sign in and pick a role
- Creating your first document
- The editor surface
- Read, Mark up, and Write
- Provenance recording is opt-in
- Auto-save, sync, and the cloud question
- Multiple documents — naming and finding them
- Exporting — Markdown, PDF, and .red.md
- The Consistency layer
- Where to go from here
A writing tool with provenance, not a school tool
Most writing apps focus on the output. Red Stet treats the process as a first-class artifact. While you write, an optional layer records the keystrokes, pauses, paste actions, and cursor moves that produced the page. You get a manuscript plus a verifiable trail of how it came together.
The trail is the receipt. By default it stays with you — docs and recordings are private to your account. To share authorship proof, export a signed .red.md bundle and hand it to whoever needs it (editor, publisher, the standalone verifier at red-stet.com/verify).
If you're here to write and don't care about provenance, skip it. The recording layer never turns on without your consent. Red Stet runs as a clean editor with a Consistency pass and a Markdown-respecting exporter.
.red.md
Sign in and pick a role rolePreset
On first sign-in Red Stet asks you to pick a role preset. Not permission gating — every role can read, mark up, and write — just the right surface area without a settings tour. Four presets:
- Editor — the default. Working on someone else's manuscript. Right panel surfaces the Editorial Memo and mark palettes.
- Author — writing your own work. Write mode foregrounded; Style Guide panel ships with you; marks-on-prose de-emphasized.
- Student — submitting to a teacher. Assignments take over the sidebar; Provenance recording foregrounded.
- Teacher — running a class. Different doc entirely; see the teacher dashboard guide.
For self-directed writing, pick Author. Change it later from the profile menu (Reset role inside Customizations). Switching is free — it just changes the default panel layout.
Creating your first document
In the sidebar foot, click ＋ New document. Red Stet creates an empty doc, opens it, drops you into Write mode. No template picker, no wizard — blank page.
Placeholder title: Untitled — <today's date>. Lives under "My documents". Click the title in the breadcrumb to rename. The slug gets a stable ID; the display title is yours.
There is no paper type, page size, or layout setting at creation. Red Stet writes markdown internally. Paper size is an export decision — you pick it when you export to PDF.
The editor surface
Most of the screen is the writing canvas — centered, capped at a comfortable measure, serif display face by default. No floating toolbar; formatting lives in a collapsible right-edge palette you can ignore if you write Markdown.
The top bar
Three regions. Left: sidebar toggle and breadcrumb (Red Stet / your doc title). Center: the Read / Mark up / Write mode toggle. Right: theme switch, profile chip, TTS bubble.
The right panel
Context-aware. Write mode: writing palette (Bold, Italic, Underline, headings, lists, quote, link). Mark-up mode: proofreader's mark palette. Read mode: disappears. Your role preset also drops the Editorial Memo or Style Guide panel within reach.
The bottom-right widget
In Write mode, an overlay shows word count, save state, and (when recording is on) elapsed active writing time. There if you need it.
The harbor at dawn is grey, not blue. You only learn this if you wake before the sun crosses the headland.
For two summers I tried to write about it and failed.
Read, Mark up, and Write
The mode toggle is the most important UI in Red Stet. The same document looks and behaves three different ways.
Read
Consumption. Marks visible (or hidden, your call in Customizations); prose uneditable; TTS plays; bookmarks work. How you'd hand the doc to someone, or revisit a finished piece.
Mark up
Proofreader's red pen. Select a span, apply a mark — insert, delete, capitalize, awkward, run-on, dozens more — and the mark sits on top of the prose like a real editor's. Useful for second-pass self-edits, or marking up a friend's.
Write
Prose editable. Writing palette appears (Bold / Italic / Underline / H1-3 / lists / quote / link — Red Stet refuses to be Google Docs on purpose). Word counter starts. Markdown shortcuts work — type # at the start of a line for an H1.
Flip modes anytime. Hopping between Write and Read lets you reread without the cursor in your way.
For two summers I tried to write about it and failed.
For two summers I tried to write about it the harbor and failed.
Provenance recording is opt-in
Students get a prompt when they create a new doc — that's the school workflow. Author and Editor mode don't. You opt in, document by document.
The toggle lives in the profile menu: Start Provenance recording. Hit it and a status pill lights up — Provenance: recording — until you stop. While on, Red Stet captures:
- Every keystroke, with timing
- Cursor moves and selections
- Paste actions — the fact of paste and the pasted length, not the source URL or app
- Mode changes, idle intervals, cumulative active writing time
Recording is broken into sessions. Each session ends when you stop or close the tab; the next links back cryptographically. Break the chain, the verifier shows the break.
Local first. The recording lives in your browser until you sign in and sync. Nothing leaves the device unless you say so.
Auto-save, sync, and the cloud question
Red Stet saves continuously. Every keystroke updates local storage. No save button, no save shortcut. The status chip (Saved · 2s ago) is the receipt.
Local storage by default
Until you sign in, documents, marks, and recordings live in your browser's local storage. Survives a tab close. Does not survive clearing site data, switching browsers, or moving devices. Red Stet won't push you off this mode if you like it.
Sign-in adds cloud sync
Sign in via the profile chip and docs, marks, and recordings sync to the cloud. Same docs on your phone, laptop, library computer. Sign out and the local copy stays on the machine you signed in from.
The folder option
To treat writing as files on disk, the sidebar's Open folder entry points Red Stet at a directory. Files are read inline; annotated .red.md writes back to the same folder. No sync required.
.red.md is written next to the source.Multiple documents — naming and finding them
Your sidebar's My documents list is flat, newest first. No folder tree, no nested hierarchy. For most writers a flat list plus search beats folders that all end up named "drafts."
Search
The sidebar search matches titles and body. Type two or three words from a sentence you remember and the doc surfaces. Local, fast, works offline.
Renaming
Click the title in the breadcrumb to rename in place. The slug stays stable, so shared links keep working — only the displayed title changes.
Removing
Right-click a doc (or use the kebab) to delete. Local-then-server: gone from this device immediately, removed from cloud sync within seconds. Brief undo in the toast.
essay — draft 3 — saltwater) carry you a long way.
Exporting — Markdown, PDF, and .red.md
The Download menu in the sidebar foot is where the doc leaves Red Stet. Three formats:
- Annotated
.md— Markdown with marks serialized inline. Re-import to Red Stet and the marks come back. Degrades gracefully for anyone reading Markdown. - Annotated PDF — typeset for print. Marks render as red marginalia. Hand to anyone who wants paper.
- Annotated
.docx— Word. Comments come through as tracked-changes-style margins.
The .red.md format portable recording
If Provenance recording is on, exporting also produces a .red.md — manuscript plus the full session chain, signed, in one file. Hand it to a verifier (red-stet.com/verify), an editor, a publisher, or your future self; they can replay how the piece was written and confirm the chain isn't tampered.
Full mechanics in Exporting a portable recording. Keep the .red.md around if you might need to prove authorship.
The Consistency layer
Red Stet doesn't ship a grammar checker. What it ships is a Consistency layer: a per-document Style Guide of decisions you've made (or accepted from a preset) plus a one-shot pass that flags places where those decisions broke.
Open the Style Guide panel from the right edge in Author mode. Load a preset — Chicago, AP, APA, or MLA — and you get a list of decisions: serial comma: yes, em-dash: unspaced, quotes: curly. Edit, remove, or add your own.
Hit Run consistency pass. Red Stet scans your prose and surfaces violations as a queue — accept or dismiss each one. Opinion-aware: decide "no serial comma" and it stops flagging them.
Editor-tier, not English-teacher-tier. Full mechanics in The Consistency layer.
Where to go from here
→ The Consistency layer — how Style Guide presets, custom rules, and the consistency pass work in practice.
→ Exporting a portable recording — what's in a .red.md, how the verifier reads it, what to tell an editor or publisher who's never seen one.
Missing something? Email feedback — this doc grows by use.