Developing a Local-First Application with Automerge

Abstract

In modern time, cloud services have been the go-to approach to store information and documents, and cloud makes documents accessible for users and make it easier to manage items. Cloud is an excellent option to have when data need to be available, but what if collaboration is only needed a few times a week? Once a month? Or unstable connection leading to disconnection to the network? A solution is a Local-first approach. This means all items and documents a user has created is store locally on the device it is created on and provide a feeling of ownership to what is created. Local documents are treated as primary copies, and potential backups stored in an external cloud own by big companies are secondary copies.

Different communication technologies are explored, tested, and evaluated in this thesis in combination with a Local-fist approach and Automerge. A prototype is developed to connect all these ideas and concepts and to better understand which technologies do fit together and provide the necessary features to achieve a Local-first application for collaboration between computers and mobile.