datasette-paper

Collaborative document editor for Datasette. ProseMirror frontend, SQLite-backed storage in Datasette's internal database, real-time collaboration over SSE.

Rich text with tables and task lists, wiki-style links between papers, images (paste, drag-and-drop, or insert from the toolbar), and per-paper sharing:

Insert an image by pasting, dropping a file, or using the toolbar's image button — which offers a paste area or a file upload with a live preview:

And a paper index listing everyone's papers with author and last-edited time:

Drop inline #tags anywhere in a paper's body — type # for an autocomplete of existing tags. Clicking a tag opens a results page listing every paper whose body mentions it:

Installation

Install in the same environment as Datasette:

datasette install datasette-paper

Quickstart

datasette --internal papers.db \
  -s permissions.datasette-paper-list true \
  -s permissions.datasette-paper-create true \
  -s permissions.datasette-paper-view true \
  -s permissions.datasette-paper-edit true

No user database is required — papers live in Datasette's internal database.

Pass --internal <path> to persist papers across restarts. Without it, Datasette uses an ephemeral tempfile for the internal DB that is deleted when the process exits. The plugin emits a startup warning when it detects this, so you don't lose your papers to a forgotten flag.

Permissions

Four actions gate access. The view/edit actions are per-paper; list/create are global.

The plugin registers a permission_resources_sql hook that resolves per-paper view/edit grants from the _datasette_paper_doc.created_by column (owners) and the _datasette_paper_share table (explicit grants

• link-visibility levels).

Sharing

Each paper has one of three visibility levels:

• private — only the owner and explicitly-shared actors can access.
• link-view — any authenticated actor with the link can view.
• link-edit — any authenticated actor with the link can view and edit.

Plus per-actor share rows that grant a specific actor a viewer or editor role on a single paper.

The owner is whoever created the paper (created_by, captured from the actor cookie at create time). Only the owner can change visibility or mutate shares.

Papers as data

Paper data lives in Datasette's internal database under tables prefixed with _datasette_paper_:

• _datasette_paper_doc — one row per paper (id, name, visibility, created_by).
• _datasette_paper_step — append-only log of ProseMirror steps.
• _datasette_paper_snapshot — periodic full-document snapshots.
• _datasette_paper_share — per-actor view/edit grants.

Wire protocol

JSON API rooted at /-/paper/api/... — no per-database segment. List/create docs, bootstrap a paper, post step batches, stream updates over SSE, manage shares, render markdown / extract tasks. See CLAUDE.md for the full endpoint table.

Frontend stack

Vite + Svelte 5 + ProseMirror. Bundle outputs to datasette_paper/static/.

Development

npm install --prefix frontend
just frontend          # build the bundle
just dev               # run datasette with the plugin + permissions granted
just dev-with-hmr      # vite dev server + watchexec restart
just shots             # regenerate docs/screenshots/*.png (used in this README)

just shots is self-contained: it builds the bundle, boots a throwaway Datasette with seeded papers, drives Playwright to capture each surface, and tears the server down. The PNGs are committed, so re-run and commit when the UI changes (the diff shows what changed). Pass shot names to regenerate a subset, e.g. just shots editor tables.

Run the test layers:

just test              # backend pytest
just test-frontend     # vitest
just test-e2e          # playwright (requires built bundle)

Always invoke Python with uv run --prerelease=allow … — datasette is on a >=1a23 pre-release pin.