About Astrolabe
Astrolabe is a lightweight, browser-based snippet manager for Vega-Lite visualizations.
It's designed to help you quickly create, organize, and iterate on visualization specs without
the overhead of a full development environment.
Everything runs locally in your browser—no server, no signup, no data leaving your machine.
Your snippets and datasets are stored using browser storage, so they persist across sessions.
As a Progressive Web App, Astrolabe works fully offline after your first visit and can be installed
as a standalone application.
Key Features
- Three-panel workspace — Snippet library, Monaco code editor with Vega-Lite schema validation, and live preview
- Draft/published workflow — Experiment safely without losing your working version
- Dataset library — Store and reuse datasets across multiple visualizations (supports JSON, CSV, TSV, TopoJSON)
- Offline-capable — Works without internet connection after first visit; install as standalone app
- Import/export — Back up your work or move it between browsers
- Inline data extraction — Convert hardcoded data into reusable datasets
- Search and sorting — Find snippets by name, comment, or spec content
Getting Started
1. Create a snippet
Click the "Create New Snippet" ghost card at the top of the snippet list. A sample Vega-Lite spec loads automatically.
2. Edit in the Draft view
Changes auto-save as you type. The preview updates automatically. Your published version stays safe until you're ready.
3. Publish when ready
Click "Publish" (or Cmd/Ctrl+S) to save your draft as the official version. Use "Revert" if you want to discard changes.
4. Organize with datasets
Open the Dataset Manager to create reusable datasets. Reference them in your specs using {"data": {"name": "dataset-name"}}.
Keyboard Shortcuts
| Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+N |
Create new snippet |
| Cmd/Ctrl+K |
Toggle dataset manager |
| Cmd/Ctrl+, |
Open settings |
| Cmd/Ctrl+S |
Publish draft (save) |
| Escape |
Close any open modal |
Storage & Limits
⚠️ Important: All data is stored in your browser's local storage. If you clear your browser cache or site data,
your snippets and datasets will be permanently deleted. Regular exports are recommended as backups.
- Snippets — Stored in localStorage with a 5 MB limit (shared across all snippets). The storage monitor shows current usage.
- Datasets — Stored in IndexedDB with effectively unlimited space (browser-dependent, typically 50 MB+).
- Backup — Use Import/Export to save your work as JSON files. Datasets can be exported individually from the Dataset Manager.
Tips & Tricks
- Sort snippets — Use the sort buttons to organize by Modified, Created, Name, or Size. Click a button twice to reverse the sort order (⬇ becomes ⬆).
- Extract inline data — When editing a spec with inline data, click "Extract to Dataset" to create a reusable dataset automatically.
- Dataset references — Astrolabe resolves dataset references at render time, so you can freely switch between inline and referenced data.
- Search across specs — The search box looks inside snippet names, comments, and the spec content itself.
- Linked datasets — The metadata panel shows which datasets a snippet uses, and the Dataset Manager shows which snippets reference each dataset.
- URL datasets — Reference remote data by URL. Astrolabe fetches and caches it for preview, but the URL is what gets stored.
Privacy & Data
Your data stays yours. Astrolabe is built with privacy as a core principle:
- Local-first architecture — All snippets and datasets are stored in your browser (localStorage and IndexedDB). Nothing is sent to any server.
- No accounts, no signup — There's no authentication system, no user profiles, no cloud sync. Your work exists only on your machine.
- No cookies — Astrolabe doesn't use cookies or any persistent tracking identifiers.
- Privacy-friendly analytics — We use GoatCounter (privacy-focused, GDPR-compliant) to track basic usage patterns like "snippet created" or "dataset exported." We collect zero personal information: no snippet names, no dataset content, no IP addresses, no user identifiers. Just aggregate counts to understand which features are used.
- Data portability — Export all your snippets and datasets anytime as standard JSON/CSV/TSV files. No vendor lock-in.
What analytics we collect: Action types (e.g., "snippet-create", "dataset-export"), generic metadata (e.g., format types like JSON/CSV, counts like "5 snippets"). That's it.
What we DON'T collect: Snippet names, dataset names, actual data content, URLs, email addresses, or any personally identifiable information.
