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Public dossier section · @ben

sources

This is @ben's profile revision 1. The original date and editorial confidence below are attributed to its publisher, not independent verification.

Original credited author: Hraness

AI-drafted at Ben Guo's direct request and credited to Hraness; every claim links to its cataloged source.

Back to the full profile · Markdown version · Original document

Published text

  • the conor mcgregor / 'i was broke' thread — threadreader app, conor white-sullivan (2021-01-24, archive). the autobiographical thread: sold localocracy to aol at 23, 'felt like a fraud,' then five broke years building roam v1 — the thing that convinced meadows to invest and josh to join.
  • the ceo confessional — threadreader app, conor white-sullivan (2021-12-29, archive). the 29-tweet capstone: 'three times i've written drafts of this thread in my roam, and three times i've failed to publish it' — the hidden agenda of localocracy, 'anti-role modal for roam culture,' and 'the reddit revolutionaries were actually right.'
  • why i said no to roadmaps — threadreader app, conor white-sullivan (2021-05-06, archive). 'why i said no to roadmaps' — the map-of-questions doctrine, plus an acknowledged dead roadmap page: 'dangers of link-rot.'
  • the local-first architecture thread — threadreader app, conor white-sullivan (2021-04-08, archive). the candid 2017-architecture thread: roam still ran the local-first, event-stream backend he built at the start — 'like changing the engine on an airplane in flight.'
  • roam depot and the e2ee bounty — threadreader app, conor white-sullivan (2021-04-16, archive). roam depot 'this week, if god wills it, inshallah' — revenue share for plugin authors and a $10k e2ee bounty. the depot shipped fifteen months later.
  • the subreddit bans thread — threadreader app, conor white-sullivan (2021-10-04, archive). conor's own long-form explanation of banning critics from r/roamresearch — the founder-moderation flashpoint.
  • the local-first defense — threadreader app, conor white-sullivan (2022-07-10, archive). 'roam was literally built local first!' — the 2022 technical-identity defense against the clone narrative: in-memory frontend database, offline from day one.
  • the apple notes quip — threadreader app, conor white-sullivan (2022-07-28, archive). 'if i was intelligent enough to accomplish my goals with apple notes i would never have needed to build roam. … if you're smart enough to solve all your problems in apple notes, i question your ambition.'
  • the lambda school / anti-college thread — threadreader app, conor white-sullivan (2021-05-19, archive). the flagship anti-college thread: 'strongly prefer my kids wind up going to ls vs debt-shackling college' — the credentialism controversy's source text.
  • the #roamcult theology thread — threadreader app, conor white-sullivan (2021-05-26, archive). 'the thing people actually fall in love with with roam are the ideas, memories, and work they put into it' — the cult theology at its most sincere.
  • the #roamcult disavowal reversal — threadreader app, conor white-sullivan (2022-01, archive). conor calls disavowing #roamcult 'one of my worst mistakes of 2021' — the internal identity crisis documented in his own words.
  • @conaw creator archive — atlas.fm, conor white-sullivan (2026, archive). the atlas.fm creator archive: 52 tweets, 7 podcasts, 38 videos indexed with dates and captured engagement counts.
  • @conaw profile mirror — tweetlook, conor white-sullivan (2024-10, archive). the profile mirror showing the late-era state: new hampshire location, sparse posts — an october 2024 artifact captured.
  • interview with conor white-sullivan, founder of roam — forte labs, tiago forte (2019-12-17, interview). december 2019: an hour of demo and debate on knowledge management, privacy, and security — conor called it 'first time i've publicly spoken about roam!'
  • conor white-sullivan on 20vc — the twenty minute vc, harry stebbings (2020-05-08, interview). 'roam is not about taking better notes'; low floors and high ceilings; hires for grit and autodidacts; lives with the team; the tesla go-to-market.
  • creating tools for networked thought — venture stories (village global), erik torenberg (2020-05, interview). the influences stated plainly: nielsen's reinventing discovery, adler's syntopicon reading as roam's origin, roam versus twitter/github/notion.
  • networked thought with conor white-sullivan — the quest pod, justin kan (2021-07-13, interview). the two-part autobiographical interview: the anthropology degree, nine months embedded in evangelical communities, collective intelligence, 'excel for thoughts.'
  • collective intelligence with conor white-sullivan — metamuse (muse), adam wiggins & mark mcgranaghan (2023-03-02, interview). the late retrospective: severe adhd, roam as working-memory extension, 'program your own mind.' episode page 404s now; date verified via podcast mirrors.
  • roam demo, july 18 2018 — youtube, conor white-sullivan (2018-07-18, archive). the earliest dated public roam demo found — a working product a year before the public beta.
  • the cannonical roam demo — complete version — youtube, conor white-sullivan (2019-12-20, archive). the flagship gtd-flavored demo the help graph called best-of.
  • roam research on product hunt — product hunt (2020-01-10, community). the launch-channel record: #2 product of the day, 363 upvotes, 69 comments — 'easy as a doc, powerful as a graph database.'
  • roam to pause new sign-ups — medium, francesco d'alessio (2020-05-05, community). the waitlist moment documented: a thomas frank video drove a sign-up surge, a data-loss incident followed, and the gates closed.
  • roam newsletter: gates reopening — roam newsletter (substack) (2020-05-24, community). the community newsletter's record of the gates reopening may 23 — paid users prioritized, beta users comped.
  • roam research's cult packaging strategy — good better best (substack), rob litterst (2020-06, reporting). the definitive decode of trial/pro/believer pricing as deliberate cult mechanics — syndicated to paddle as 'the cult packaging playbook.'
  • so, i went with roam research and am a true believer — baty.net, jack baty (2020-06-10, community). the believer's ambivalence in one post: the $30/mo rumor made him 'twitchy' — then he paid the $500 anyway.
  • roam reaches $1m arr in 6 weeks — indie hackers, rosie sherry (2020-07-27, reporting). the ~$1m arr report — six weeks after paid plans launched. community-sourced; roam never officially published revenue.
  • roam research form d — sec edgar (2020-09-11, primary). the official filing: roam research, inc. (cik 0001824172), form d filed september 11, 2020 — the hard anchor under the $200m story.
  • roam research could be the future of note-taking — the hustle, trung t. phan (2020-09-14, reporting). 'roam research could be the future of note-taking': profitable, 11 staff, five yc rejections — the raise set beside notion's $2b and coda's $636m.
  • roam's road ahead — every (divinations), nathan baschez (2020-09-18, community). the '200x arr' analysis and the 'half of tech twitter' reaction framing — the valuation discourse's sharpest contemporaneous read.
  • why roam is cool — every (divinations), nathan baschez (2020-04-10, community). the 'culty' appeal and the learning curve as status marker — embeds conor's 'not quite culty enough' tweet.
  • the notetaking cold war — every (superorganizers), dan shipper (2020-06-26, community). the forte-versus-conor philosophical split — para against networked notes — the genre-defining comparison of the hype era.
  • the fall of roam — every (superorganizers), dan shipper (2022-02-12, community). the canonical departure essay by a former daily user: crufty links, slow velocity, weak mobile, 'well-documented community issues.'
  • roam wefunder campaign page — wefunder (wayback) (2021, archive). the campaign page, archived: $1,256,376 from 760 investors, leeds ut hq, ai-safety-community bootstrapping, and a 'reasons not to invest' section disclosing crypto treasury and campus-buying plans.
  • roam research crowdfunding campaign oversubscribed — business insider (2021-04, reporting). the customer-investor moment: $500k target oversubscribed in under an hour, ~$1.6m committed in a day, open only to pre-2021 users.
  • roam change log — roamdocs.fyi (mirror) (2021–2026, archive). the dated feature history — depot, encryption, apis, mobile, the 2024 attack — mirrored from roam's own help graph (not roam's domain).
  • roam-research/roam-depot — github (2022-05-19, primary). the extension-marketplace plumbing, public since may 2022.
  • roam-research/roam-tools — github (2026, primary). the official mcp server and cli — @roam-research/roam-mcp and roam-cli connecting claude/cursor-style agents to a graph via the desktop app's local api. the most substantive ai-era product line roam has shipped.
  • roam-tools changelog — github (2026, primary). the rapid-cadence record: 0.3.x in february to 0.11.0 by late august 2026 — split packages, semantic search, extension-registered ai tools at local api 1.1.5.
  • i annotate 2021 notes — hyperphor (ammdi) (2021-06, community). i annotate 2021: conaw on a panel beside ward cunningham, readwise, memex, org-mode, and logseq — 'roam is not about note-taking,' the team 'a few dozen distributed people.'
  • what comes after roam's renaissance? — lesswrong, itay dreyfus (2024-05-12, community). the post-peak community's own postmortem: 'the hype was replaced by dramas, scandals, and rants' — and loyalists praising the 'lack of new features.'
  • a book club like no other — hey world, ash chedrin (2020-11, community). the roam book club story: 1,700+ signups and ~200 simultaneous editors — multiplayer as community ritual and stress test.
  • roam: tool for thinking — hacker news (2019-11-04, community). the earliest sizable hacker news discussion of the roam beta — 123 points, mostly curiosity.
  • roam: why i love it and how i use it (discussion) — hacker news (2020-01-21, community). the largest early hn thread — 288 points on the eliason essay, converts and skeptics arguing in the same thread.
  • stop taking regular notes; use a zettelkasten instead — eugeneyan.com, eugene yan (2020-04-05, community). the zettelkasten-resurgence essay that rode and amplified the roam moment — 785 hn points.
  • foam: open-source roam alternative — hacker news (2020-06-28, community). foam — the open-source roam-like for vs code — takes 699 hn points within weeks of the pricing launch: the biggest competitor-side thread of the era.
  • org-roam: rudimentary roam replica with org-mode — hacker news (2020-04-03, community). org-roam: the emacs community clones roam inside weeks — early evidence the idea was bigger than the product.
  • tired of note-taking apps — akkshaya.blog, akkshaya (2020-07-19, community). the early 'the tool won't make you think' backlash essay — 478 hn points at peak hype.
  • notes on a year using roam research — platformer, casey newton (2021-07-30, reporting). the believer's first-year review: paid the $500, praised links and daily notes, flagged the insight gap — the mixed verdict the later postmortem fulfilled.
  • why note-taking apps don't make us smarter — the verge, david pierce (2023-08-25, reporting). the verge's same-titled counterpart two days after newton's: roam 'a breakthrough' in 2021, development slowed, enthusiasm moved to obsidian and mem.
  • i deleted my second brain — joanwestenberg.com, joan westenberg (2025-06-28, community). the highest-traction anti-pkm essay of the late era — 598 hn points — the roam-era habit explicitly renounced.
  • notes against note-taking systems — substack, sasha chapin (2022-10-01, community). 'notes against note-taking systems' — 311 hn points: the peak systems-don't-think essay of the backlash era.
  • roam sex ed — zsolt.blog, zsolt viczián (2021-03, community). the community's own security warning: cloud notes, identity risk, backups, data ownership — written by a roam insider.
  • ghsa-q4ch-vxxv-mx3h — firebase storage exposure — github (roam-research advisory) (2021, primary). the official advisory: firebase storage rules once allowed listing, downloading, and deleting uploaded files across graphs — patched to granular rules.
  • issue #102 — daily notes page lost — github (roam-research/issues) (2020-05, primary). the official tracker's data-loss record: missing daily notes, stuck 'saving' indicators, may 2020.
  • issue #451 — export loses block references — github (roam-research/issues) (2020-12, primary). export fidelity on the record: block-level references not preserved; the edn restore path added in response.
  • obsidian 1.0 — obsidian (2022-10-13, primary). the market's verdict: obsidian 1.0 took 1,329 hn points and 566 comments — larger than any roam thread ever.
  • launch hn: athens — hacker news (2021-03-02, community). the open-source 'roam killer' launch — 340 points — and, three years later, the same product unmaintained: cloning the graph was never the hard part.
  • athens no longer actively maintained — hacker news (2023-01, community). athens no longer actively maintained — decline hit the whole wave, not just the original.
  • this open-source tool is helping rethink knowledge management — techcrunch, kyle wiggers (2022-05-05, reporting). techcrunch frames logseq as the open-source heir — used at google, meta, mit — reporting users 'jumping ship from roam.'
  • tana snaps up $25m with its ai-powered knowledge graph — techcrunch (2025-02-03, reporting). tana's $25m and a 160k waitlist — the demand roam created, monetized by a successor.
  • the fall of roam (2022) repost — hacker news (2025-05-18, community). the fall-of-roam repost cycle plus the privacy exchange: a commenter claims an employee name in his graph's access logs; roam's engineer and co-founder josh brown respond — strict no-access policy since 2021, e2e graphs since january 2022.
  • e2e-encryption for roam research — goedel.io, alexander rink (2022-01, community). the community-built e2e pressure: media urls and firebase exposure documented, then roam shipped native encrypted graphs.
  • my migration from roam research — obsidian forum (2021-08-26, community). a representative migration document: native ios, performance, local files, interoperability.
  • recovering lost roam notes — jeffchen.dev, jeff chen (2021-08, community). the readwise integration that deleted daily notes — and the snapshot-recovery writeup that documented it.
  • roam, twenty years before roam — borretti.me, fernando borretti (2023-01-29, community). the historical-perspective piece: nothing in roam was new — which cuts both ways.
  • what happened to roam research? — canion.blog, steve canion (2023-05-22, community). the named 'what happened' postmortem: did obsidian simply take the market?
  • effortless output in roam — effortlessoutput.com, nat eliason (2020, community). the biggest commercial artifact the hype produced: effortless output in roam — 4,400+ students self-reported, a course business built on one essay.
  • computer assisted intuition — capiche (2020-05-19, community). 'computer assisted intuition: how roam fulfills the web's original dream' — the memex/xanadu lineage in the mainstream community press.
  • roam's impressive start and how to find its next phase of growth — yeti distro, alfred lua (2020-04-17, community). the $99 early-access period and waitlist-friction-as-distribution documented by an analyst at the time.
  • customers grow business: roam's cult-of-personality flywheel — strategy in process (2021-07, community). the analyst read of the believer/customer-investor model as a cult-of-personality flywheel.
  • why i switched: a deep dive into roam vs. obsidian — medium, niles wyler (2021, community). 'the cult mentality became jarring' — the honest record of the vibe shift from inside a migration.
  • how roam hacked upfront ltv for saas — startupspells (~2025, community). the growth-analyst retrospective on upfront ltv and the believer plan — includes a secondary, unverified claim that nat eliason deleted tweets and left roam while still selling the course.
  • roam research review — tryorbye (~2025, community). the billing-complaint record: 31-day trial auto-converting to ~$180 annual, refused refunds — small sample, persistent pattern.
  • roam research review 2026 — the sunrise digest (2026, community). the late-era review: 'changed the category then stopped changing' — ~100k-block slowdowns, export loses refs and queries.
  • visakanv's public roam graph — visakanv.com, visakan veerasamy (2020, community). the canonical public-brain artifact: a roam graph as a personal site — the collaboration model conor cited in interviews.
  • roam research company page — linkedin (2026, reporting). the company page's own numbers: ~10 employees now, $10.6m total funding, five countries.
  • the hiring and culture thread — threadreader app, conor white-sullivan (2020-12, archive). the unusual hiring thread: paid take-homes, a no-negotiation policy — praised and mocked in equal measure.
  • letters from a roaman — roam.elaptics.co.uk (2021–2022, community). letters from a roaman — the community newsletter whose issues document rbc cohorts, the roam summit, and tana's emergence from inside.
  • the 30-demos sprint with nikitonsky — threadreader app, conor white-sullivan (2023-02-08, archive). the february 2023 shipping sprint with nikita prokopov: '30 tweet sized demos of small improvements and experiments' — the last public building-in-public burst.

AI-drafted at Ben Guo's direct request and credited to Hraness; every claim links to its cataloged source.

Canonical page: https://hraness.com/roam-research/sources

Original source occurrences

  1. the conor mcgregor / 'i was broke' thread · threadreader app · 2021-01-24 (day) · original ID: src-mcgregor-broke · conor white-sullivan

    the autobiographical thread: sold localocracy to aol at 23, 'felt like a fraud,' then five broke years building roam v1 — the thing that convinced meadows to invest and josh to join.

  2. the ceo confessional · threadreader app · 2021-12-29 (day) · original ID: src-ceo-confessional · conor white-sullivan

    the 29-tweet capstone: 'three times i've written drafts of this thread in my roam, and three times i've failed to publish it' — the hidden agenda of localocracy, 'anti-role modal for roam culture,' and 'the reddit revolutionaries were actually right.'

  3. why i said no to roadmaps · threadreader app · 2021-05-06 (day) · original ID: src-roadmaps-thread · conor white-sullivan

    'why i said no to roadmaps' — the map-of-questions doctrine, plus an acknowledged dead roadmap page: 'dangers of link-rot.'

  4. the local-first architecture thread · threadreader app · 2021-04-08 (day) · original ID: src-architecture-thread · conor white-sullivan

    the candid 2017-architecture thread: roam still ran the local-first, event-stream backend he built at the start — 'like changing the engine on an airplane in flight.'

  5. roam depot and the e2ee bounty · threadreader app · 2021-04-16 (day) · original ID: src-depot-e2ee-thread · conor white-sullivan

    roam depot 'this week, if god wills it, inshallah' — revenue share for plugin authors and a $10k e2ee bounty. the depot shipped fifteen months later.

  6. the subreddit bans thread · threadreader app · 2021-10-04 (day) · original ID: src-subreddit-bans · conor white-sullivan

    conor's own long-form explanation of banning critics from r/roamresearch — the founder-moderation flashpoint.

  7. the local-first defense · threadreader app · 2022-07-10 (day) · original ID: src-localfirst-defense · conor white-sullivan

    'roam was literally built local first!' — the 2022 technical-identity defense against the clone narrative: in-memory frontend database, offline from day one.

  8. the apple notes quip · threadreader app · 2022-07-28 (day) · original ID: src-apple-notes · conor white-sullivan

    'if i was intelligent enough to accomplish my goals with apple notes i would never have needed to build roam. … if you're smart enough to solve all your problems in apple notes, i question your ambition.'

  9. the lambda school / anti-college thread · threadreader app · 2021-05-19 (day) · original ID: src-lambda-thread · conor white-sullivan

    the flagship anti-college thread: 'strongly prefer my kids wind up going to ls vs debt-shackling college' — the credentialism controversy's source text.

  10. the #roamcult theology thread · threadreader app · 2021-05-26 (day) · original ID: src-roamcult-love · conor white-sullivan

    'the thing people actually fall in love with with roam are the ideas, memories, and work they put into it' — the cult theology at its most sincere.

  11. the #roamcult disavowal reversal · threadreader app · 2022-01 (month) · original ID: src-disavowal-reversal · conor white-sullivan

    conor calls disavowing #roamcult 'one of my worst mistakes of 2021' — the internal identity crisis documented in his own words.

  12. @conaw creator archive · atlas.fm · 2026 (year) · original ID: src-atlas-conaw · conor white-sullivan

    the atlas.fm creator archive: 52 tweets, 7 podcasts, 38 videos indexed with dates and captured engagement counts.

  13. @conaw profile mirror · tweetlook · 2024-10 (month) · original ID: src-tweetlook-conaw · conor white-sullivan

    the profile mirror showing the late-era state: new hampshire location, sparse posts — an october 2024 artifact captured.

  14. interview with conor white-sullivan, founder of roam · forte labs · 2019-12-17 (day) · original ID: src-forte-interview · tiago forte

    december 2019: an hour of demo and debate on knowledge management, privacy, and security — conor called it 'first time i've publicly spoken about roam!'

  15. conor white-sullivan on 20vc · the twenty minute vc · 2020-05-08 (day) · original ID: src-20vc · harry stebbings

    'roam is not about taking better notes'; low floors and high ceilings; hires for grit and autodidacts; lives with the team; the tesla go-to-market.

  16. creating tools for networked thought · venture stories (village global) · 2020-05 (month) · original ID: src-venture-stories · erik torenberg

    the influences stated plainly: nielsen's reinventing discovery, adler's syntopicon reading as roam's origin, roam versus twitter/github/notion.

  17. networked thought with conor white-sullivan · the quest pod · 2021-07-13 (day) · original ID: src-quest-pod · justin kan

    the two-part autobiographical interview: the anthropology degree, nine months embedded in evangelical communities, collective intelligence, 'excel for thoughts.'

  18. collective intelligence with conor white-sullivan · metamuse (muse) · 2023-03-02 (day) · original ID: src-metamuse · adam wiggins & mark mcgranaghan

    the late retrospective: severe adhd, roam as working-memory extension, 'program your own mind.' episode page 404s now; date verified via podcast mirrors.

  19. roam demo, july 18 2018 · youtube · 2018-07-18 (day) · original ID: src-demo-2018 · conor white-sullivan

    the earliest dated public roam demo found — a working product a year before the public beta.

  20. the cannonical roam demo — complete version · youtube · 2019-12-20 (day) · original ID: src-canonical-demo · conor white-sullivan

    the flagship gtd-flavored demo the help graph called best-of.

  21. roam research on product hunt · product hunt · 2020-01-10 (day) · original ID: src-producthunt

    the launch-channel record: #2 product of the day, 363 upvotes, 69 comments — 'easy as a doc, powerful as a graph database.'

  22. roam to pause new sign-ups · medium · 2020-05-05 (day) · original ID: src-waitlist-pause · francesco d'alessio

    the waitlist moment documented: a thomas frank video drove a sign-up surge, a data-loss incident followed, and the gates closed.

  23. roam newsletter: gates reopening · roam newsletter (substack) · 2020-05-24 (day) · original ID: src-roam-newsletter-gates

    the community newsletter's record of the gates reopening may 23 — paid users prioritized, beta users comped.

  24. roam research's cult packaging strategy · good better best (substack) · 2020-06 (month) · original ID: src-cult-packaging · rob litterst

    the definitive decode of trial/pro/believer pricing as deliberate cult mechanics — syndicated to paddle as 'the cult packaging playbook.'

  25. so, i went with roam research and am a true believer · baty.net · 2020-06-10 (day) · original ID: src-baty-believer · jack baty

    the believer's ambivalence in one post: the $30/mo rumor made him 'twitchy' — then he paid the $500 anyway.

  26. roam reaches $1m arr in 6 weeks · indie hackers · 2020-07-27 (day) · original ID: src-indie-hackers-arr · rosie sherry

    the ~$1m arr report — six weeks after paid plans launched. community-sourced; roam never officially published revenue.

  27. roam research form d · sec edgar · 2020-09-11 (day) · original ID: src-sec-form-d

    the official filing: roam research, inc. (cik 0001824172), form d filed september 11, 2020 — the hard anchor under the $200m story.

  28. roam research could be the future of note-taking · the hustle · 2020-09-14 (day) · original ID: src-hustle-roam · trung t. phan

    'roam research could be the future of note-taking': profitable, 11 staff, five yc rejections — the raise set beside notion's $2b and coda's $636m.

  29. roam's road ahead · every (divinations) · 2020-09-18 (day) · original ID: src-roams-road-ahead · nathan baschez

    the '200x arr' analysis and the 'half of tech twitter' reaction framing — the valuation discourse's sharpest contemporaneous read.

  30. why roam is cool · every (divinations) · 2020-04-10 (day) · original ID: src-why-roam-cool · nathan baschez

    the 'culty' appeal and the learning curve as status marker — embeds conor's 'not quite culty enough' tweet.

  31. the notetaking cold war · every (superorganizers) · 2020-06-26 (day) · original ID: src-notetaking-cold-war · dan shipper

    the forte-versus-conor philosophical split — para against networked notes — the genre-defining comparison of the hype era.

  32. the fall of roam · every (superorganizers) · 2022-02-12 (day) · original ID: src-fall-of-roam · dan shipper

    the canonical departure essay by a former daily user: crufty links, slow velocity, weak mobile, 'well-documented community issues.'

  33. roam wefunder campaign page · wefunder (wayback) · 2021 (year) · original ID: src-wefunder-archive

    the campaign page, archived: $1,256,376 from 760 investors, leeds ut hq, ai-safety-community bootstrapping, and a 'reasons not to invest' section disclosing crypto treasury and campus-buying plans.

  34. roam research crowdfunding campaign oversubscribed · business insider · 2021-04 (month) · original ID: src-bi-wefunder

    the customer-investor moment: $500k target oversubscribed in under an hour, ~$1.6m committed in a day, open only to pre-2021 users.

  35. roam change log · roamdocs.fyi (mirror) · 2021–2026 (approximate) · original ID: src-roamdocs-changelog

    the dated feature history — depot, encryption, apis, mobile, the 2024 attack — mirrored from roam's own help graph (not roam's domain).

  36. roam-research/roam-depot · github · 2022-05-19 (day) · original ID: src-roam-depot-repo

    the extension-marketplace plumbing, public since may 2022.

  37. roam-research/roam-tools · github · 2026 (year) · original ID: src-roam-tools

    the official mcp server and cli — @roam-research/roam-mcp and roam-cli connecting claude/cursor-style agents to a graph via the desktop app's local api. the most substantive ai-era product line roam has shipped.

  38. roam-tools changelog · github · 2026 (year) · original ID: src-roam-tools-changelog

    the rapid-cadence record: 0.3.x in february to 0.11.0 by late august 2026 — split packages, semantic search, extension-registered ai tools at local api 1.1.5.

  39. i annotate 2021 notes · hyperphor (ammdi) · 2021-06 (month) · original ID: src-i-annotate

    i annotate 2021: conaw on a panel beside ward cunningham, readwise, memex, org-mode, and logseq — 'roam is not about note-taking,' the team 'a few dozen distributed people.'

  40. what comes after roam's renaissance? · lesswrong · 2024-05-12 (day) · original ID: src-lesswrong-renaissance · itay dreyfus

    the post-peak community's own postmortem: 'the hype was replaced by dramas, scandals, and rants' — and loyalists praising the 'lack of new features.'

  41. a book club like no other · hey world · 2020-11 (month) · original ID: src-book-club · ash chedrin

    the roam book club story: 1,700+ signups and ~200 simultaneous editors — multiplayer as community ritual and stress test.

  42. roam: tool for thinking · hacker news · 2019-11-04 (day) · original ID: src-hn-tool-for-thinking

    the earliest sizable hacker news discussion of the roam beta — 123 points, mostly curiosity.

  43. roam: why i love it and how i use it (discussion) · hacker news · 2020-01-21 (day) · original ID: src-hn-eliason

    the largest early hn thread — 288 points on the eliason essay, converts and skeptics arguing in the same thread.

  44. stop taking regular notes; use a zettelkasten instead · eugeneyan.com · 2020-04-05 (day) · original ID: src-eugene-zettelkasten · eugene yan

    the zettelkasten-resurgence essay that rode and amplified the roam moment — 785 hn points.

  45. foam: open-source roam alternative · hacker news · 2020-06-28 (day) · original ID: src-foam-hn

    foam — the open-source roam-like for vs code — takes 699 hn points within weeks of the pricing launch: the biggest competitor-side thread of the era.

  46. org-roam: rudimentary roam replica with org-mode · hacker news · 2020-04-03 (day) · original ID: src-org-roam-hn

    org-roam: the emacs community clones roam inside weeks — early evidence the idea was bigger than the product.

  47. tired of note-taking apps · akkshaya.blog · 2020-07-19 (day) · original ID: src-tired-notetaking · akkshaya

    the early 'the tool won't make you think' backlash essay — 478 hn points at peak hype.

  48. notes on a year using roam research · platformer · 2021-07-30 (day) · original ID: src-newton-year-one · casey newton

    the believer's first-year review: paid the $500, praised links and daily notes, flagged the insight gap — the mixed verdict the later postmortem fulfilled.

  49. why note-taking apps don't make us smarter · the verge · 2023-08-25 (day) · original ID: src-verge-pierce · david pierce

    the verge's same-titled counterpart two days after newton's: roam 'a breakthrough' in 2021, development slowed, enthusiasm moved to obsidian and mem.

  50. i deleted my second brain · joanwestenberg.com · 2025-06-28 (day) · original ID: src-westenberg-deleted · joan westenberg

    the highest-traction anti-pkm essay of the late era — 598 hn points — the roam-era habit explicitly renounced.

  51. notes against note-taking systems · substack · 2022-10-01 (day) · original ID: src-chapin-notes-against · sasha chapin

    'notes against note-taking systems' — 311 hn points: the peak systems-don't-think essay of the backlash era.

  52. roam sex ed · zsolt.blog · 2021-03 (month) · original ID: src-roam-sex-ed · zsolt viczián

    the community's own security warning: cloud notes, identity risk, backups, data ownership — written by a roam insider.

  53. ghsa-q4ch-vxxv-mx3h — firebase storage exposure · github (roam-research advisory) · 2021 (year) · original ID: src-ghsa-firebase

    the official advisory: firebase storage rules once allowed listing, downloading, and deleting uploaded files across graphs — patched to granular rules.

  54. issue #102 — daily notes page lost · github (roam-research/issues) · 2020-05 (month) · original ID: src-gh-issue-102

    the official tracker's data-loss record: missing daily notes, stuck 'saving' indicators, may 2020.

  55. issue #451 — export loses block references · github (roam-research/issues) · 2020-12 (month) · original ID: src-gh-issue-451

    export fidelity on the record: block-level references not preserved; the edn restore path added in response.

  56. obsidian 1.0 · obsidian · 2022-10-13 (day) · original ID: src-obsidian-1

    the market's verdict: obsidian 1.0 took 1,329 hn points and 566 comments — larger than any roam thread ever.

  57. launch hn: athens · hacker news · 2021-03-02 (day) · original ID: src-hn-athens

    the open-source 'roam killer' launch — 340 points — and, three years later, the same product unmaintained: cloning the graph was never the hard part.

  58. athens no longer actively maintained · hacker news · 2023-01 (month) · original ID: src-athens-dead

    athens no longer actively maintained — decline hit the whole wave, not just the original.

  59. this open-source tool is helping rethink knowledge management · techcrunch · 2022-05-05 (day) · original ID: src-logseq-tc · kyle wiggers

    techcrunch frames logseq as the open-source heir — used at google, meta, mit — reporting users 'jumping ship from roam.'

  60. tana snaps up $25m with its ai-powered knowledge graph · techcrunch · 2025-02-03 (day) · original ID: src-tana-25m

    tana's $25m and a 160k waitlist — the demand roam created, monetized by a successor.

  61. the fall of roam (2022) repost · hacker news · 2025-05-18 (day) · original ID: src-hn-fall-repost

    the fall-of-roam repost cycle plus the privacy exchange: a commenter claims an employee name in his graph's access logs; roam's engineer and co-founder josh brown respond — strict no-access policy since 2021, e2e graphs since january 2022.

  62. e2e-encryption for roam research · goedel.io · 2022-01 (month) · original ID: src-rink-e2e · alexander rink

    the community-built e2e pressure: media urls and firebase exposure documented, then roam shipped native encrypted graphs.

  63. my migration from roam research · obsidian forum · 2021-08-26 (day) · original ID: src-obsidian-forum-migration

    a representative migration document: native ios, performance, local files, interoperability.

  64. recovering lost roam notes · jeffchen.dev · 2021-08 (month) · original ID: src-jeffchen-recovery · jeff chen

    the readwise integration that deleted daily notes — and the snapshot-recovery writeup that documented it.

  65. roam, twenty years before roam · borretti.me · 2023-01-29 (day) · original ID: src-borretti · fernando borretti

    the historical-perspective piece: nothing in roam was new — which cuts both ways.

  66. what happened to roam research? · canion.blog · 2023-05-22 (day) · original ID: src-canion · steve canion

    the named 'what happened' postmortem: did obsidian simply take the market?

  67. effortless output in roam · effortlessoutput.com · 2020 (year) · original ID: src-effortless-output · nat eliason

    the biggest commercial artifact the hype produced: effortless output in roam — 4,400+ students self-reported, a course business built on one essay.

  68. computer assisted intuition · capiche · 2020-05-19 (day) · original ID: src-capiche

    'computer assisted intuition: how roam fulfills the web's original dream' — the memex/xanadu lineage in the mainstream community press.

  69. roam's impressive start and how to find its next phase of growth · yeti distro · 2020-04-17 (day) · original ID: src-yeti-distro · alfred lua

    the $99 early-access period and waitlist-friction-as-distribution documented by an analyst at the time.

  70. customers grow business: roam's cult-of-personality flywheel · strategy in process · 2021-07 (month) · original ID: src-strategy-flywheel

    the analyst read of the believer/customer-investor model as a cult-of-personality flywheel.

  71. why i switched: a deep dive into roam vs. obsidian · medium · 2021 (year) · original ID: src-wyler-switch · niles wyler

    'the cult mentality became jarring' — the honest record of the vibe shift from inside a migration.

  72. how roam hacked upfront ltv for saas · startupspells · ~2025 (approximate) · original ID: src-startupspells

    the growth-analyst retrospective on upfront ltv and the believer plan — includes a secondary, unverified claim that nat eliason deleted tweets and left roam while still selling the course.

  73. roam research review · tryorbye · ~2025 (approximate) · original ID: src-tryorbye

    the billing-complaint record: 31-day trial auto-converting to ~$180 annual, refused refunds — small sample, persistent pattern.

  74. roam research review 2026 · the sunrise digest · 2026 (year) · original ID: src-sunrise-review

    the late-era review: 'changed the category then stopped changing' — ~100k-block slowdowns, export loses refs and queries.

  75. visakanv's public roam graph · visakanv.com · 2020 (year) · original ID: src-visakanv · visakan veerasamy

    the canonical public-brain artifact: a roam graph as a personal site — the collaboration model conor cited in interviews.

  76. roam research company page · linkedin · 2026 (year) · original ID: src-linkedin-roam

    the company page's own numbers: ~10 employees now, $10.6m total funding, five countries.

  77. the hiring and culture thread · threadreader app · 2020-12 (month) · original ID: src-hiring-culture-thread · conor white-sullivan

    the unusual hiring thread: paid take-homes, a no-negotiation policy — praised and mocked in equal measure.

  78. letters from a roaman · roam.elaptics.co.uk · 2021–2022 (approximate) · original ID: src-roaman-letters

    letters from a roaman — the community newsletter whose issues document rbc cohorts, the roam summit, and tana's emergence from inside.

  79. the 30-demos sprint with nikitonsky · threadreader app · 2023-02-08 (day) · original ID: src-30-demos · conor white-sullivan

    the february 2023 shipping sprint with nikita prokopov: '30 tweet sized demos of small improvements and experiments' — the last public building-in-public burst.

Structured research records