Why We Created LocalThink Format
Why we created LocalThink Format: an open standard for making AI conversations portable, readable, and owned by the people who create them.
AI conversations are becoming part of human memory.
Every day, people think with AI systems.
They ask questions, explore ideas, draft plans, make decisions, write code, reflect on problems, and build knowledge through conversation.
These conversations are not just prompts and responses.
They often contain memory, reasoning, context, and intent.
In other words, they contain part of how people think.
Yet most of that thinking remains trapped inside closed platforms.
It can be hard to search.
It can be hard to back up.
It can be hard to move between tools.
It can disappear when an account, subscription, interface, or provider changes.
We believe that is a problem.
Personal thinking should remain personal, even in an age of intelligent machines.
Why We Built It
LocalThink Inc. was founded in 2026 with a simple mission:
Protecting personal thinking.
As AI becomes part of how people think, we believe individuals should be able to preserve, move, and own the conversations that help shape their ideas.
LTF is our first step toward that future.
Why LTF Was Created
LocalThink Format (LTF) was created to make human-AI conversations portable.
LTF is an open standard for preserving AI conversations as readable, long-lived files.
An LTF file is plain markdown with structured metadata.
That means it can be opened in a text editor.
It can be searched.
It can be backed up.
It can be versioned with git.
It can be used by different apps, tools, agents, runtimes, and future AI clients.
The goal is simple:
Your AI memory should not be locked inside one platform.
Open by Design
LTF is released under CC0.
No permission required.
No royalties.
No vendor lock-in.
Anyone can use it.
Anyone can implement it.
Anyone can build on top of it.
LocalThink Inc. created LTF and currently maintains the specification.
But the format is designed so that people, developers, researchers, teams, and future tools can use it independently.
The important question is not who created the format.
The important question is whether your memory can leave.
With LTF, it can.
What You Can Do Today
You can read the LTF specification.
You can create .ltf.md files with LTF Builder.
You can store those files locally, sync them with your own tools, or version them with git.
You can build your own parser, app, plugin, search layer, import tool, or personal AI runtime on top of the format.
LTF is still early.
That is exactly why it should be open now.
Standards become useful when people can inspect them, question them, implement them, and improve them.
Beyond LTF
LTF is only the beginning.
We believe the future of personal AI will be built around portable memory, local-first tools, and human-owned cognition.
No single chatbot should own the history of how you think.
No single app should define what your AI memory can become.
No single company should be the boundary of your personal intelligence.
The future is larger than that.
LocalThink Format exists so your thinking can move with you.
Your thinking should belong to you.
That is why LTF exists.
And that is why LocalThink exists.