01 / open
Choose any path
Visit a memorable URL yourself, or let cowyo make an
alliterative one like calm-cat.
about cowyo
a blank page + a link
cowyo is for the text that needs a place right now: a running list, a handoff, meeting notes, or a thought shared across a room.
how it works
From blank page to shared thought.
02 / type
Write together
Text saves as you type. Share the URL and everyone on the page sees updates live.
03 / decide
Keep it your way
Leave it unlisted, publish it, lock editing, encrypt the text, or destroy it after the next load.
page controls, plainly
A link is still a link.
Anyone with the URL can open an unencrypted page. These controls manage search visibility, editing, encryption, and lifespan—they don't turn cowyo into a private workspace.
Unpublished
Keeps the page out of cowyo's sitemap and asks search engines not to index it. It is not private; anyone with the URL can still open it.
Locked
Prevents changes until the page password is entered. It does not hide the text, which stays readable to anyone with the URL.
Encrypted
Encrypts the text in your browser before it is saved. Anyone can load the encrypted block; the password is needed to read its contents.
Self-destruct
Whoever visits next receives one final load. The page is then deleted.
browser optional
cowyo speaks command line.
Every scratchpad doubles as a plain-text endpoint. Read with GET, write with POST, and use the same URL in a terminal, a browser, or a script.
- Composable Pipe command output in or redirect a page to a file.
- Plain No JSON envelope, HTML scraping, SDK, or API token.
- Shareable Each write returns the page URL as its response.
01 / read
Read a page
curl receives only the exact stored text. Print it, pipe it to another command, or save it locally.
curl https://cowyo.com/my-notes
curl https://cowyo.com/my-notes \
> notes.txt02 / create
Create a new page
POST a file to the home URL. cowyo chooses a memorable name and prints the new page URL.
curl --data-binary @notes.txt \
https://cowyo.com/03 / write
Write a named page
POST to any path to create or replace it. Use
@- to read from stdin.
printf '%s\n' 'deploy at 3pm' | \
curl --data-binary @- \
https://cowyo.com/team-handoffpage controls
Manage more than text.
The versioned API can publish, lock, encrypt, or arm an existing page for self destruct. Successful changes appear immediately for people with the page open.
Encryption stays local: send a compatible encrypted block, not the encryption password.
curl --json '{"operation":"publish"}' \
https://cowyo.com/api/v1/pages/my-notes/operationsA named write replaces the page's complete contents. Locked pages reject ordinary writes until they are unlocked in the browser or through the API.
open source, by design
Small enough to understand.
Free to run yourself.
cowyo is built by schollz and released under the MIT license. Inspect the code, host your own copy, or help keep the public service running.