Fieldnotes

What is Fieldnotes and what is it for?

Fieldnotes is a desktop app for testing software against a shared script of scenarios: a team loads a campaign of scenarios, each tester works through them on their own machine, and each one records a verdict and writes up what they found. The scenarios, verdicts and findings are held and replicated across the machines of everyone taking part, rather than on a central server holding the results.

Fieldnotes was built to do a particular job: testing Requests & Offers, a mutual-aid platform, by running that platform's test scenarios through a tool that is itself a Holochain app. Its README names a second purpose alongside the first — to show that a useful Holochain application does not have to be built by a developer.

The app turns a test plan into a shared workspace. A team loads a campaign of scenarios, grouped into sections, and every tester sees the same board. Working on their own machine, each tester gives a scenario a verdict — pass, fail, partial or skip — and writes findings underneath it. Findings form an append-only thread, so nothing is silently overwritten, and a one-tap "same here" stamps an existing finding with that tester's operating system and architecture, which makes a problem that repeats across machines visible. Testers can also file issues no scenario covered, with the app surfacing similar reports as they are typed. Every tester links a Flowsta Vault identity, and since findings are public by design, the app flags text that looks like private data before it is submitted.

The Requests & Offers campaign is the documented example of Fieldnotes in use, and each tester can export a portable copy of everything they have authored. The project's README is the place to learn more: it covers what the app does, how it is built, and where to download it.

From 4 public sources, checked 23 September 2026.