About HotTea
Rethinking how a web browser, research tools, and user data coexist without compromising privacy.
The Motivation
The modern web browser is the epicenter of software development, academic investigation, and technical work. Yet workflows remain profoundly fractured: we juggle dozens of tabs in one window, copy snippets into external note applications, query cloud AI chatbots in another tab, and surrender telemetry to proprietary corporate clouds.
HotTea is an open-source project to bring browsing, research clipping, and local-first data storage into a unified workspace.
"Not another AI wrapper. Not another collection of disconnected tools. A transparent, modular, privacy-conscious workspace that gives users control over their browsing, research, and data."
Core Principles
1. User Control Over All Network Requests
No silent background syncing, telemetry reporting, or forced cloud accounts. Outbound network traffic is visible, intentional, and strictly directed by the user.
2. Local-First Data Sovereignty
Your research findings, bookmark collections, and browsing histories belong to you. HotTea stores records locally in standard SQLite databases with no vendor lock-in.
3. Technical Honesty
We do not make exaggerated claims about unbreakable encryption or magic privacy shields. We clearly distinguish between what is implemented, what is experimental, and what is on our roadmap.
Technical Foundations
HotTea is built using high-performance, cross-platform technologies:
- Flutter & Dart: Powers a unified, 60fps reactive UI across desktop, tablet, and mobile displays.
- Platform WebKit: Utilizes Apple WebKit on macOS and iOS through
flutter_inappwebview, supporting native edge-swipe gestures, sandboxed sandbagging, and anti-fraud filters. - SQLite: Industry-standard ACID-compliant database powering local bookmarks, history, and notes via
sqflite_common_ffi.
Development Roadmap
The project is structured in incremental phases:
- Phase 1: Foundation (Done) — Repository setup, architecture contracts, initial test suites.
- Phase 2: Browser MVP (Done) — Multi-tab browsing, multi-engine search (Google, DuckDuckGo, Bing, Brave), local SQLite persistence, downloads management, mobile-first iOS layout.
- Phase 3: AI Gateway (In Development) — Provider-independent AI interface with explicit consent boundaries and zero silent cloud fallback.
- Phase 4: Research Workspace (In Progress) — Side-by-side note editor with automated web passage clipping, evidence tags, and source metadata.
- Phase 5: .tea Vault (Planned) — Encrypted container format for sensitive research notes and credentials.
- Phase 6: Privacy & Distribution (Ongoing) — Reproducible builds, platform signing, and binary release packages.
Project Leadership & Contributors
HotTea is led by founder Shomayyy12, built with contributions from the global open-source software community.
