{"slug": "show-hn-concepticon-manage-your-team-s-domain-language-like-source-code", "title": "Show HN: Concepticon – manage your team's domain language like source code", "summary": "Concepticon, a new tool for managing team domain language as plain-text propositions, launches with a free Reader tier and a $50 Pro tier. The tool turns plain-text concept relationships into interactive graphs, supports AI-assisted generation via user API keys, and emphasizes privacy with local-only execution. It aims to help teams maintain a ubiquitous language for onboarding humans and AI agents.", "body_md": "# Concepticon\n\nYou might think your team has a ubiquitous language. You might want to check.\n\nA concept map isn't a single diagram, it's any diagram you need, just when you need it. Concepticon turns plain-text propositions about your team's domain into a graph you can navigate at the size you can grok. Files stay on your disk, in plain text any editor — or any AI agent — can read.\n\n## Everything you need to map your team's domain\n\nPlain-text propositions in. An interactive graph out. AI assistance when you want it, driven by your own API key.\n\n-\n### Plain Text Propositions\n\nWrite concept relationships in plain English (\"Dog chases Cat\"). No special syntax to learn — just words connected by words.\n\n-\n### Visual Graph Rendering\n\nPropositions become an interactive force-directed graph. Pan, zoom, and explore your concept map with full mouse and keyboard support.\n\n-\n### AI-Assisted Generation\n\nBring your own API key — Claude or GPT. Point the AI at a PDF, a web page, or a topic description; propositions come back for you to review and refine.\n\n-\n### Fully Keyboard Accessible\n\nEvery feature is reachable without a mouse. Screen reader compatible. Designed by a legally blind developer who uses it daily.\n\n-\n### Works with Any Text Editor\n\nYour proposition files are plain Markdown. Edit them in VS Code, Vim, Obsidian, or Notepad — Concepticon picks up changes automatically.\n\n-\n### Rich Concept Descriptions\n\nEach concept can have a full Markdown description in a sibling file. View rendered descriptions as you navigate the map.\n\n-\n### Focus Views\n\nZoom into a subgraph around any concept to reduce clutter. Explore neighbourhoods without losing the bigger picture.\n\n-\n### Import from Documents\n\nGenerate concept maps from PDFs, PowerPoint presentations, and web pages. The AI extracts key concepts and relationships for you.\n\n-\n### Private by Default\n\nRuns entirely on your machine. API keys are encrypted with OS-level secure storage. No telemetry, no cloud required.\n\n## How it works\n\n-\n### Write propositions\n\nWrite relationships between concepts in plain text. Each line is a proposition: two or more concepts connected by a plain English phrase. Use any text editor, or — in Pro — create and edit propositions directly inside Concepticon.\n\n```\nCustomer places Order\nOrder contains Line Item\nLine Item references Product\nProduct belongs to Catalogue\n```\n\n-\n### Open in Concepticon\n\nPoint Concepticon at your propositions file. It reads the file and renders an interactive graph with automatic layout. Save the file and the graph updates instantly.\n\n-\n### Explore and refine\n\nPan and zoom the graph, click concepts to read their descriptions, use focus view to explore a neighbourhood, and add AI-generated propositions from documents or web pages.\n\n-\n### Build snapshots\n\nCurate views of your map for onboarding new team members into the core concepts of your team's ubiquitous language. A new colleague — or a new AI agent — can self-serve their way into your domain in minutes. Snapshots can be defined in Pro, or hand-edited in any text editor.\n\n## The proposition format\n\nPropositions follow a simple rule: one or more Concept Phrases connected by lowercase linking phrases. Concepts start with uppercase letters; linking phrases are lowercase.\n\n- Consecutive uppercase-starting words form a single concept (\n`Harry Potter`\n\n,`General Relativity`\n\n) - A lowercase word starts a linking phrase and ends the previous concept\n- Concepts can contain letters, digits, periods, and apostrophes (\n`F.B.I.`\n\n,`O'Connor`\n\n)\n\n### Valid propositions\n\n```\nDog chases Cat\nHarry Potter attends Hogwarts\nClaude Code applies AI to Software Development\nF.B.I. investigates Organised Crime\nMichael O'Connor lives in Dublin\n```\n\n## Reader is free. Pro is $50 USD, once.\n\nAnyone you share a map with can view it for free in Concepticon Reader — no purchase, no account, no email. Concepticon Pro adds the in-app editor: write propositions directly, generate concept maps from documents and URLs using the AI of your choice, add rich concept descriptions, and save changes back to your files. One $50 USD payment for v1.x; no subscription.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-concepticon-manage-your-team-s-domain-language-like-source-code", "canonical_source": "https://thinkingtools.software/concepticon/", "published_at": "2026-07-10 10:53:04+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-10 11:05:17.797728+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["developer-tools", "ai-tools"], "entities": ["Concepticon", "Claude", "GPT", "VS Code", "Vim", "Obsidian", "Notepad"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-concepticon-manage-your-team-s-domain-language-like-source-code", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-concepticon-manage-your-team-s-domain-language-like-source-code.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-concepticon-manage-your-team-s-domain-language-like-source-code.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-concepticon-manage-your-team-s-domain-language-like-source-code.jsonld"}}