Simplist lets you design your own record types and then fill them in. This guide takes you from a new account to your first few records.
Create an account
Sign up with a display name, an email address and a password, then click the link in the verification email. Until you verify, some features stay locked.
Your display name is how you appear to everyone you work with — on a workspace’s collaborator list, in its activity feed, on invites you send and on documents you share. You can change it any time from Account.
Your account starts with one workspace — a container for models, documents, files and people. Everything you create lives in exactly one workspace, and you switch between them from the workspace picker in the sidebar. Create more from New workspace when you want a hard boundary between two bodies of work.
The three things to know
Simplist has a small vocabulary, and the whole app follows from it:
- A model is a type of record you define — Book, Client, Recipe, Bug. You choose its name and its fields.
- A field is one typed slot on a model — a title, a due date, a price, a file, a link to another record.
- A document is one filled-in record of a model.
If you have used a spreadsheet: a model is the sheet, a field is a column, a document is a row. The difference is that fields are typed, so a date behaves like a date and a link to another record stays connected.
Create your first model
Go to Models → New model and give it a singular and a plural name (“Book” and “Books”). The plural is what you will see in the sidebar and in headings; the singular shows up on buttons like “New Book”.
Add fields as you go. Every model gets a main field — the one that titles each record in lists, search results and links from other records. Pick something that identifies a record at a glance, usually a short Text field.
You can also pick a color and an icon for the model, which is what makes models tellable apart in the sidebar at speed.
Field types, relations and the main field are covered in Models and fields.
Add your first document
Open the model and choose New. Fill in what you know and save — nothing is required except what you decide is.
Once you have a couple of records, use the search box in the sidebar to jump to anything by name.
Editing, version history and the trash are covered in Working with documents.
Where to go next
- Models and fields — every field type, relations, and changing your mind about a field later
- Views and search — table, board, gallery, calendar and map layouts, plus filters and saved feeds
- Files and media — attachments, the media library, and searching the text inside images
- Sharing and publishing — invite people, share one record, or publish a public page
- Integrations — the REST API, MCP for AI agents, and connectors that pull data in automatically