The Forest
Rediscover the joy of getting lost on the web
The Forest is a Raycast extension that opens a random website from theforest.link and keeps a lightweight local walk history so you can quickly revisit or copy previous discoveries.
Commands
- Go for a Walk opens a random website planted in The Forest.
- View Walk History lists up to 100 previous walks with actions to reopen or copy their URLs.
- Plant a Website submits a website for consideration using The Forest's public planting form.
- Open The Forest opens the original interactive forest.
AI tools
- Take a Walk discovers a random site, saves it to history, and returns a link.
- Get Walk History retrieves up to 100 previous discoveries.
- Clear Walk History clears saved discoveries after user confirmation.
- Plant Website submits a URL after showing exactly what may become publicly discoverable.
Website Addresses
Plant a Website and the Plant Website AI tool accept bare domains (example.com) and domains with paths or ports (example.com:8443/blog). Bare addresses use HTTPS; explicit http:// and https:// addresses keep their scheme. Surrounding whitespace is trimmed. Addresses with internal whitespace, backslashes, embedded login credentials, unsafe schemes, or malformed hosts/ports are rejected. Localhost and IPv6 addresses are also supported.
Development Checks
Run npm ci, npm test, npm run lint, npx tsc --noEmit, and npm run build.
Tests cover normalization, form validation/submission, AI confirmation, and the encoded planting request using fixtures and mocked HTTPS. They send no real planting requests. Native Raycast UI and live service behavior require separate validation.
Product plan
Version 1
- Keep the core walk one keystroke away with a no-view command.
- Resolve and save each walk locally so discoveries can be revisited later.
- Match the website's planting flow in a native, validated Raycast form.
- Preserve an escape hatch to the original interactive experience.
Follow-ups
- Consider favorites if the walk history proves useful and people want permanent curation.
- Add Raycast AI tools only if they preserve the site's intentionally algorithm-free discovery experience.
- Revisit submission handling if The Forest publishes a documented API contract.
