The world does not need another note-taking app. Or does it?
If you search for 'note-taking' today, you'll find the old guard like Evernote and Google Keep, alongside modern giants like Notion and Obsidian. It seems everyone is building a 'personal project' in this space because we all want to customize our digital lives. Each one promises to be the 'second brain' that finally organizes your life—but they often require you to trade your autonomy for their features.
I’ve experimented with several different approaches over the years. I started with a simple file-based system of plain text files, eventually upgrading to Markdown. I even went through a full-blown wiki phase (oooh! connected knowledge! back-links!).I still rely on many of these original files today—mainly my collection of HOWTOs. I eventually started naming them with the prefix 'para' (Spanish for 'for' or 'in order to'), a simple convention that has served me for years. Later, I supplemented this with what I thought was a frictionless solution: a quick-capture approach based on Google Keep. It was my bridge between the rigid terminal and the mobile world.
Before long, you find yourself juggling multiple accounts—work, personal, various side projects. You start wasting precious mental energy just trying to remember where a specific thought was stored. Was it in the work Keep? My personal one? A stray .txt file in a forgotten folder?
Then there is that 'small' discomfort that eventually grows into a large one: the realization that you are living in someone else's house. They can cut the service at any time—perhaps because an automated algorithm flagged your account, or simply because their commercial interests have shifted toward a different topic, leaving your workflow obsolete.
Building my own tool isn't just about features; it’s about making sure no 'automatic thing' can ever decide I'm not okay or lock me out of my own thoughts. And doing all this work is also (or it should be) fun!
And then, of course, there is the new 'intern' on the block: Generative AI.
I think of these LLMs as that eager but slightly confused junior developer. They don't always fully grasp the 'why' behind your project, and they certainly aren't sure about the big picture, but they are incredibly helpful at tackling the 'boring' parts of development.
And yet, here I am (we, in fact), building another-note-taking-app.
Maybe I'm a bit old and old-fashioned, but I keep coming back to the Command Line. It is fast, simple, distraction-free, and scriptable. This is what I’m used to. I’ve never felt truly comfortable having to pay attention to the mouse; to me, every time I have to reach for it, the flow is broken. Sure, I’ll use it to switch between terminals or to copy and paste a block of text, but for the actual work of thinking and creating, the keyboard is where I live. It is even better when you need a 'work from anywhere' tool. Maybe you are on remote or using a mobile phone (not very good experience, anyway) to solve some sudden glitch.
By building a tool that lives in the CLI, I’m not just making a choice about an interface—I’m making a choice about speed and automation. Building it myself allows me to have exactly what I need, instead of trying to fit my workflow into a box designed for someone else’s generalized use case.
The current state of the repository at Another note taking app is just the first step. In fact, I’ve been using it daily for three months now without looking back. In fact, my most recent steps have been focused on integrating it into several of my other workflows. It’s nothing especially fancy or 'powerful'—just some JSON files holding relevant bits of information: links, names, ideas. Just look at my last note, this morning (but don't look at the timestamp, do developers dream about work on Sunday mornings?).
Next, I’ll likely be migrating the notes I still have scattered in other formats and platforms into this repository.
The Roadmap: Building Something Interesting
A note-taking app shouldn't just be a passive bucket for text. It should be an active participant in your digital life.
Here is where I've been working on in the last days:
- The Chatbot Bridge (Part 2?)
Capturing a note when you are away from your computer is the biggest hurdle for CLI tools. I am working on a chatbot interface (check A (non intelligent) chatbot multi-interface and distributed as a personal information manager.) that allows me to send a quick message to my bot, which then automatically appends it to my system of notes.
- URL-to-Event Extraction (Part 3?)
We all have those tabs open: a concert, a meetup, a deadline. I want to build an interaction with an agenda manager where I can simply feed a URL into the app. The system will then:
- Scrape the URL.
- Extract event metadata (date, time, location).
- Automatically create a calendar event linked back to the original note.
Conclusion
This project isn't about competing with anything. It's about building a home for my digital life where I hold the keys.
If you value digital independence and the power of the terminal, I'd love for you to follow along or even contribute.
What is your "must-have" feature in a sovereign note-taking system? Let me know in the comments!