commonplace 0.0.3

A personal knowledge management tool

Commonplace

A personal knowledge management tool for archiving and organizing your AI conversations into a searchable digital commonplace book.

What is Commonplace?

Commonplace transforms your scattered AI chat exports into an organized, searchable personal knowledge repository. Just like the traditional commonplace books used by scholars and thinkers throughout history, this tool helps you preserve and revisit your most valuable AI conversations.

Features

Current Capabilities

• Import conversations from multiple AI providers:
  • Claude (via ZIP export from claude.ai)
  • Gemini (via Google Takeout HTML export)
• Standardized storage as organized markdown files with metadata
• Date-based organization in a clear directory structure:

  ~/commonplace/
  ├── chats/                    # AI conversations (imported by tool)
  │   ├── claude/2024/06/2024-06-28-conversation-title.md
  │   ├── gemini/2024/06/2024-06-28-gemini-conversations.md
  │   └── ...
  ├── journal/                  # Manual journal entries
  └── notes/                    # Manual notes and thoughts
  

• Rich markdown format with frontmatter, timestamps, and proper formatting
• Git integration for change tracking and automatic commits when importing conversations

Planned Features

• Interactive curation tools (move, rename, label)
• Cross-conversation search and analysis
• Advanced synthesis across both imported chats and manual content

Installation

pip install uv
uv tool install commonplace

Setup

1. Set your storage location:

export COMMONPLACE_ROOT=/path/to/your/commonplace
# or create a .env file with:
# COMMONPLACE_ROOT=/path/to/your/commonplace

2. Initialize your commonplace as a git repository (recommended):

commonplace init

This creates a git repository for change tracking and enables automatic commits when importing conversations.

3. Configure an LLM for journal generation (optional):

# Install and configure OpenAI (or other providers)
llm install llm-openai
llm keys set openai
# Enter your API key when prompted

# Or use local models
llm install llm-gpt4all

Usage

Import Claude conversations

1. Export your conversations from claude.ai (Download > Export)
2. Import the ZIP file:

commonplace import path/to/claude-export.zip

Import Gemini conversations

1. Request your data from Google Takeout
2. Select "My Activity" and "Assistant"
3. Import the ZIP file:

commonplace import path/to/takeout-export.zip

Generate journal insights

Analyze and summarize your recent conversations:

# Basic summary of last 7 days
commonplace journal

# Analyze last 30 days with specific model  
commonplace journal --days 30 --model claude-3-sonnet

# Just show statistics without AI summary
commonplace journal --stats-only

Output Format

Each conversation is stored as a markdown file with:

• Frontmatter metadata (source, timestamps, IDs)
• Structured headers for each speaker
• Preserved formatting and content
• Date-based organization for easy browsing

Example output:

---
model: claude-3-sonnet
uuid: conversation-123
---

# Exploring Machine Learning [created:: 2024-06-28T14:30:00]

## Human [created:: 2024-06-28T14:30:00]
Can you explain how neural networks work?

## Claude [created:: 2024-06-28T14:30:15]
Neural networks are computational models inspired by biological brains...

Development

# Run tests
uv run pytest tests/ -v

# Format code  
uv run ruff format .

# Type check
uv run mypy src/