nnote 0.1.3

cli note taker

nnote

A minimal CLI note-taking tool. Notes are plain files stored in a directory of your choice.

Installation

pip install -e .

Setup

nnote init

Prompts for a notes directory (default: ~/nnotes) and a default editor. Config is saved to ~/.config/nnote/config.yaml. If $EDITOR is set in your environment, it will be used as the editor default.

Commands

nnote new [<title>] [-d <dir>]

Create a new note and open it in the configured editor. Use -d to place the note inside a subdirectory of your notes directory (created automatically if it doesn't exist).

Omit the title and provide only -d to create a directory without opening an editor.

nnote new todo
nnote new standup -d work
nnote new -d archive

nnote view <title> [-d <dir>]

Print the contents of a note to stdout.

nnote view todo
nnote view standup -d work

nnote edit <title> [-d <dir>]

Open an existing note in the configured editor. Errors if the note doesn't exist (use new to create it).

nnote edit todo

nnote list [-d <dir>]

Display all notes as a tree. Scope to a subdirectory with -d.

nnote list
nnote list -d work

/home/user/nnotes
├── work/
│   ├── meeting
│   └── standup
└── todo

nnote drop [<title>] [-d <dir>]

Remove a note or a directory. When dropping a directory, prompts for confirmation if it contains files.

nnote drop todo              # remove a note
nnote drop standup -d work   # remove a note inside a subdirectory
nnote drop -d work           # remove the entire directory

nnote move <title> [<dest_title>] [-d <dir>] [--dest-dir <dir>]

Move or rename a note. Provide a new title to rename, --dest-dir to move to another subdirectory, or both.

nnote move todo done                        # rename
nnote move standup -d work --dest-dir arch  # move to another subdirectory
nnote move standup meeting -d work          # rename within a subdirectory

nnote backup [<output_path>] [-d <dir>] [--include-config] [--dry-run] [--quiet]

Back up notes to a .tar.gz archive. If no output path is given, saves nnote-backup-YYYY-MM-DD.tar.gz in the current directory.

• -d — scope the backup to a subdirectory
• --include-config — also bundle ~/.config/nnote/config.yaml into the archive
• --dry-run — list files that would be included without writing anything
• --quiet — suppress output (useful for scripting)

nnote backup                             # nnote-backup-2026-04-16.tar.gz in cwd
nnote backup ~/backups/notes.tar.gz      # custom output path
nnote backup -d work                     # only the 'work' subdirectory
nnote backup --include-config            # include config file
nnote backup --dry-run                   # preview without creating archive

nnote search <query> [-d <dir>]

Search notes by title and content. Results are ranked by relevance: exact title matches score highest, followed by prefix/substring/fuzzy title matches, then content hits. Matched terms are highlighted in the output.

nnote search meeting
nnote search budget -d work

work/meeting [title]
  3: discussed the project budget
  7: next meeting on friday

Config file

~/.config/nnote/config.yaml

notes_dir: /home/user/nnotes
editor: nvim

The editor field can be any terminal editor command (vim, nano, hx, etc.). If omitted, $EDITOR is used.

License

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later. See LICENSE for details.