ZenKat

ZenKat is a tool and library to enable using a set of plaintext files, especially markdown files, as a Zettelkasten knowledge base.

I've used a number of knowledge management tools including Obsidian, Notion, and Coda, and have found them all lacking and / or designed in a way that makes them act as a walled garden. ZenKat is an attempt to create a lightweight FOSS alternative for command-line users. As such it aims to have few dependencies while still providing decent features.

It's named this way because of my bad memory for German. I remembered ZEttelKAsTen as ZenKat (unclear where the N came from).

Recommended Setup

You can install directly from pip:

pip install zenkat

This also installs the zenkat convenience script.

To configure themes and create custom queries and formats, make a file at ~/.config/zenkat/config.toml.

If you'd like to run directly from source you can clone the repository and use development mode.

It's also worth installing Marksman LSP if you plan on working with plaintext files a lot. This should work with major CLI editors including Helix, Neovim, and Spacemacs, as well as KATE. I use Helix.

For viewing files as formatted you can use MD Fileserver with mdstart.

diff comes by default on the command line and can be extremely helpful when combining duplicate notes (which Obsidian's multiple vaults tend to lead to).

Features

• Filter and sort through notes with powerful mapping syntax
• Customisable output formats and color schemes
• Supports markdown tags, and unpacks nested tags
• Resolves internal links, both inbound and outbound
• Loads YAML metadata headers in pages
• Task tracking with beautiful formatting, filters, and extended syntax
• Configuration using config.toml in your home folder: see default_config for options

Contents

• Usage
• Fields and Subfields
• Formatting
• Filters
• Sorting
• Tasks
• grep and cat
• Queries
• Macros