noter

An application that helps you take notes. It's silly, but it scratched an itch and replaced some shell scripts I was using.

Installation

Homebrew (Recommended)

The easiest way to install noter is via Homebrew:

brew tap IanKnighton/homebrew-tap
brew install noter

To upgrade to the latest version:

brew upgrade noter

Manual Installation

Build the application using Swift Package Manager:

swift build -c release

The executable will be at .build/release/noter.

You can copy it to a location in your PATH:

cp .build/release/noter /usr/local/bin/

Usage

Creating a new note

noter new

This will create a new note in the configured notes directory with the filename format yyyyMMdd.v.md, where:

• yyyyMMdd is the current date (e.g., 20260101 for January 1, 2026)
• v is an incrementing version number starting at 0

If multiple notes are created on the same day, the version number increments automatically (e.g., 20260101.0.md, 20260101.1.md, etc.).

You can also create a note with initial content:

noter new "This is my first note entry"

This will create a new note with a timestamped entry in the format:

### HH:mm

This is my first note entry

Adding to an existing note

noter add "Additional content for my note"

This will append content to the most recent note in the configured notes directory. If no notes exist, a new one will be created. The entry is added with a timestamp:

### HH:mm

Additional content for my note

You can also append the contents of a markdown file:

noter add -f path/to/file.md

This will read the markdown file and append it to the most recent note with a timestamp header.

Combining notes

noter combine

This will combine all notes that have multiple versions for the same day into a single file. For example, if you have 20260102.0.md, 20260102.1.md, and 20260102.2.md, they will be combined into a single 20260102.0.md file with the format:

# MM-DD-YYYY

## AI Summary

{AI-GENERATED SUMMARY (if OPENAI_API_KEY is set)}

---

{FILE .0 ENTRIES}

---

{FILE .1 ENTRIES}

---

{FILE .2 ENTRIES}

By default, the original separate files are deleted after combining.

AI Summary

If you have an OPENAI_API_KEY environment variable set, noter will automatically generate an AI summary of your combined notes and place it at the top of the file. The summary provides a brief overview of your day's notes and highlights any potential action items.

To skip the AI summary generation even when you have an API key configured:

noter combine --no-ai

You can customize the AI prompt by adding an ai_prompt configuration to your ~/.noterrc file:

path=/path/to/notes
ai_prompt=Your custom prompt for the AI summary

Combine only today's notes

noter combine today

This will only combine notes created today, leaving notes from other days unchanged.

Keep original files

noter combine --keep

This will create a new combined file while preserving the original separate files. The combined file will use the next available version number.

You can also combine these options:

noter combine today --keep
noter combine today --no-ai
noter combine --keep --no-ai

This will combine only today's notes and keep the original files.

Specifying the notes directory

There are three ways to specify where notes should be stored, in order of priority:

1. Command-line argument (highest priority):

   noter new --path /path/to/notes
   noter new -p /path/to/notes
   noter add -p /path/to/notes "Content"
   noter combine -p /path/to/notes

2. Environment variable:

   export NOTER_PATH=/path/to/notes
   noter new
   noter add "Content"
   noter combine

3. Configuration file (~/.noterrc): Create a file at ~/.noterrc with the following content:

   path=/path/to/notes
   ai_prompt=Your custom AI prompt (optional)
   

   Available configuration options:

   • path: Directory where notes should be stored
   • ai_prompt: Custom prompt for AI summary generation (optional)

4. Default: If no path is specified, notes will be stored in ~/notes

Environment Variables

• NOTER_PATH: Specifies the directory where notes should be stored
• OPENAI_API_KEY: Required for AI summary generation. If not set, the combine command will work without AI summaries.

Help

To see all available commands and options:

noter --help
noter new --help
noter add --help
noter combine --help