nil.md

no distractions, no fluff. nil.

A fast, local-first Markdown notebook. Your notes are plain .md files in a folder you choose. Yes this is pretty much obsidian but vibecoded (well atleast it's not on electron amirite)

Install

Download the latest release from the releases page.

• Windows: run the installer and follow the prompts. The binary is not code-signed yet, so SmartScreen will show an "unknown publisher" warning.
• Linux: pick the bundle for your distro:
  • nilmd_x.y.z_amd64.deb: Debian/Ubuntu and other deb-based distros
  • nilmd-x.y.z-1.x86_64.rpm: Fedora/RHEL/openSUSE and other rpm-based distros
  • nilmd_x.y.z_amd64.AppImage: for any linux distro. portable, no install needed (may require chmod +x and FUSE)

Supported platforms for v0.1 are Windows and Linux. An Android build is planned, that is if I continue to work on this project. 😛

Notes location

Your notes live exactly where you put them — inside the folder you opened as a vault. There is no hidden database: quit the app and the files are still right there on disk.

Recent vaults are listed on the home screen; use Ctrl+O to open a different folder at any time.

Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+P	Search and open notes by name
Ctrl+Shift+P	Command palette
Ctrl+O	Open a folder as a vault
Ctrl+S	Save the current note
Ctrl+E	Toggle the sidebar
Ctrl+Shift+E	Toggle the outline sidebar
Ctrl+W	Close the current tab
Ctrl+Tab / Ctrl+Shift+Tab	Cycle through open tabs

Development

pnpm install
pnpm tauri dev   # full app (Rust + frontend)
pnpm check       # TypeScript + Svelte typecheck
pnpm lint        # Biome lint
cargo test       # Rust unit tests (nilmd-core)
pnpm tauri build # build from source