ChronoNote

A keyboard-driven app for daily notes, meeting logs and action items. You type plain text with a few short symbols; ChronoNote shows them as checkboxes, arrows and sections, and helps you carry open work from day to day. Every note stays an ordinary .txt file, one per day: no database, no hidden IDs.

Highlights

• Plain text you own. Notes are YYYY-MM-DD.txt files in a folder you choose; any editor can open them.
• Symbols that become glyphs. # is an open action, v done, > forwarded, x won't do, => @name delegated, o an agenda topic. Click a glyph or press Ctrl+1–4 to change it.
• Open work moves forward. Paste an open action into a later note and the original is marked as forwarded, with links in both directions.
• Meetings remember themselves. Reuse a section title and Section history (Ctrl+Shift+H) shows every earlier occurrence beside the note.
• Your calendar fills in the day. Optional sync with a .agenda.json file turns today's meetings into sections.
• Peek for calls. A small see-through window with only the current section, so you can take notes while you keep seeing the people you talk to.
• Everywhere you are. A Windows app with in-app updates, and a web app for any browser or phone that can sync with a OneDrive folder.

The user guide explains every symbol, shortcut and workflow.

Get it

ChronoNote runs on Windows 10 and 11. On other systems, use the web app.

• Windows: download ChronoNote_<version>_x64-setup.exe from the latest release. The app checks GitHub for new versions and installs them for you (About → Get early updates for beta versions).
• Web app: app.chrononote.mariendegelder.nl saves to your browser and can sync with a OneDrive folder. Install it to your phone's home screen for an app-like experience.
• Try it first: the demo runs in your browser and keeps nothing.

Using it

• Learn it: the user guide, or Ctrl+/ in the app for the shortcuts and symbols.
• Your notes: plain UTF-8 files named YYYY-MM-DD.txt in the folder set in Settings → Notes & Sync (default ~/Documents/Notes). Earlier versions and deleted notes are kept for 30 days (in hidden folders next to them on desktop).
• Bringing notes in: docs/migration-guide.md describes the format to convert existing notes into.
• Calendar sync: docs/agenda-file-guide.md describes the .agenda.json file that whatever syncs your calendar needs to write.

Development

ChronoNote is built with Tauri v2 (Rust), Svelte 5 and TypeScript, and CodeMirror 6. The same frontend builds the desktop app, the web app and the demo.

Prerequisites: Node.js 22 or 24 (CI uses 24), Rust via rustup, and on Windows the "Desktop development with C++" workload. macOS and Linux builds are untested (see the Tauri prerequisites).

npm install
npm run tauri dev       # the desktop app, with hot reload
npm run dev             # the frontend only, in a browser (add ?mock to run against the in-memory backend)
npm run tauri build     # an installer, in the Cargo target folder under release/bundle/nsis

Tests:

npm run check                  # svelte-check: TypeScript and Svelte types
npm test                       # Vitest: logic, grammar, contracts
cd src-tauri && cargo test     # Rust: storage, agenda, spell check
npm run test:e2e               # Playwright: the full frontend against a mock backend
npm run verify                 # before pushing: types, test types, Vitest, cargo test when Rust changed

npm install sets up a pre-push hook (.githooks/pre-push) that runs npm run verify; it skips when that already passed on the commit being pushed.

CI (.github/workflows/test.yml) runs these on every push and pull request, plus a real-app test on Windows and the layout specs with Windows fonts. tests/e2e/README.md explains the Playwright harness.

Where things are documented

Document	What it is for
User guide (source)	How to use ChronoNote: symbols, shortcuts, workflows
docs/spec.md	The precise product and technical reference: syntax, behaviour, storage, backends, testing
docs/CHANGELOG.md	The decision log: every change as a numbered section (§) with why it was made
docs/open-checks.md	What is built but still needs a person to confirm it (real hardware, a later event)
Releases	Release notes per version
docs/design/	Design proposals and reviews behind larger changes
docs/AGENT_GUIDELINES.md	Rules and invariants for anyone, human or AI agent, changing the code
website/README.md	How the website, demo and web app are built and deployed

Contributing and support

Bug reports and ideas are welcome as issues. ChronoNote is a personal project maintained by one person; read CONTRIBUTING.md before opening a pull request.

License

MIT