Gilune

Gilune is a notebook for the things you want to remember. You write or you speak, and what you keep is saved as an ordinary Markdown file in a folder you chose — readable today, readable in ten years, and readable by any other editor you point at it. Everything runs on your own machine: there is no account, and speech is transcribed locally. Features arrive as plugins you can switch off or remove, and removing one takes away its buttons without touching a word you wrote.

What it does

• Capture by typing or by speaking — a new note in one keystroke, or press the microphone, talk, and get the note it makes.
• Dictate at the cursor while writing, straight into the note you have open.
• Local transcription — your voice never leaves the machine, and the original recording is always kept beside the note.
• Recordings you can redo — transcribe a recording again, or turn an audio file from elsewhere into a note (desktop).
• Speaker labels — a conversation comes back as one paragraph per speaker, worked out on your machine (desktop, optional).
• Plain Markdown files in a folder you choose, styled as you type without ever changing the bytes on disk.
• Autosave — there is no save button and never a lost paragraph.
• Tasks from any checkbox, with due dates you type in words (tomorrow, friday) and Gilune stores as real dates.
• An agenda of what is overdue, due today, due this week, or undated.
• Search with a small query language — phrases, exclusions, file:/path:/ content:, properties, and type:task with due:/done:/is:.
• Live filter blocks inside a note, which stay legible code blocks anywhere else.
• Tabs and split panes, dragged where you want them, remembered per vault.
• Plugins with visible permissions — nothing reaches the network without an explicit yes.
• Works alongside Obsidian or any other editor pointed at the same folder.

Documentation

The user guide lives at gilune.github.io/gilune.

• Capture & voice — making notes by speaking, dictating at the cursor, transcribing a recording again or one made elsewhere, speaker labels, and how local transcription is set up.
• Tasks — the / menu for due dates, the agenda, and live filter blocks.
• Search — the complete query language, with an example for every keyword.
• Workspace — tabs, split panes, and every keyboard shortcut in one table.
• Plugins — permissions, and what does and does not happen when you remove one.

Status

The Windows desktop app is what exists and works today: writing, voice capture with local transcription, tasks, search, tabs and split panes. An Android app is in development and not ready to use. Syncing between devices is being designed and is not built yet — until it is, your vault is simply a folder, so back it up and copy it like any other.

Packaged builds are published on the Releases page: an installer for Windows (.msi), a package for Debian-family Linux (.deb), and an Android APK to sideload. Windows is the platform Gilune is developed and used on; the Linux and Android packages are built by the same pipeline but are not yet anybody's daily driver. Building from this repository works too, and is described below.

Once installed, the Windows app keeps itself up to date: it asks once whether it may check GitHub for new versions, then offers Update now when one is out — it downloads the installer, checks it against the checksum GitHub publishes, closes, installs and reopens. Windows asks for permission to install. Settings ▸ About has the switch and a Check now button.

Building from source

You will need JDK 17+, a Rust toolchain (1.98+), and — because the transcription engine compiles from C++ — LLVM and CMake. On Windows that is scoop install llvm cmake, with LIBCLANG_PATH pointing at the LLVM bin folder; on Debian-family Linux it is sudo apt-get install libclang-dev cmake.

On Windows:

cd kernel
cargo build --release -p gilune-ffi --features whisper

cargo run -p gilune-ffi --bin uniffi-bindgen -- generate ^
  --library target/release/gilune_ffi.dll --language kotlin ^
  --out-dir ../app/kernelBindings/src/desktopMain/generated

copy target\release\gilune_ffi.dll ..\app\composeApp\resources\windows-x64\

cd ../app
gradlew :composeApp:createReleaseDistributable

On Linux — the same three steps, with the shared library's own name and its own resource folder:

cd kernel
cargo build --release -p gilune-ffi --features whisper

cargo run -p gilune-ffi --bin uniffi-bindgen -- generate \
  --library target/release/libgilune_ffi.so --language kotlin \
  --out-dir ../app/kernelBindings/src/desktopMain/generated

mkdir -p ../app/composeApp/resources/linux-x64
cp target/release/libgilune_ffi.so ../app/composeApp/resources/linux-x64/

cd ../app
./gradlew :composeApp:createReleaseDistributable

The app lands at app/composeApp/build/compose/binaries/main-release/app/Gilune/Gilune.exe (.../app/Gilune/bin/Gilune on Linux). Swap the last task for packageReleaseMsi or packageReleaseDeb to build an installer instead of a folder you run in place. On first run, choose a vault folder in Settings — an empty one is fine. Voice notes need a 57 MiB speech model, which is downloaded only after you allow the transcription plugin network access under Settings ▸ Plugins.

For developers

• Product principles: sources/README.md — the "why".
• Architecture package: architecture/README.md — constitution → contracts → decision records. Read its README first.
• Evidence and prototypes: spikes/ — each states what it proved and where it is still honest about gaps.

License

Licensed under the MIT license (ADR 0009). Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in this work by you shall be licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.