gnosis

A local-first, file-based, org-mode-compatible note app driven by a command palette.

gnosis is a desktop note app where a folder of .org files is the database, the command palette is the only interface that matters, and views are saved queries over your tagged blocks.

• Local-first. No server, no sync, no account. The user picks a folder; that folder is the vault.
• File-based. .org files are the source of truth. SQLite is a derived index — deleting it is safe.
• Block-oriented. Every heading is a block. Blocks carry tags, scheduling, todo state, priority, properties.
• Palette-driven. Cmd+K (and Space Space in normal mode) is the app. Capture, search, navigation, view-opening, command execution all flow through one modal.
• Vim-first. Vim is the default interaction mode — pervasive across editor, palette, sidebars, tabs, and views.
• Org-compatible. Open the vault in Emacs, edit anything, gnosis re-indexes on next launch without data loss.

See planning/01-overview-and-mvp.md for the product spec, planning/02-architecture.md for the system architecture, and planning/14-roadmap-and-deferred.md for phase-by-phase progress.

Status

Pre-alpha. Foundation phases complete (scaffold restructure, Tauri plumbing, SQLite bootstrap). The editor, parser, palette, and views are not yet built. See the roadmap for what's shipped and what's next.

Stack

• TypeScript end-to-end
• Tauri 2 desktop shell (Rust crate hosts native plugins)
• Vite + React for the desktop UI
• Drizzle ORM + SQLite (via tauri-plugin-sql) for the derived index
• Bun workspaces + Turborepo for the monorepo
• Biome for lint and format
• CodeMirror 6 + @replit/codemirror-vim for the editor (planned, not yet wired)

Getting Started

bun install
bun run tauri:dev   # native window with sqlite + dialog wired (slow first compile: 5–10 min)

Or, for the Vite shell only (no Tauri APIs, useful for UI iteration):

bun run dev:desktop

Project Structure

gnosis/
├── apps/
│   ├── desktop/     # Tauri desktop app (Vite + React) — the MVP
│   ├── web/         # Marketing landing page (Next.js, deferred)
│   ├── docs/        # Documentation site (Fumadocs, port 4000)
│   └── mobile/      # React Native / Expo (scaffold only, deferred)
├── packages/
│   ├── ui/          # Shared shadcn/ui components and styles
│   ├── core/        # Org parser + AST + vault adapter (planned)
│   ├── editor/      # CodeMirror + vim integration (planned)
│   ├── views/       # Journal, agenda, todos render (planned)
│   ├── db/          # Drizzle schema + typed query builders
│   ├── config/      # Shared tsconfig.base.json
│   └── env/         # Shared zod-validated env
└── planning/        # Implementation plan (17 docs, ~90 min readthrough)

Available Scripts

• bun run dev: Start all applications in development mode
• bun run build: Build all applications
• bun run check-types: TypeScript type-check across all workspaces
• bun run test: Run tests across packages
• bun run dev:desktop: Start the Vite shell for the desktop app
• bun run dev:web: Start the Next.js landing page
• bun run dev:docs: Start the Fumadocs site
• bun run dev:mobile: Start the React Native / Expo dev server
• bun run tauri:dev: Run the Tauri desktop app in dev mode
• bun run tauri:build: Build the Tauri desktop app
• bun run check: Run Biome formatting and linting

UI Customization

React surfaces share shadcn/ui primitives through packages/ui.

• Change design tokens and global styles in packages/ui/src/styles/globals.css
• Update shared primitives in packages/ui/src/components/*
• Adjust shadcn aliases in packages/ui/components.json and the per-app components.json

To add more shared primitives:

bunx shadcn@latest add accordion dialog popover sheet table -c packages/ui

Contributing

The implementation plan in planning/ is the canonical roadmap. Pick a phase or a deferred-issue tracker (V*/P*/E*/Q*/U*/B*/T*/W*/M*/X*/S* prefixes in planning/14-roadmap-and-deferred.md), open an issue, and submit a PR against the dev branch.

Before opening a PR:

bun run check-types
bun run check
bun run test
bun run build

License

MIT. See LICENSE.