Envy

A flat-file, frictionless note-taking application. One search box, instant results, and notes stored as plain .md files in a folder you choose, so the notes outlive the app.

One codebase, two platforms: Linux (WebKitGTK) and Windows (WebView2), sharing the same Rust envy-core, the same CodeMirror 6 frontend and the same Tauri v2 shell. Platform code is gated, not forked — see Platform boundaries.

Open source under the MIT license. The macOS original is a separate Swift app: skuthus/Envy, envynote.app.

Installing a release

Arch / Omarchy. Envy ships from its own pacman repository (the AUR closed registrations when 1.0.0 shipped), for x86_64 and aarch64 (Apple silicon Macs running Asahi/Omarchy included). Add to /etc/pacman.conf once, with the Server line for your machine (uname -m says which):

[envynote]
SigLevel = Optional TrustAll
Server = https://github.com/skuthus/Envy-Universal/releases/download/repo

or, on aarch64:

[envynote]
SigLevel = Optional TrustAll
Server = https://github.com/skuthus/Envy-Universal/releases/download/repo-aarch64

then sudo pacman -Sy envynote. Updates arrive with omarchy update (or a plain pacman -Syu on other Arch systems; Omarchy's hook blocks that form). Turn on Settings → System → "Bind Ctrl+Alt+Return in Hyprland", or add pcall(dofile, "/usr/share/envy/hyprland-envy.lua") to ~/.config/hypr/bindings.lua yourself. Prefer building it? cd linux && makepkg -si from a clone.

Installs made before the repository was renamed point at .../skuthus/Envy-Linux/releases/download/repo. GitHub redirects that permanently, so they keep working and need no edit.

Other Linux. Run the AppImage from the GitHub release (amd64 for x86_64, aarch64 for ARM).

Windows. Run the NSIS installer from the GitHub release. WebView2 is already present on Windows 11 and is fetched by the installer otherwise.

Building it

Both platforms need Rust stable and Node LTS.

npm install

# Linux — also needs: webkit2gtk-4.1 gtk3 librsvg openssl
./dev.sh                    # hot-reloading dev build
./build.sh                  # pre-ship gate, then binary + .deb + AppImage
./linux/install-desktop.sh  # ~/.local/share/applications/envy.desktop

:: Windows — also needs MSVC C++ build tools + the Windows SDK
dev.cmd                     :: hot-reloading dev build
build.cmd                   :: release binary + NSIS installer

Notes live in ~/Documents/Envy (Linux) or %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Envy (Windows) by default, created on first launch with a welcome note. Settings → Change Location… points it elsewhere; the chosen path is the vault key in the config file below.

Summon. Ctrl+Alt+Enter shows or hides Envy from any app. The tray/bar eye does the same on left click; right click opens the app menu. A floating Envy comes back where you left it, at the size you left it, on every summon and at the next launch, with nothing to configure: Envy keeps one window rule of its own in Hyprland (envy-place) that says where the window maps, so it appears in place rather than sliding there. A tiled Envy is the layout's to place.

Checking it

./scripts/check.sh              # tests, tsc, build, config invariants — no display
./scripts/gui-smoke.sh          # Linux: drives the real window under Hyprland
.\scripts\gui-smoke.ps1         # Windows: the same run, driven through Win32
./scripts/ship-check.sh         # the full pre-release gate

cargo test reports more tests on Linux than on Windows. That is correct, not a misconfiguration: the symlink, pacman-update and Hyprland/Omarchy/tray tests are cfg-gated and do not exist on Windows.

Configuration

The same file shape on both: markdown with one ```toml fence, and missing keys mean defaults. Theme files sit beside it in themes/.

	Config	Themes
Linux	~/.config/envy/config.md	~/.config/envy/themes/
Windows	%APPDATA%\envy\config.md	%APPDATA%\envy\themes\

envynote config check
envynote config path
envynote theme list

Appearance. Both platforms default to the Envious dark face. On a machine running Omarchy, Envy follows the current Omarchy theme (~/.local/state/omarchy/current/theme/colors.toml) and its monospace font instead — omarchy theme set or omarchy font set retints a running window. Settings → Appearance pins Envious light/dark or a custom font. Where no Omarchy font is available the default face is JetBrains Mono on Linux and Cascadia Mono on Windows.

Structure

• crates/envy-core — the note model and store. No UI, no Tauri. cargo test -p envy-core.
• src-tauri — the Tauri v2 shell: windowing, tray, file dialogs, updater.
• src — the TypeScript frontend; live markdown styling is CodeMirror 6 decorations over a plain text buffer.

Platform boundaries

Linux-only modules — hyprland.rs, omarchy.rs, control.rs, kindle_mtp.rs, tray_linux.rs — sit behind cfg(target_os = "linux"). Windows-only ones — tray_windows.rs, boot_windows.rs, src/window-chrome.ts — behind cfg(windows) and a runtime check. Frontend platform styling hangs off html.windows.

Build configuration splits the same way: src-tauri/tauri.conf.json is the Linux configuration, and src-tauri/tauri.windows.conf.json overlays it. The base file holds the Linux values deliberately, so a build that somehow misses the overlay falls back to the identity that has users rather than one that would strand them.

The two app identifiers are not interchangeable and must not be unified: app.envynote.linux and app.envynote.windows key each platform's WebView store, which holds pinned notes, the tray pin and the split fractions.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.