Krillnotes

A local-first, hierarchical note-taking application. Notes live in a tree, each note has a schema-defined type, and every change is recorded in an operation log — laying the groundwork for offline-first sync.

Built with Rust, Tauri v2, React, and SQLCipher (encrypted SQLite).

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Features

• Hierarchical notes — Organize notes in an infinite tree. Each note can have children, with configurable sort order (alphabetical ascending/descending, or manual positioning).
• Typed note schemas — Note types are defined as Rhai scripts. The built-in TextNote type ships out of the box; custom types support fields of type text, textarea, number, boolean, date, email, select, and rating.
• User scripts — Each workspace stores its own Rhai scripts in the database. Create, edit, enable/disable, reorder, and delete scripts from a built-in script manager — no file system access required.
• Template gallery — Ready-to-use templates live in the templates/ folder: a book collection organiser and a Zettelkasten atomic-note system. Copy the Rhai source into the Script Manager to activate a template in any workspace.
• Tags — Attach free-form tags to any note. Tags are displayed as colour-coded pills in the note view, shown in the tree's tag cloud panel, and matched by the search bar. Scripts can read note.tags in on_view hooks and query all notes carrying a given tag with get_notes_for_tag().
• On-save hooks — Rhai scripts can register on_save hooks that compute derived fields (e.g. auto-generating a note title from first name + last name, calculating a read duration, or setting a status badge).
• Search — A live search bar with debounced fuzzy matching across note titles and all text fields. Keyboard-navigable results; selecting a match expands collapsed ancestors and scrolls the note into view.
• Export / Import — Export an entire workspace as a .zip archive (notes + user scripts), with an optional AES-256 password to encrypt the zip. Import a zip into a new workspace; the app detects encrypted archives and prompts for the password before importing.
• Operations log viewer — Browse the full mutation history, filter by operation type or date range, and purge old entries to reclaim space.
• Operation log — Every mutation (create, update, move, delete, script changes) is appended to an immutable log before being applied, enabling future undo/redo and device sync.
• Tree keyboard navigation — Arrow keys to move between nodes, Right/Left to expand/collapse, Enter to edit the selected note.
• Resizable panels — Drag the divider between the tree and the detail panel to resize.
• Context menu — Right-click on any tree node for quick actions (Add Note, Edit, Delete).
• Multi-window — Open multiple workspaces simultaneously, each in its own window.
• Encrypted workspaces — Every workspace is encrypted at rest with SQLCipher (AES-256-CBC, PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA512 key derivation). A password is set when the workspace is created and required to open it. Passwords can optionally be remembered for the duration of the session.
• Local-first — All data is stored in a single .krillnotes file on disk. No account, no cloud dependency, no internet connection required.
• Cross-platform — Runs on macOS, Linux, and Windows via Tauri.

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Requirements

Tool	Version
Rust	1.78+
Node.js	20+
Tauri CLI	v2

Install the Tauri prerequisites for your platform by following the Tauri v2 setup guide.

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Build & Run

# Clone the repository
git clone <repo-url>
cd Krillnotes

# Install Node dependencies
cd krillnotes-desktop
npm install

# Run in development mode (hot-reload frontend + Rust backend)
npm run tauri dev

# Build a release binary
npm run tauri build

The compiled application is placed in krillnotes-desktop/src-tauri/target/release/bundle/.

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Running Tests

# Core library unit tests
cargo test -p krillnotes-core

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File Format

Each workspace is a single SQLCipher-encrypted database with the .krillnotes extension. The file contains four tables:

Table	Purpose
notes	The note tree (id, title, type, parent, position, fields)
note_tags	Many-to-many junction between notes and tags
operations	Append-only mutation log (CRDT-style)
workspace_meta	Per-device metadata (device ID, selection state)
user_scripts	Per-workspace Rhai scripts (id, name, source code, load order, enabled flag)

The file uses AES-256-CBC encryption (SQLCipher v4 defaults: PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA512, 256,000 iterations). It cannot be opened with a plain SQLite browser — you need SQLCipher-aware tooling and the correct password.

Old workspaces (created before v0.1.3): Unencrypted workspaces are rejected with a migration message. Open them in an older version of Krillnotes, export via File → Export Workspace, then import the .zip here.

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macOS: "App is damaged" warning

macOS Gatekeeper blocks unsigned apps with an "app is damaged and can't be opened" message. To bypass this after installing from the .dmg:

xattr -cr /Applications/krillnotes-desktop.app

This removes the quarantine flag macOS adds when mounting a DMG. The app will open normally afterwards.

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License

MIT — see LICENSE.