jot

Keep one notebook for nonsense. That's where your real patterns hide.

jot is a terminal-first notebook and local document viewer.

Capture a thought in one line, then use the same jot open flow to preview local PDFs, Markdown, JSON, and XML in a clean jot-owned viewer window.

Install

npm install -g @intina47/jot

The npm package downloads the matching prebuilt binary from GitHub Releases during install.

Supported targets:

• macOS x64, arm64
• Linux x64
• Windows x64

Quick start

Capture one thought:

jot

Or:

jot init

Capture a richer entry with metadata:

jot capture "Ship the help refresh" --title release --tag cli --project jot

If you omit the content, jot opens your editor:

jot capture --title "standup notes" --tag team

That handles capture.

When you want to inspect a local document:

jot open

Pick a file and jot opens supported document types in the jot viewer.

Read back and open local docs

Browse the timeline:

jot list

Show the full terminal view without truncation:

jot list --full

Open one specific entry by id when a preview tells you to:

jot open dg0ftbuoqqdc-62

Open the native file picker:

jot open

Or open a local PDF in the jot viewer:

jot open "C:\Users\mamba\Downloads\paper.pdf"

Or open Markdown, JSON, or XML in the same jot viewer:

jot open ".\docs\plan.md"
jot open ".\data\sample.json"
jot open ".\feeds\config.xml"

If the argument is not a jot id and points to a local .pdf, .md, .markdown, .json, or .xml, jot starts a lightweight local viewer session and opens the file through jot's own viewer page. On machines with Edge, Chrome, Brave, or Chromium available, jot opens that viewer in a dedicated app-style window instead of a normal browser tab. Other existing files open with the system default app.

That means the same CLI now works well as:

• a note capture tool
• a lightweight local PDF reader
• a Markdown previewer
• a JSON and XML inspection tool

Tasks and Conversion

Use the direct command when you already know the job:

jot convert logo.png ico
jot convert logo.png svg
jot convert screenshot.png jpg

Or use the guided task flow:

jot task

Pick convert image, then choose the source image and target format.

Current image conversion support:

• inputs: .png, .jpg, .jpeg, .gif
• outputs: .png, .jpg, .gif, .ico, .svg

Notes:

• .png output preserves raster detail and alpha
• .jpg output is optimized for photos and screenshots and flattens transparency onto white
• .gif output is single-frame and palette-limited
• .ico output builds a multi-size favicon-style icon automatically
• .svg output wraps the source raster inside a standalone SVG file; it is not traced vector output

On Windows, you can add an Explorer context-menu entry for files:

jot integrate windows

Remove it with:

jot integrate windows --remove

Templates

Create a dated note from a template:

jot new --template daily

Create multiple notes from the same template on the same day:

jot new --template meeting -n "Team Sync"

List available templates:

jot templates

Help

The CLI now ships a fuller built-in help screen:

jot help
jot help capture
jot help list

Data

• Journal entries are stored locally in ~/.jot/journal.jsonl
• Template-created note files stay in your current working directory
• Nothing is uploaded by the CLI itself

Notes for npm users

• The binary is fetched during postinstall
• Reinstalling the package downloads the binary for the current platform
• The package depends on the corresponding GitHub release assets already existing