bear-cli

Manage your Bear notes from the command line. Create, search, tag, and organize notes without leaving your terminal.

macOS only — Bear is a macOS/iOS app and bear communicates with the desktop version directly.

Install

npm install -g bear-cli

Authentication

Bear uses API tokens to authorize access to your notes. Here's how to get yours:

1. Open Bear on your Mac
2. Go to Help > Advanced > API Token
3. Click Copy Token

Then run:

bear auth

Paste your token when prompted. bear will save it and verify it works by connecting to Bear.

You can also pass the token directly:

bear auth XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX

Or set it as an environment variable (useful for scripts and CI):

export BEAR_API_TOKEN=XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX

Token resolution: environment variable takes priority over saved config.

Usage

Notes

# Create a note
bear create --title "Meeting Notes" --body "# Action Items" --tags "work,meetings"

# Open a note by id
bear open --id 2E93B86F-3B4C-4A86-8B53-0C8BA28B58A9

# Search your notes
bear search "project plan"

# Append text to an existing note
bear add --id ABC-123 --text "- Buy groceries" --mode append

# Attach a file (auto base64-encoded)
bear add-file --id ABC-123 --file ./screenshot.png

# Save a webpage as a note
bear grab https://example.com/article --tags "reading"

Tags

# List all tags
bear tags

# List notes with a specific tag
bear tag work

# Rename a tag
bear rename-tag "old-name" --new-name "new-name"

# Delete a tag
bear delete-tag "unused-tag"

Lists

# Today's notes
bear today

# Notes with todo items
bear todo

# Untagged notes
bear untagged

# Locked notes
bear locked

Organize

# Move a note to trash
bear trash --id ABC-123

# Archive a note
bear archive --id ABC-123

# Find and trash by search
bear trash --search "old draft"

Flags

Every command supports:

• --json — Output raw JSON for scripting and piping
• -q, --quiet — Run without bringing Bear to the foreground

# Get all tags as JSON
bear tags --json

# Create a note silently
bear create --title "Log Entry" --body "$(date)" --quiet

Run bear <command> --help for all available options.

Command Reference

| Command | Description | |---------|-------------| | bear auth [token] | Authenticate with Bear | | bear create | Create a new note | | bear open | Open a note | | bear add | Add text to a note | | bear add-file | Attach a file to a note | | bear search [term] | Search notes | | bear tags | List all tags | | bear tag [name] | List notes with a tag | | bear rename-tag [name] | Rename a tag | | bear delete-tag [name] | Delete a tag | | bear trash | Trash a note | | bear archive | Archive a note | | bear untagged | List untagged notes | | bear todo | List notes with todos | | bear today | List today's notes | | bear locked | List locked notes | | bear grab [url] | Save a webpage as a note |

License

MIT