Mnemo

A local-first notebook you can query from the terminal, the desktop, or over MCP — with optional libSQL (Turso or self-hosted) so the same vault syncs everywhere.

Why this exists

Most note tools fail when you need to:

• capture something quickly mid-workflow
• find it again reliably
• reuse it from scripts, agents, or IDEs

Mnemo keeps a stable ref per note, full-text search, wikilinks, and a category/folder model (first tag = path). Data lives in SQLite locally with a markdown mirror under your vault directory, or in remote libSQL when you configure it.

Features

• Desktop app (Electron) — Markdown editor, graph, IDE layout with editor tabs as the default (classic sidebar and top layouts in Settings), remote DB in Settings with upload + download (additive sync), background vault sync + manual reload (Turso), F11 fullscreen on Linux/Windows; optional spell check, autocomplete (fenced code languages and wikilinks), and Copy/Paste as summary via locally configured LLM profiles (see Help → Documentation)
• CLI — mnemo note … for list/search/show/new/import, compose/edit in $EDITOR, categories, link graph, autolink; mnemo sync push / mnemo sync pull for additive merges with libSQL (see mnemo help sync); interactive list pager scrolls with selection
• MCP — stdio server (mnemo mcp) for Cursor / Claude Desktop (list/categories/ref-based tools, autolink, etc.); HTTP/SSE (mnemo mcp-http) for remote libSQL + bearer auth
• Optional cloud — same credentials in GUI Settings or env vars for CLI/MCP

Examples (CLI)

npm install -g mnemo-note
mnemo note list
mnemo note search "your query"
mnemo note new --title "Hello" --body "Markdown **here**." -c General
mnemo note show 1

ref in show is the # column from note list (not arbitrary IDs). See **mnemo --help** for every subcommand.

Prerequisites

• Node.js 22 or newer (required for this repo’s dependency tree, including Mermaid’s parser stack). GitHub Actions already use Node 22. With nvm, run nvm use in the repo root (see .nvmrc).

Examples (desktop)

git clone https://github.com/fwgadmin/mnemo.git
cd mnemo
npm install
npm start

npm install runs a native rebuild so better-sqlite3 matches Electron (the mnemo CLI uses Electron’s Node). If you skipped it, run npm run rebuild:native. To opt out of the postinstall step (e.g. CI), set MNEMO_SKIP_NATIVE_REBUILD=1.

Installers: GitHub Releases — Windows and Linux zips for tagged **v*** builds. macOS desktop installers are not published; on macOS use npm install -g mnemo-note (CLI) or run npm start from a source checkout.

Mobile app (Expo) - In Development

To Be Shipped: Native iOS / Android lives under apps/mnemo-mobile. From the repo root, npm run mobile:start:dev, npm run eas:dev:ios, npm run eas:build:ios, etc. forward into that package. Use eas-cli (via those scripts), not the unrelated npm package eas. See apps/mnemo-mobile/README.md.

Documentation

| Resource | Contents | | ------------------------------------------------ | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Help → Documentation (in the app) | Full GUI help: notes, wikilinks, categories, MCP tables, shortcuts | | **mnemo --help** | Same facts as in-app documentation (paths, MCP resources/tools/prompts, note commands) — source: [src/shared/userGuide.ts](src/shared/userGuide.ts) | | examples/ | CLI local / libSQL, MCP stdio & HTTP, GUI + shared config | | docs/CODE_SIGNING.md | Windows signing: Azure Artifact Signing in CI (preferred), PFX fallback, or local Trusted Signing (make:win:trusted) |

Using Mnemo with AI

• MCP stdio — add mnemo / mcp to your IDE’s MCP config (examples/mcp-stdio.md)
• MCP HTTP — for hosted setups with Turso + API key (examples/mcp-http.md)
• Deterministic refs — cite ref or titles in prompts; no vector DB required
• Desktop summarization — the GUI can send selected or clipboard text to OpenAI-compatible APIs, Ollama, Anthropic, or Gemini using Settings → Summary & LLM; keys stay in llm-config.json under app data. Use Ctrl+Shift+C/V in the note editor for plain summaries (when configured), Ctrl+Alt+C/V for Markdown-formatted summaries; Ctrl+Shift+V still toggles Markdown preview when summarization does not apply (see Help → Documentation)

Philosophy

• Small surface area, batteries included for Markdown + links + search
• Same vault from GUI, CLI, and MCP when credentials align

Status

Actively developed. Issues and PRs welcome.

Contributing

PRs, issues, and feedback are welcome.

About

Mnemo is built and maintained by Ferrowood Group, LLC.

License

This project is open source under the MIT License. The same terms apply to the npm package **mnemo-note**.

MIT © Ferrowood Group, LLC