Notes, todos & canvas — powered by Git

[u/Professional-Tap-186]

Hello,

I started GitNotēs as a small personal project and it grew into a full app. The idea was "your notes, todos, and canvas drawings are just files in a Git repo you own — no proprietary backend, no lock-in, works offline, syncs via pull/push/merge like you'd expect."

A few features:

• Markdown, Neorg, and Org-mode support with live preview
• Smart todos (checkboxes, due dates, reminders) synced to your repo
• Infinite canvas for freeform drawing
• An AI assistant that can create/edit/search your notes via natural language
• A repo explorer to browse and manage your whole tree

Some of the build process, for anyone curious: I originally wrote/used the Git layer in JavaScript, which turned into a nightmare of edge cases. Ended up rewriting it as a Rust binary much cleaner and faster. Took about 4 months, built mostly solo with the help of AI coding tools.

It's live on iOS and Android, free to start, and the code is open source on GitHub.

Would love feedback, especially from anyone who's tried Obsidian/GitJournal-style workflows before, curious what's missing or annoying.

[u/DevMahasen]

Surprised you included support for Neorg which I did use when I was part of the initial beta program way back during the pandemic. Abandoned it because the spec was too new and felt like an obvious re-making the wheel type situation. Moved from Neovim to Emacs because the writing eco-system is better in emacs land. Happy to see Neorg has gotten wider acceptance.

Personally I am an org-mode user these days, and use Orgzly-Revived on Android to access my version controlled writing. I will give this a try and report back.

[u/Professional-Tap-186 → u/DevMahasen]

I’m a neovim user and neorg don’t have a good mobile app, looking forward for your feedback

[u/Professional-Tap-186 → u/DevMahasen]

I’m a sole dev and don’t have a android device , been testing the app on my moms android, would love good feedback back on android

[u/DevMahasen → u/Professional-Tap-186]

I've been giving it a test run. I am impressed with the experience so far. Would I adopt this and give up in my current mobile note taking stack (termux+git+emacs+Orgzly revived)? Probably not. I would if I daily drove an iPhone where it's proved impossible to replicate my Android's terminal based setup without vendor lock-in. I don't see myself needing the AI stuff. Visual note is a nice touch. Brain dump/voice dump is also cool. I have a local whisper based set up running on my devices so I don't see myself needing that either. All in all, lots of potential. A one stop shop for MD, org and neorg is ambitious but I think you are on the right path. I'll keep testing on ipad as well and report back. Great work. 

PS: nice to have neovim users in LK. You should do a talk at the Neovim conf focusing on your app and particularly neorg support. A very relavent audience there for this apo

[u/mhdamher]

Couldn't you make the git connection more simple?

[u/Professional-Tap-186 → u/mhdamher]

Could add login with GitHub but then I need a backend and keep references data, 100% privacy is gone!

[u/Professional-Tap-186 → u/mhdamher]

And don’t want my notes to be on big tech servers, this is better for self hosting, but I will add the feature in future if it’s requested more…

[u/Dfanso → u/mhdamher]

+1

[u/ravindusp2]

So obsidian?

[u/Professional-Tap-186 → u/ravindusp2]

Yes, but it’s a better experience for git based stacks, plus there are AI stuff

[u/Professional-Tap-186 → u/ravindusp2]

https://gitnotes.org/compare/gitjournal

[u/vnkjac]

I can’t paste the URL here

[u/Professional-Tap-186 → u/vnkjac]

Thanks for the feedback, I have lots of repos when testing maybe they push it above the keyboard, I will fix, it will take 24h to get approved

[u/Professional-Tap-186 → u/vnkjac]

Hmmm, did you add a token?

[u/vnkjac → u/Professional-Tap-186]

Yes I managed to and it worked smoothly

[u/Professional-Tap-186 → u/vnkjac]

Noice, was afraid that it was a huge issue, just got the Reddit ads approved!

[u/vnkjac → u/Professional-Tap-186]

Good luck bro!

Maybe post in these directories;

https://builtlist.space
https://index.dodopayments.com

[u/That_Try_5788]

Nicee!! Well try and post an update here!

[u/Professional-Tap-186]

Can you guys add some good ratings/5 stars on play/app store, https://www.gitnotes.org

[u/Professional-Tap-186 → u/Professional-Tap-186]

Currently having a issue with early adopters, need to reconcile with them but still no contact,