Overview

Notebit redefines the note-taking experience by placing AI at its core. It's not just about storing notes; it's about actively engaging with your knowledge through intelligent chat, powerful organization tools, and personalized AI assistance. Whether you're researching complex topics, drafting content, or simply organizing your thoughts, Notebit provides a smart, secure, and always-accessible environment. With its offline-first architecture powered by local PouchDB storage, your data remains private and available anytime, anywhere.

✨ Core Features

Notebit is packed with features designed to enhance your productivity and unlock new ways of interacting with your information:

🧠 Intelligent AI Chat & Assistance

• Omnipresent AI Chat: Engage in dynamic conversations with AI directly within a dedicated chat interface or through contextually aware assistance across the app.
• Flexible AI Model Support: Connect to a vast array of AI providers:
  • Local LLMs via Ollama (e.g., Llama3, Mistral, Gemma).
  • Cloud-based services: OpenAI (GPT models), Google (Gemini), Anthropic (Claude), Groq, Perplexity, LMStudio, xAI, and more.
• Customizable Model Parameters: Fine-tune AI behavior (temperature, max tokens, context limit, Top P) and save custom model configurations.
• Dynamic Model Switching: Easily switch between AI models and providers on-the-fly within any chat.
• In-Chat Document Analysis: Upload documents (PDF, TXT, etc.) directly into chats for immediate AI summarization, Q&A, or analysis.

📝 Advanced Note-Taking & Organization

• Rich Text Editor: Craft beautiful and detailed notes with a powerful Tiptap-based editor, supporting:
  • Headings, bold, italics, strikethrough, highlights.
  • Bulleted & numbered lists, blockquotes, code blocks (with syntax highlighting).
  • Link embedding.
  • Markdown.
  • & LaTeX.
• Hierarchical Folder System: Intuitively organize your notes with a nested folder structure for granular classification.

📚 Smart Hubs: Your Personalized Knowledge Bases

• Centralized Content Aggregation: Create "Smart Hubs" to group related documents from various local sources.
• Multi-Format Support: Add individual files (.pdf, .md, .csv, .txt, .docx, .epub, .json, .jsonl, .rtf) or link entire folders.
• Contextual AI Chat: Select Smart Hubs to provide deep, relevant context to your AI conversations. Control retrieval parameters like similarity and chunk count.
• Content Processing & Indexing: Notebit processes and indexes content within Smart Hubs, enabling semantic search and AI understanding.

🚀 Prompt Engineering & Management

• Prompt Library: Build, manage, and tag a personal library of reusable system and user prompts.
• In-Chat Prompt Injection: Seamlessly apply prompts from your library within ongoing chats to guide AI responses.
• Default Prompts Configuration: Define default system prompts for new chats, title generation, and other AI interactions.

🔍 AI Memory & Semantic Search

• Configurable Embedding Models: Choose from various embedding models (e.g., nomic-embed-text, Ollama-served models) to power semantic understanding.
• Deep Search: Find information based on meaning and context, not just keywords, across your notes and Smart Hubs.

🎨 Comprehensive Customization & Settings

• Appearance: Light, Dark, & System themes; customizable accent colors, font styles, and font sizes.
• AI Model Management: Enable/disable providers, configure connection settings (e.g., Ollama API host), refresh model lists, and add custom models.
• Data Management: Define notes storage location and manage AI Memory (embedding model) settings.
• General Settings: Control link behavior, automatic chat title generation, and more.

🌐 Cross-Platform & Offline-First

• Works Everywhere: Use Notebit consistently on Windows, macOS, and Linux.
• Always Accessible: Full offline functionality for notes and core features, thanks to local PouchDB storage. Your data is yours.

📸 Screenshots

Click to expand screenshots

Chat Interface	Notes & Rich Text Editor

Smart Hubs / Knowledge Base	Prompt Library

Settings: General & Appearance	Settings: AI Model Configuration

Settings: AI Memory	In-Chat Features (Prompts, Hubs, Docs)

🛠️ Tech Stack

Core

• Electron: Cross-platform desktop application framework
• React: UI library for building the interface
• TypeScript: Type-safe JavaScript
• Vite (via electron-vite): Fast build tooling and development server

Data Management & State

• PouchDB: Offline-first local database for notes and application data
• Legend State: Performant state management library
• TanStack React Router: Type-safe routing for the web/renderer process
• tRPC: End-to-end typesafe APIs for communication between main and renderer processes

User Interface

• Tailwind CSS: Utility-first CSS framework for rapid UI development
• shadcn/ui: Re-usable and accessible UI components

Artificial Intelligence

• Vercel AI SDK: Core SDK for interacting with various AI language models and providers
• Extensive support for multiple LLM providers and local models via Ollama.

🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v18+ recommended)
• npm or yarn

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/embium/notebit.git

2. Navigate to the project directory:
3. Install dependencies:

   npm install
   # or
   # yarn install

Development

To start the application in development mode with hot-reloading:

Building for Production

To build the application for packaging:

This will compile the TypeScript code and prepare assets.

Packaging for Distribution

To package the application for your current platform or specific platforms:

npm run package          # Package for current platform
npm run package:win    # Package for Windows
npm run package:mac    # Package for macOS
npm run package:linux  # Package for Linux

Packaged applications will be found in the release/${version} directory.

🏗️ Project Structure

A brief overview of the main directories:

• src/main: Electron main process code (Node.js environment). Handles window management, system interactions, and tRPC backend.
• src/preload.ts: Secure bridge script between the main and renderer processes, exposing necessary APIs via contextBridge.
• src/shared: Code, types, and utilities shared between the main and renderer processes (e.g., tRPC router definitions).
• src/web: Renderer process code (React application running in the browser-like environment).
  • app/: Core application setup, providers, global state.
  • components/: Reusable UI components (often built with shadcn/ui and Tailwind CSS).
  • features/: Self-contained modules for major application features (e.g., Notes, Chats, Settings, SmartHubs).
  • routes/: Routing configuration using TanStack React Router.
  • shared/: Web-specific shared utilities, hooks, and contexts.
• src/assets/: Static assets like icons and images.

🤝 Contributing

(Optional: Add contribution guidelines if you plan to accept them) Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a pull request or open an issue.

1. Fork the Project
2. Create your Feature Branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)
3. Commit your Changes (git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature')
4. Push to the Branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)
5. Open a Pull Request

📜 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

✍️ Author

Michael Mooney - GitHub

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