Exactly. Off by default, invisible unless you enable it.

Fair question. Use case: you take rough notes during a meeting, no formatting, just raw thoughts. AI can clean them up, summarize, or restructure after the fact. It's completely optional though. Disabled by default, doesn't even show in the context menus unless you explicitly configure it in settings with your own API key. If you don't want it, it's like it doesn't exist.

Did this few months ago. Everyone should do the same.

Correct. Yes I am.

vs Obsidian: Same local-first philosophy with plain .md files, but HelixNotes gives you a clean WYSIWYG editor out of the box. No plugin setup, no CSS tweaking, no learning curve. Open an app, write, close it. vs Joplin: Joplin uses its own database format internally. HelixNotes stores everything as plain markdown files in folders on your filesystem. Also Tauri instead of Electron, so much lower resource usage. Both are great projects. I built HelixNotes because I wanted UpNote's UI with Obsidian's philosophy, and that combination didn't exist.

I wrote a longer comparison here: https://helixnotes.com/why-i-built-helixnotes.html

AI is optional, disabled by default, and doesn't even show in the UI unless you enable it. The app works fully offline with zero AI involvement.

Good question. "No sync" means no built-in cloud sync - not that sync is impossible. Your notes are plain .md files in a folder, so you can sync them with Syncthing, Nextcloud, rsync, Git, or anything else you already use. The app watches the filesystem for external changes and picks them up automatically.

The philosophy is: I don't decide where your files go. You do.

As for contributions - absolutely welcome. PRs won't be rejected on principle. If you want to work on a self-hosted sync feature, open an issue on Codeberg and let's discuss the approach first. I'd love to see it.

Appreciate the honest feedback, doesn't come over negatively at all, this is exactly what helps improve the app.

• Obsidian wiki links not converting properly during import: that's a bug, will be fixed in the next release.
• View mode, math support, frontmatter behavior, and the other UX points: all noted and will be considered. So far I've focused on features I use personally, but if something makes sense, improves the app, and keeps it focused without bloat, I just implement it.
• The LockFile bug and empty graph view: I haven't seen this behavior yet but I'll look into it.

HelixNotes isn't trying to be a replacement for Obsidian. It was a replacement for Obsidian for me, but different people have different needs. Thanks for taking the time.

Yes, local-first markdown like Obsidian, but fully open source (AGPL-3.0).

Note linking with square brackets - yes, supported. Graph view too so you can see connections between notes.

If you don't rely on Obsidian plugins, you'll feel right at home.

Android is on the roadmap, but the desktop experience comes first. Still early days.

Thanks for all the feedback everyone. Just shipped v1.1.0 based on what was reported here today:

• Obsidian wiki link import fix
• macOS Cmd key shortcuts (was showing Ctrl)
• Frontmatter no longer modified on notes you don't edit
• KaTeX math support
• Daily Notes
• Tag management (single + batch)
• View mode toggle + focus mode improvements
• Source mode search
• Notebook delete confirmation
• Collapsible sidebar tags

Electron = bloat. That's why HelixNotes is Tauri.

You might be right. I will re-think this :)

No, notes are plain .md files on your disk. Encryption was never the goal.

Different use case. HelixNotes is for people who want a clean, simple note-taking app that works out of the box - not a customizable text processing pipeline. If Vim snippets work for you, stick with that. Not every tool needs to be for everyone.

AI-assisted, yes.

The import dialog warns you to make a backup before running as it modifies files in place. That said, the frontmatter overwrite on just viewing a note is a valid bug. I'll fix that, notes should only be modified when you actually edit them.

The age verification trap is just a symptom. The real disease is tech illiterate legislators making decisions about internet infrastructure.

Correct, this has nothing to do with the helix TUI text editor in any way.

I looked at Logseq, it's a great project. Main difference is HelixNotes focuses on a clean WYSIWYG experience out of the box rather than an outliner approach. Different workflows.

That's exactly the way I do it. However, the mobile app is something that will be made in the near future.