sn-cli

📝 sn-cli

A modern command-line interface for Standard Notes

✨ Features

• 📋 Notes & Tasks: Create, edit, and manage notes and checklists
• 🔍 Full-Text Search: Search across titles and content with fuzzy matching and regex support
• 📤 Migration: Export to Obsidian with automatic Maps of Content (MOC) generation
• 🏷️ Tags: Organize content with flexible tagging
• 📊 Statistics: Detailed analytics about your notes and usage
• 🔐 Secure Sessions: Keychain integration for macOS and Linux
• ⚡ Fast Sync: Efficient synchronization with Standard Notes servers
• 🔄 Multi-Platform: Windows, macOS, and Linux support

🚀 Quick Start

Installation

Download the latest release:

# macOS/Linux
curl -L https://github.com/jonhadfield/sn-cli/releases/latest/download/sncli_$(uname -s)_$(uname -m) -o sn
chmod +x sn && sudo mv sn /usr/local/bin/

# Or via direct download
# Visit: https://github.com/jonhadfield/sn-cli/releases

First Run

# See all available commands
sn --help

# Add a note
sn add note --title "My First Note" --text "Hello, Standard Notes!"

# List your notes
sn get notes

# View statistics
sn stats

📋 Commands

Note: Export and import are temporarily disabled due to recent Standard Notes API changes

🔐 Authentication

Environment Variables

export SN_EMAIL="[email protected]"
export SN_PASSWORD="your-password"
export SN_SERVER="https://api.standardnotes.com"  # Optional for self-hosted

Session Storage (Recommended)

Store encrypted sessions in your system keychain:

# Add session (supports 2FA)
sn session --add

# Add encrypted session
sn session --add --session-key

# Use session automatically
export SN_USE_SESSION=true
# or
sn --use-session get notes

🆕 Recent Updates

Version 0.4.1 (2026-01-30)

• 🔐 Fixed: Authentication issues with updated dependencies
• 🏷️ Improved: Tag cloud visualization with offline support
• 🛡️ Enhanced: Network error handling and graceful degradation
• 🐛 Fixed: Tag reference matching and display issues

Version 0.4.0 (2026-01-29)

• 💾 Added: Backup and restore functionality
• 📤 Added: Enhanced export with multiple formats
• 🎨 Added: Tag cloud visualization
• 📝 Added: Note templates system

View full changelog →

💡 Examples

# Create a note with tags
sn add note --title "Meeting Notes" --text "Important discussion points" --tag work,meetings

# Find notes by tag
sn get notes --tag work

# Search for notes (searches both title and content)
sn search --query "meeting"

# Fuzzy search with limit
sn search --query "mtng" --fuzzy --limit 5

# Case-sensitive regex search
sn search --query "TODO|FIXME" --regex --case-sensitive

# Search within specific tags
sn search --query "project" --tag work

# Create a checklist
sn add task --title "Todo List" --text "- Buy groceries\n- Call dentist\n- Finish project"

# View your note statistics
sn stats

# Edit a note
sn edit note --title "Meeting Notes" --text "Updated content"

🔍 Search Feature

The search command provides powerful full-text search across all your notes:

Basic Usage:

# Simple search
sn search --query "keyword"
sn search -q "keyword"  # Short form

Search Options:

--query, -q     Search query (required)
--content, -c   Search in note content (default: true)
--fuzzy, -f     Enable fuzzy matching for typo tolerance
--case-sensitive  Make search case-sensitive (default: false)
--tag           Filter results by tag
--limit, -l     Limit number of results (default: unlimited)
--output        Output format: table, rich, json, yaml (default: table)

Advanced Examples:

# Regex pattern matching
sn search -q "bug-[0-9]+" --regex

# Fuzzy search (matches similar terms)
sn search -q "imprtant" --fuzzy

# Case-sensitive search in work-tagged notes
sn search -q "Project" --case-sensitive --tag work

# Get top 10 results in rich format
sn search -q "todo" --limit 10 --output rich

# Search only in titles (faster)
sn search -q "meeting" --content=false

Search Features:

• Searches both note titles and content by default
• Highlights matching terms in results
• Shows context snippets around matches
• Sorts results by relevance (title matches score higher)
• Supports multiple output formats with syntax highlighting

📤 Migration to Other Applications

Export your notes to other platforms with intelligent organization:

# Basic export to Obsidian
sn migrate obsidian --output ./my-vault

# Export with automatic MOC generation
sn migrate obsidian --output ./vault --moc

# Export specific tags only
sn migrate obsidian --output ./vault --tag-filter work,projects

# Preview migration without writing files
sn migrate obsidian --output ./vault --dry-run

Features:

• Automatic MOC (Maps of Content) generation
• Tag preservation in YAML frontmatter
• Metadata preservation (dates, UUIDs)
• Multiple organizational styles
• Wikilink formatting

Output Structure:

my-vault/
├── Home.md              # Main entry point
├── Work MOC.md          # Category MOCs
├── Learning MOC.md
└── ... (all your notes)

⚙️ Advanced Configuration

Shell Completion

Tab completion is available for Bash, Zsh, Fish, and PowerShell.

Quick Install (Bash on macOS):

brew install bash-completion@2
sudo cp autocomplete/bash_autocomplete /usr/local/etc/bash_completion.d/sncli
echo '[ -f /usr/local/etc/bash_completion ] && . /usr/local/etc/bash_completion' >> ~/.bash_profile
source ~/.bash_profile

Quick Install (Fish):

mkdir -p ~/.config/fish/completions
cp autocomplete/fish_autocomplete.fish ~/.config/fish/completions/sncli.fish

📖 For detailed installation instructions for all shells, see autocomplete/README.md

Self-Hosted Servers

export SN_SERVER="https://your-standardnotes-server.com"

🔧 Development

# Build from source
git clone https://github.com/jonhadfield/sn-cli.git
cd sn-cli
make build

# Run tests
make test

# View all make targets
make help

⚠️ Known Issues

• New accounts registered via sn-cli require initial login through the official web/desktop app to initialize encryption keys

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please read our Contributing Guide for details on our code of conduct and the process for submitting pull requests.

📄 License

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

🔗 Links

• Standard Notes - The note-taking app this CLI supports
• Releases - Download the latest version
• Issues - Report bugs or request features