clin

A TUI reimagination of Obsidian — feature-packed note management in your terminal.

About

clin is a free, open-source terminal note manager inspired by Obsidian. It packs Obsidian's core features — markdown editing and rendering, .canvas files, and a force-directed graph view — into a single Rust binary, while keeping the UI approachable.

Drop an existing Obsidian vault into clin and it works out of the box. Native image rendering is supported via ratatui-image (sixel/kitty/iTerm/halfblocks auto-detected; controlled by [features] images = true). Databases and Obsidian plugins are not supported.

Screenshots

More screenshots

Highlights

• Notes view — folder tree with recursive folder counts in the header, tags, markdown preview pane (built-in renderer), search, filter, sort, pin, multi-select, inline_info toggle to control metadata rendering, trash management, file management (copy, paste, delete, rename, move), customizable bottom strip with activity heatmap, goals, and widget previews; auto-refresh on external file changes; show-info popup with word/char/header metrics.

• Editor view — title/body editing with optional Markdown preview, built-in find popup, soft-wrap toggle, sidebars with wikilink previews, mouse support, line numbers, undo/redo, editor context menu, external editor integration, insert-date action. See EDITOR.md.

• Graph view — fully integrated force-directed graph visualization of your note corpus. Edges from [[wikilinks]]. Physics simulation, minimap, legend, search, configurable colors and layout. See GRAPH_VIEW.md.

• Canvas view — Obsidian-compatible .canvas file format. Place text/file/link/group/image nodes on an infinite 2D canvas, connect them with edges. Right-click context menu, mouse-drag panning, zoom-to-cursor, drag, resize, zoom. See CANVAS.md.

• Draw view — freehand drawing canvas with shapes (rect, ellipse, diamond, line, arrow), text, draw smoothing (binomial filter), mouse-drag panning, zoom-to-cursor, and eraser tool. .draw file format. See DRAW.md.

• Outline view — view to see the content of a .md file as a tree with headers being the parents and content being the children.

• Help view — tabbed in-app reference with auto-generated keybind index, per-view descriptions, popup accordion, and preset-aware tips. See HELP.md.

• Subnotes — virtual notes attached to physical notes (encrypted only under encrypted parents), with a browsable grid tab, virtual tree folder, radial graph, and manager popup. See SUBNOTES.md.

• Image rendering — native pixel image rendering via ratatui-image (sixel/kitty/iTerm) in canvas, notes preview, and editor preview. See IMAGE_RENDERING.md.

• Git backup — backup system using git as backend, initialize a repository and backup your notes automatically.

• Command palette (Ctrl+P) — extensible action system with encrypt/decrypt, theme switcher, OCR paste, canvas/draw creation, graph view. See COMMAND_PALETTE.md.

• Theme system — 19 built-in themes (default, TokyoNight, CatppuccinMocha, OneDark, Gruvbox, Dracula, Nord, RosePine, Everforest, Kanagawa, Solarized, Catppuccin Frappé, Catppuccin Macchiato, Rose Pine Moon, Gruvbox Material, GitHub Dark, Ayu Mirage, Synthwave '84, Material), transparent/solid backgrounds, per-color overrides. See THEME_SYSTEM.md.

• Custom themes — drop-in TOML themes in the active configuration directory’s themes/ subdirectory, no recompile needed. See THEME_SYSTEM.md.

• Status line customization — fully configurable status headers and footers per view layout via the [statusline] configuration section. See CONFIG_REFERENCE.md.

• Encryption — on-demand ChaCha20-Poly1305 AEAD per-note encryption. .clin files with plaintext frontmatter for fast summary loading. See ENCRYPTION.md.

• Obsidian .canvas import — existing Obsidian canvas files are read and rendered, with image files displayed through terminal graphics or fallback placeholders. See compatibility limits.

• Templates — TOML-based note templates with variable substitution ({date}, {time}, {weekday}, etc.). See TEMPLATES.md.

• Goals system — daily word-count and note-count goals with in-app progress bars. Configurable via [goals] config section and command palette.

• Import & conversion — import File/CSV/JSON/URL/Clipboard content as a new note or append to the current note. PDF, DOCX, HTML converted via external tools.

Dependencies

These are highly recommended for the best experience:

• A nerd font — required for rendering glyphs which are highly used around the UI. Jetbrains Mono Nerd Font is highly recommended, see nerd fonts.
• A modern terminal — such as kitty, ghostty, alacritty, foot etc. preferably a terminal with image protocol support. Note that some shortcuts might conflict with a specific terminals shortcuts in that case you can either customize the shortcuts of the clin or your terminal to avoid conflicts.

Optional Tools

These tools are optional — clin works without them:

Installation

git clone https://github.com/reekta92/clin-rs.git
cd clin-rs
cargo build --release

cargo install clin-rs

sudo dpkg -i clin-rs_*_amd64.deb

sudo dpkg -i clin-rs_*_arm64.deb

sudo rpm -i clin-rs-*.x86_64.rpm

sudo rpm -i clin-rs-*.aarch64.rpm

git clone https://github.com/reekta92/clin-rs.git
cd clin-rs
makepkg -si

yay -S clin-rs-bin

nix run github:reekta92/clin-rs --extra-experimental-features "nix-command flakes"

nix profile install github:reekta92/clin-rs

{
  inputs.clin.url = "github:reekta92/clin-rs";
}

chmod +x clin-*-x86_64.AppImage
./clin-*-x86_64.AppImage

tar -xzf clin-rs-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz
chmod +x clin
mkdir -p ~/.local/bin
mv clin ~/.local/bin/

tar -xzf clin-rs-aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz
chmod +x clin
mkdir -p ~/.local/bin
mv clin ~/.local/bin/

Expand-Archive -Path clin-rs-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc.zip -DestinationPath clin
cd clin
.\clin.exe

# Using .dmg
hdiutil attach clin-rs-aarch64-apple-darwin.dmg
cp -r /Volumes/clin/clin.app /Applications/
hdiutil detach /Volumes/clin

# Or using .tar.gz
tar -xzf clin-rs-aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.gz
chmod +x clin
mkdir -p ~/.local/bin
mv clin ~/.local/bin/

Rust not installed? Run curl https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh to install Rust.

Quick Start

# Launch the interactive TUI
clin

# Create a quick note
clin notes quick "Meeting notes from today" "standup-2026-06-13"

# Initialize templates, then create a note using its display name
clin templates init
clin notes new --template "Meeting Notes" "Weekly Standup"

# Open a specific note
clin notes open "my-note"

Once inside the TUI (default preset): navigate with j/k, open notes with Enter, open the command palette with : or Ctrl+P, and view the graph with Ctrl+G. Press ? or F1 for help, F2 for quick keybinds, F3 for messages, and F4 to switch vaults. In Editor, Ctrl+P toggles Markdown preview instead of opening the palette.

CLI templates currently insert the literal body without variable substitution or the template title; use the TUI template picker for rendered variables. See Templates.

Features

Configuration

Run clin config show to print the active configuration file path. Active-preset keybinds live at <config-dir>/keybinds/<preset>.toml.

See the full configuration reference for all available options and keybind presets for editor-style presets.

config.toml example

[features]
images = true
calendar = true
backup = false

[core]
storage_path = "/path/to/your/vault"
mouse_enabled = true
confirm_on_delete = true
confirm_on_quit = false

[ui]
theme = "tokyo_night"
background = "transparent"
show_status_bar = true
icon_mode = "nerd"
hint_bar_style = "classic"
# accent = "#ff6600"

[list]
preview_enabled = true
preview_position = "right"
preview_encryption = false
show_file_size = false
date_format = "%Y-%m-%d"
density = "comfortable"
default_view = "grid"
# default_sort_field = "title"
# default_sort_order = "ascending"
pinned_on_top = false

[editor]
external_command = "nvim"
external_enabled = false
preview_enabled = false
show_line_numbers = true

See THEME_SYSTEM.md for theme options and CONFIG_REFERENCE.md for all options and sections.

keybinds/.toml example

See the full keybinds reference for all available actions and defaults.

[list]
move_up = ["Up", "k"]
move_down = ["Down", "j"]
open = ["Enter"]
delete = ["d", "Delete"]
quit = ["q"]
help = ["?", "F1"]
open_command_palette = [":", "Ctrl+p"]
# ... see CONFIG_REFERENCE.md for full list

[edit]
back = ["Esc"]
cycle_focus = ["Ctrl+t"]
copy = ["Ctrl+c"]
# ... see CONFIG_REFERENCE.md

[graph]
quit = ["Esc"]
pan_up = ["Up", "k"]
# ... see CONFIG_REFERENCE.md

CLI Commands

clin                              Launch interactive TUI (default)
clin notes list                   List note titles
clin notes new [OPTIONS] [TITLE]  Create a note (supports --body, --no-tui)
clin notes open <TITLE>           Open a note by title
clin notes cat <TITLE>            Print a note's body to stdout
clin notes quick <CONTENT> [TITLE] Quick note, then exit
clin notes search <QUERY>         Search notes by title and content

clin storage show                 Show storage path
clin storage set <PATH>           Set a custom (absolute) storage path
clin storage reset                Reset to default storage path
clin storage migrate              Migrate data from a previous location

clin keybinds show                Show keybindings
clin keybinds export              Export keybinds as TOML
clin keybinds reset               Reset keybinds to defaults

clin cache reset                  Delete current vault's note-summary cache

clin templates list               List templates
clin templates init               Create example templates

clin config show                  Print the config file path
clin config edit                  Open config in $VISUAL or $EDITOR
clin config reset                 Reset config to default values

clin --setup                      Force first-run setup wizard
clin --version                    Print version
clin --config <PATH>              Override config file (global)
clin --vault <VAULT>              Override the storage/vault path (global)
clin --help                       Show help

Documentation

Browse the GitHub Wiki for all project documentation, with page navigation and search. The wiki automatically syncs from main; source files live in docs/ and the repository root.

• Architecture — system overview, event loop, threading model

• List View — notes list view: Grid/Tree layout, format chooser, preview pane

• Configuration Reference — all config.toml and preset keybind-file options

• Keybind Presets — Helix, Vim, and Emacs presets and sequence syntax

• Graph View — force-directed graph visualization

• Canvas — Obsidian-compatible canvas view

• Backup — Git-based backup dashboard: vault state, history, diff preview, automation

• Draw — freehand drawing canvas

• Outline — nested outline navigation

• Editor — title/body editing, find, soft-wrap, sidebars, wikilink previews

• Encryption — ChaCha20-Poly1305 per-note encryption

• Help — 3-pane help view: tabs, keybind index, tips, popup accordion

• Image Rendering — ratatui-image pixel rendering, protocols, [image] config

• Theme System — built-in themes and customization

• Setup — first-run setup wizard

• Command Palette — extensible action system

• Subnotes — attached notes, parent-dependent encryption, grid tab, radial graph, manager popup

• Templates — TOML-based note templates

Roadmap

See ROADMAP.md for planned features and progress.

Architecture

Full detail in docs/ARCHITECTURE.md.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

Support

clin is free and open-source. If it's useful to you, consider supporting its development on Patreon:

License

Licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0.

Credits

Built with Ratatui, Crossterm, upstream graf (fdg-sim physics), and pinstar. Markdown preview via built-in comrak/syntect renderer.