Your notes, from the terminal
Search, edit, and organize your Markdown notes and tasks from a shell, a script, or your AI agent. Everything runs locally, and the desktop app doesn't need to be open.
Every note operation, without opening a window
Create, read, edit, move, and inspect notes by their workspace path. Links stay intact, and every write goes through the same safeguards.
Edits that never overwrite newer changes
Reading a note returns its revision. Pass it back with --revision when you write. If the note changed in between, the CLI refuses the write and exits with code 4.
- Small, targeted edits
- note edit, replace-section, insert, and patch change part of a note and return its new revision, so edits chain without a re-read.
- No guessing
- Text that matches more than once fails with AMBIGUOUS_MATCH, and a diff that doesn't apply fails with PATCH_FAILED. Neither changes anything.
- Safe beside the app
- Writes use atomic replacement and a workspace lock, so you can run commands while Octarine is open.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| changes | 1 |
| path | Projects/Launch.md |
| previousRevision | sha256:67730d5c… |
| revision | sha256:baa6e604… |
The Tasks view, from the command line
task, project, and cycle work with the same tasks you see in Octarine, through the same storage code. An open window picks up the changes on its own.
Filter, sort, and update in one line
List by project, status, label, bucket, or cycle, and sort by priority, due date, or last update. task update changes only the fields you pass, on one task or several.
Close it with its subtasks
Closing a task with open subtasks fails unless you pass --close-subtasks, which closes them with it, as the app does.
Plan in cycles
Turn on 7, 14, 21, or 28 day cycles that start on any weekday, plan tasks in with --cycle current, and complete a cycle to carry unfinished work forward.
Let a coding agent track its work
Agents can read a task before acting, move it through statuses, and comment as they ship. Task IDs like WEB-24 are stable, so they're safe in commit messages.
Built to be driven by AI agents
Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and other agents can call the CLI from a shell or connect to its built-in MCP server. Both run the same commands, so behavior is identical either way.
Give it the guide
agent-guide prints a briefing on finding notes, reading before editing, and recovering from revision conflicts.
Let it read the manual
help --json describes every command, argument, output envelope, and error code from the installed version, so agents don't have to guess.
Output your scripts can rely on
Pick tables, plain text, JSON, or JSONL per command or once in your settings. Every response has the same shape and every error has a stable code.
- Set it once
- Run octarine config set format json and skip --json on every call.
- Only what you need
- --fields keeps chosen fields. --limit and --max-output-bytes bound a search, and meta.nextCursor fetches the rest.
- Exit codes that mean something
- 0Success2Invalid input3Not found4Conflict or stale revision5Workspace or path safety
Every command has its own help page
Run octarine <command> --help to see every option. The installed executable is the authority when it differs from the docs.
- workspace
- List workspaces, show the active one, set a default
- note
- Create, read, edit, move, rename, and trash notes
- folder
- Create, move, rename, duplicate, and trash folders
- search
- Search lines, headings, tags, properties, and paths
- link
- Backlinks, unresolved links, orphans, dead ends, mentions
- property
- Read and set properties and their definitions
- checkbox
- List Markdown checkboxes across notes
- tag
- List tags and how often they're used
- task
- Create, update, comment on, and archive tasks
- project
- Projects, their settings, and resources
- cycle
- Turn on cycles, plan work, and complete them
- inbox
- Capture, snooze, tag, and file Inbox items
- view, note-type, theme
- Manage Views, Note Types, and Themes
- config
- Default workspace, output format, and update check
- export, doctor, schema
- Export a workspace and check its health
- mcp, agent-guide
- Serve the CLI to agents and brief them
- completion, update
- Shell completions and signed updates
Questions
Start with setup and updates. The full reference lives in the CLI docs.
Start writing with 
Octarine.
A fast, private Markdown workspace for capturing ideas, shaping notes, and keeping your writing in files you control.