notes

Read, write, tag, and search markdown notes in a local vault folder.

Updated Apr 7, 2026
One-click install
npx skills add https://github.com/jay-stacey/claude-plugins --skill notes-jay-stacey
Or copy as Structured Prompt for Agent▼
Please help me install this Agent Skill.
Skill: notes
Source: https://github.com/jay-stacey/claude-plugins/tree/main/plugins/executive-assistant/skills/notes
Command: npx skills add https://github.com/jay-stacey/claude-plugins --skill notes-jay-stacey

SYSTEM DOCUMENTATION & REQUIREMENTS

💡 This Skill includes scripts (resource) and references (resource) components.

What problem does it solve? Keeping a personal markdown notes vault usable requires consistent daily notes, section-aware edits, disciplined tagging, and fast recall — all of which break down when done ad hoc. This Skill standardizes how notes are created, appended, tagged, and searched so other workflows can rely on the vault without risking the user's only copy of their notes. ## Core Features & Use Cases - Daily note management: Finds or creates today's note from a vault template or built-in skeleton, substituting date and title placeholders. - Section-aware appends: Inserts content at the end of a specific ## section using Edit, creating the section if missing, so concurrent content elsewhere in the file survives. - Indexed search: A file-based index (no database) answers tag, text, title, date, and backlink queries in milliseconds across tens of thousands of notes, with a Grep fallback when the index is missing. - Use Case: After a meeting, ask the assistant to add action items to the Urgent section of today's daily note, tag a new project note consistently with existing vault tags, then later recall every note linking to a person via backlink search. ## Quick Start Ask the assistant to save a summary of this conversation to today's daily note under the Notes section and tag it appropriately.

Frequently Asked Questions about notes

High-intent search queries and answers about installing and using this skill.

FAQPage Schema
How do I search markdown notes by tag and text?▼

Run the notes_index.py search command with --tag filters first and --text last. Narrowing by tag before opening files is roughly 11x faster on a 20,000-note vault, about 280 ms versus 3.1 seconds for text alone.

How do I append content to a specific section of a markdown note?▼

Locate the target ## heading and insert at the end of that section using Edit rather than Write, so unrelated content survives. If the section does not exist, create it at the end of the file instead of failing.

Does the notes search index require a database?▼

No database is required. The index is two plain text files, index.json and an append-only pending.jsonl journal, stored in a .index folder inside the vault. Deleting it is always safe and rebuild reconstructs it from the notes.

What happens if the notes index is missing or outdated?▼

Commands exit with code 2 when the index is missing or the schema changed. Either run rebuild, which takes about five seconds for 20,000 notes, or fall back to Grep across the vault, which is slower but always correct.

Can I backfill tags across an existing markdown vault?▼

No, backfilling frontmatter across existing notes is explicitly avoided. Untagged notes still search by text, and rewriting every file risks the user's only copy of their notes for marginal gain.