touchlog

touchlog

A knowledge graph note-taking system built with Go. touchlog provides a powerful CLI for managing structured notes with automatic link resolution, graph queries, and real-time indexing.

Features

• Vault-based organization: Organize notes in type-specific directories with structured frontmatter
• Automatic indexing: SQLite-based index with automatic link resolution and incremental updates
• Graph queries: Find backlinks, neighbors, and paths between notes using graph traversal
• Graph visualization: Export knowledge graphs to Graphviz DOT format
• Real-time updates: Daemon mode with filesystem watching for automatic index updates
• Structured notes: YAML frontmatter with validation and diagnostics
• Wiki-style links: Support for [[note:key]], [[key]], and edge-type annotations
• Deterministic exports: Stable, diffable JSON and DOT exports

Installation

Prerequisites

• Go 1.22 or later

Build from Source

git clone https://github.com/sv4u/touchlog.git
cd touchlog
go build ./cmd/touchlog

The binary will be created in the current directory as touchlog.

Install via Go

go install github.com/sv4u/touchlog/cmd/touchlog@latest

Quick Start

1. Initialize a vault:

   touchlog init
   

   This creates a .touchlog directory with a default configuration file.

2. Create a note:

   touchlog new
   

   Follow the interactive prompts to create a new note with frontmatter.

3. Build the index:

   touchlog index rebuild
   

   This scans all .Rmd files in your vault and builds the index.

4. Query your notes:

   touchlog query search --type note
   touchlog query backlinks --target note:my-note
   touchlog query neighbors --root note:my-note --max-depth 2
   touchlog query paths --source note:start --destination note:end --max-depth 5
   

5. Export the graph:

   touchlog graph export dot --out graph.dot
   dot -Tpng graph.dot -o graph.png
   

Vault Structure

A touchlog vault is a directory containing:

vault/
├── .touchlog/
│   ├── config.yaml          # Vault configuration
│   └── index.db             # SQLite index (auto-generated)
├── note/                    # Type-specific directories
│   ├── my-note.Rmd
│   └── another-note.Rmd
├── article/
│   └── my-article.Rmd
└── ...

Note Files

Notes are stored as .Rmd files with YAML frontmatter:

---
id: note-001
type: note
key: my-note
title: My Note
state: draft
tags: [important, todo]
created: 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z
updated: 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z
---
# My Note

This note links to [[note:another-note]] and [[article:my-article]].

You can also use unqualified links: [[another-note]] if the key is unique.

Configuration

The vault configuration file (.touchlog/config.yaml) defines:

• Types: Note types with validation rules (key patterns, default states)
• Tags: Tag configuration and preferred tags
• Edges: Edge type definitions for relationships
• Templates: Template configuration (future)

Example configuration:

version: 1
types:
  note:
    description: A note
    default_state: draft
    key_pattern: ^[a-z0-9]+(-[a-z0-9]+)*$
    key_max_len: 64
  article:
    description: An article
    default_state: draft
    key_pattern: ^[a-z0-9]+(-[a-z0-9]+)*$
    key_max_len: 64
tags:
  preferred: [important, todo, reference]
edges:
  related-to:
    description: General relationship
  references:
    description: Reference relationship
templates:
  root: templates

Commands

Vault Management

• touchlog init - Initialize a new vault in the current directory
• touchlog new - Create a new note interactively

Index Management

• touchlog index rebuild - Rebuild the entire index from scratch
• touchlog index export --out <file> - Export the index to JSON

Querying

• touchlog query search [options] - Search notes with filters

  • --type <types> - Filter by types (comma-separated)
  • --state <states> - Filter by states (comma-separated)
  • --tag <tags> - Filter by tags (comma-separated)
  • --match-any-tag - Match any tag (default: match all)
  • --limit <n> - Limit results
  • --format table|json - Output format

• touchlog query backlinks --target <node> [options] - Find backlinks to a node

  • --direction in|out|both - Link direction (default: in)
  • --edge-type <types> - Filter by edge types
  • --format table|json - Output format

• touchlog query neighbors --root <node> --max-depth <n> [options] - Find neighbors

  • --direction in|out|both - Link direction (default: both)
  • --edge-type <types> - Filter by edge types
  • --format table|json - Output format

• touchlog query paths --source <node> --destination <node> [--destination <node> ...] --max-depth <n> [options] - Find paths

  • --max-paths <n> - Maximum paths per destination (default: 10)
  • --direction in|out|both - Link direction (default: both)
  • --edge-type <types> - Filter by edge types
  • --format table|json - Output format

Graph Operations

• touchlog graph export dot --out <file> [options] - Export graph to DOT format
  • --root <node> [--root <node> ...] - Root nodes (can specify multiple)
  • --type <types> - Filter by types
  • --state <states> - Filter by states
  • --tag <tags> - Filter by tags
  • --edge-type <types> - Filter by edge types
  • --depth <n> - Maximum depth (default: 10)
  • --force - Overwrite existing file

Daemon

• touchlog daemon start - Start the daemon for real-time indexing
• touchlog daemon stop - Stop the daemon
• touchlog daemon status - Check daemon status

Architecture

touchlog follows a contracts-first architecture with clear separation of concerns:

Core Components

• Models (internal/model/): Canonical data structures (Note, Frontmatter, RawLink, etc.)
• Config (internal/config/): Configuration loading and validation
• Note Parser (internal/note/): Frontmatter parsing and wiki-link extraction
• Store (internal/store/): SQLite persistence layer with migrations
• Index (internal/index/): Full-scan indexing with atomic rebuilds
• Query (internal/query/): Search and graph query execution
• Graph (internal/graph/): Graph loading and export
• Daemon (internal/daemon/): IPC server and lifecycle management
• Watch (internal/watch/): Filesystem watching and incremental indexing

Design Principles

1. Contracts First: Models and schemas defined before behavior
2. Derived State Only: Index and exports are always rebuildable
3. Determinism: All outputs are stable and diffable
4. Explicit Errors: Never silently fail or coerce invalid input
5. Diagnostics: Validation produces diagnostics, not hard failures

Indexing

The index is built in two passes:

1. Pass 1: Parse all notes, build (type, key) -> id map
2. Pass 2: Resolve all links using the type/key map

The index is stored in SQLite with the following schema:

• meta: Metadata (schema version, etc.)
• nodes: Note nodes with frontmatter
• edges: Links between notes (with resolved to_id)
• tags: Tags associated with notes
• diagnostics: Parse errors and warnings

Graph Queries

All graph queries (backlinks, neighbors, paths) execute in-memory after loading the relevant subgraph from SQLite. This approach:

• Avoids complex recursive SQL
• Simplifies BFS correctness and determinism
• Aligns with future TUI graph viewer needs

All traversals maintain visited sets for cycle detection and guarantee termination.

Examples

Creating and Linking Notes

# Create a note
touchlog new
# Follow prompts to create note with key "introduction"

# Create another note that links to it
touchlog new
# Create note with key "getting-started" and add link: [[note:introduction]]

# Rebuild index
touchlog index rebuild

# Find backlinks to introduction
touchlog query backlinks --target note:introduction

Finding Related Notes

# Find all neighbors within 2 hops
touchlog query neighbors --root note:my-note --max-depth 2

# Find paths between notes
touchlog query paths --source note:start --destination note:end --max-depth 5

# Export graph for visualization
touchlog graph export dot --out graph.dot
dot -Tsvg graph.dot -o graph.svg

Using the Daemon

# Start daemon for real-time indexing
touchlog daemon start

# Create/edit notes - index updates automatically
# Query works immediately
touchlog query search --type note

# Stop daemon
touchlog daemon stop

Development

Project Structure

touchlog/
├── cmd/
│   └── touchlog/
│       └── main.go              # CLI entry point
├── internal/
│   ├── model/                   # Core data models
│   ├── config/                  # Configuration loading
│   ├── note/                    # Note parsing
│   ├── store/                   # SQLite persistence
│   ├── index/                   # Indexing logic
│   ├── query/                   # Query execution
│   ├── graph/                   # Graph operations
│   ├── daemon/                  # Daemon and IPC
│   ├── watch/                   # Filesystem watching
│   └── cli/                     # CLI command definitions
├── testdata/
│   ├── vaults/                  # Test vault fixtures
│   └── golden/                  # Golden test fixtures
├── go.mod
└── README.md

Running Tests

# Run all tests
go test ./...

# Run tests with coverage
go test ./... -cover

# Run specific package tests
go test ./internal/query -v

Building

# Build binary
go build ./cmd/touchlog

# Build for specific platform
GOOS=linux GOARCH=amd64 go build ./cmd/touchlog

Contributing

Commit Message Guidelines

This project follows the Conventional Commits specification.

Commit Types:

• feat: A new feature
• fix: A bug fix
• docs: Documentation only changes
• test: Adding or updating tests
• refactor: Code refactoring without changing functionality
• perf: Performance improvements
• ci: Changes to CI/CD configuration
• chore: Other changes that don't modify src or test files

Examples:

feat(query): add backlinks command
fix(index): resolve link resolution bug
docs(readme): update architecture section
test(query): add edge case tests for cycles

License

See the LICENSE file for details.