Note Vault CLI

A secure, terminal-based note manager with structured vaults, optional per-vault password locking, and full-text search — accessible directly from your command line.

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Features

• Vaults: create, open, rename, delete, and list vaults to organize your notes.
• Per-vault locking: optionally protect a vault with a password (salted scrypt hash). Locked vaults cannot be opened or read until unlocked.
• Note management: create, view, append, replace, rename, and delete notes inside the current vault.
• Full-text search: find notes by title or content across the current vault, with context snippets.
• Persistent indexing: all vaults and notes are tracked in vaults/vault_index.json.
• Cross-platform: works on Linux, macOS, and Windows.
• Interactive UI: arrow-key menus, colored tables, and inline prompts powered by rich and InquirerPy.

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Getting Started

Requirements

• Python 3.13+
• uv (project manager — no pip needed)

Setup

git clone https://github.com/pradeep-chetri/note-vault-cli.git
cd note-vault-cli
uv sync

Run

uv run note-vault

or install it globally with uv and run it anywhere:

uv tool install .
note-vault

Tests & linting

uv run pytest          # run the test suite
uv run ruff check .    # lint
uv run ruff format .   # format

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Main menu

Option	What it does
New Note	Create a note in the current vault
Open Note	Pick a note, then view / append / replace / rename / delete it
List Notes	Show every note in the current vault
Search Notes	Find notes by title or content
New Vault	Create a vault, optionally password-protected
Open Vault	Switch the current vault (unlock when passworded)
List Vaults	Show all vaults with their lock/current status
Lock Vault	Lock the current vault (sets a password on first use)
Unlock Vault	Unlock the current vault for this session
Rename Vault	Rename a vault and its directory on disk
Delete Vault	Delete a vault and all of its notes
Exit	Quit

Security notes

• Passwords are hashed with scrypt using a random 16-byte salt; the plaintext is never written to disk.
• Unlocking is session-scoped: restarting the app re-locks every password-protected vault.
• Note files themselves are stored as plain text on disk. File-level encryption is on the roadmap.

Migrating from the legacy app

Existing data from the original single-file version is read automatically. Legacy vault_index.json files that used Windows-style paths and lacked lock metadata are migrated in place on first run.

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Project structure

note-vault-cli/
├── src/note_vault/        # application source
│   ├── cli.py             # entry point + menu wiring
│   ├── models.py          # Vault / Note models + name sanitization
│   ├── storage.py         # index persistence + legacy migration
│   ├── vaults.py          # vault CRUD + password locking
│   ├── notes.py           # note CRUD + search
│   └── ui.py              # rich/inquirer helpers
├── tests/                 # pytest suite
├── vaults/                # user data (gitignored)
└── pyproject.toml

The data directory defaults to ./vaults and can be overridden with the NOTE_VAULT_DIR environment variable.

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Roadmap

• File-level encryption (encrypt note contents with a key derived from the vault password).
• Text-based user interface (TUI) with a dedicated terminal app.
• Vault backup / export to Markdown or ZIP.