🌙 Moon Note

A lightweight, self-hosted personal knowledge base for connected notes.

Moon Note combines Markdown, [[wikilinks]], backlinks, folders, a visual knowledge graph, and a live moon-phase widget — all in a small Node.js app with no database to manage.

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Screenshots

Table of Contents

• Screenshots
• Features
• Quick Start
• Installation Options
  • One-Line Installer
  • Docker Compose
  • Node.js
• Managing the App
• Data and Backups
• Configuration
• Keyboard Shortcuts
• API Reference
• Project Structure
• License

Features

Feature	Description
Markdown notes	Write notes in Markdown with a live Write/Preview workflow.
Wikilinks	Link notes with [[Note Title]] or [[alias|Note Title]].
Backlinks	See which notes reference the note you are viewing.
Folders	Organize notes by folder in the sidebar.
Knowledge graph	Explore connections between notes with a D3-powered graph.
Moon phase widget	Track the current lunar phase from inside the app.
Simple persistence	Notes are stored in data/notes.json; no database required.

Quick Start

The fastest way to run Moon Note is with Docker:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/frostmute/moon-note/main/install.sh | bash

Then open:

http://localhost:3000

By default, the installer clones the app to:

~/moon-note

Installation Options

One-Line Installer

Requirements: Git, Docker, and Docker Compose.

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/frostmute/moon-note/main/install.sh | bash

The installer will:

1. Clone or update the repository.
2. Create the local data/ directory if needed.
3. Build and start the Docker container.
4. Expose the app at http://localhost:3000.

Custom directory or port

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/frostmute/moon-note/main/install.sh -o install.sh
MOON_NOTE_DIR=/opt/moon-note PORT=8080 bash install.sh

Then open:

http://localhost:8080

Docker Compose

git clone https://github.com/frostmute/moon-note.git
cd moon-note
docker compose up -d --build

Open:

http://localhost:3000

Node.js

Requirements: Node.js 18+ and npm.

git clone https://github.com/frostmute/moon-note.git
cd moon-note
npm install
npm start

Open:

http://localhost:3000

Managing the App

From the Moon Note directory:

# View logs
docker compose logs -f

# Stop the app
docker compose down

# Start the app
docker compose up -d

# Rebuild and restart
docker compose up -d --build

# Update to the latest version
git pull
docker compose up -d --build

If you used the installer, you can update by running:

bash ~/moon-note/install.sh

Data and Backups

Moon Note stores user notes in a single JSON file:

data/notes.json

For the default installer location, that file is:

~/moon-note/data/notes.json

Back it up with:

cd ~/moon-note
cp data/notes.json moon-note-backup-$(date +%Y-%m-%d).json

data/notes.json is intentionally ignored by Git so personal notes are not committed to the repository.

Configuration

Variable	Default	Description
PORT	3000	Host port for the web app.
MOON_NOTE_DIR	~/moon-note	Install directory used by install.sh.
MOON_NOTE_REPO_URL	https://github.com/frostmute/moon-note.git	Repository URL used by install.sh.

Examples:

PORT=8080 docker compose up -d

MOON_NOTE_DIR=/srv/moon-note PORT=8080 bash install.sh

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl/Cmd + N	Create a new note
Ctrl/Cmd + S	Save the current note
Esc	Close the graph view

API Reference

Method	Route	Description
GET	/api/notes	List all notes.
GET	/api/notes/:id	Get one note with computed backlinks.
POST	/api/notes	Create a note.
PUT	/api/notes/:id	Update a note.
DELETE	/api/notes/:id	Delete a note.
GET	/api/search?q=	Search notes.
GET	/api/graph	Get graph nodes and links.
GET	/api/stats	Get note statistics.

Project Structure

moon-note/
├── Dockerfile
├── docker-compose.yml
├── install.sh
├── package.json
├── server.js
├── store.js
├── data/
│   └── notes.json          # created on first launch; ignored by Git
└── public/
    ├── index.html
    ├── css/
    │   └── style.css
    └── js/
        ├── app.js
        ├── graph.js
        ├── markdown.js
        └── moonphase.js

License

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