Novi Notes - Local-first AI note app for Mac zero config via MCP
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Novi Notes is a local-first Mac note app with built-in AI via MCP. Just install, open
Claude, and ask — Claude reads and writes your notes directly. No plugins, no API keys,
no config. Features: AI-native via MCP, 100% local and offline, daily notes, manuals,
post-its & calendar, one-time purchase with no subscription. Built by an indie dev in
Seoul.
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Novi Notes
Hey everyone! 👋 I'm Hojong, the solo developer behind Novi Note.
Why another note app?
I'm a backend developer working across TypeScript, Kotlin, and Swift every day — jumping between different IDEs and projects constantly. When I started using Claude Desktop and Claude Code in my workflow, something unexpected happened: markdown files started piling up everywhere. Skills, agent configs, project notes, CLAUDE.md files — scattered across dozens of project directories. Version controlling them was a nightmare, and every time I set up a new project, I had to dig through old folders to find and reconfigure everything.
I needed one place to keep it all together. Meeting notes, code snippets, daily logs, reference manuals — not spread across 15 different repos.
So I tried everything. Notion, Obsidian, Evernote, Bear, SimpleNote, even Coggle for mind maps. They're all genuinely great tools. But either they required a subscription for the features I needed, or they couldn't quite match the workflow I had in mind.
So I thought: why not just build the note app I actually want?
And here's the funny part — after spending months building Novi Note, I finally understood why those other apps couldn't do what I wanted. Turns out, building a note app that fits your exact workflow is... really, really hard. 😅
What makes Novi Note different:
🤖 AI Native via MCP — Connect Claude to your notes with minimal setup. I worked hard to make the MCP configuration as painless as possible. Your AI can read, create, and organize your notes directly.
💰 One-time purchase — No subscriptions. Ever. That's a promise, not a marketing line.
🔒 Local-first — Your data stays on your Mac. No cloud dependency. Full offline support.
📋 Built for work — Daily notes, manuals, documents, post-its, calendar — the structure a working professional actually needs without Notion-level complexity.
I built this for people like me — developers who live in the terminal and IDE all day, use Claude as a daily companion, and just want a clean, private place to keep everything organized without fighting their tools.
Would love to hear your thoughts. What's your current note-taking setup? I'm genuinely curious!
@fresh_topping Congrats on the launch. Super excited about the local-first + AI combo. Just a quick q: what's one workflow challenge you ran into while making the Claude MCP setup truly painless for devs jumping between IDEs, and how'd you solve it?
Novi Notes
@swati_paliwal Thanks for asking! The biggest headache was definitely MCP zeroconfig — making it truly seamless with zero manual setup. On top of that, figuring out the right MCP commands to expose was a real design challenge. Too granular = confusing, too abstract = not powerful enough. Lots of trial and error to get it right 😅
Zero config setup is underrated — most note apps make you spend an hour tweaking before you can actually use them. How does it handle search across large note collections?