Launched this week
Novi Notes
Local-first AI note app for Mac zero config via MCP
90 followers
Local-first AI note app for Mac zero config via MCP
90 followers
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.
Novi Notes
@randhir_kumar7 Thanks for the kind words! Great question.
Right now, Novi is a macOS-only app. I had iCloud Sync as a beta feature, but it turned out to be too unstable in practice, so I removed it. Rather than shipping something unreliable, I decided to explore better approaches.
I'm currently considering several sync options — GitHub-based sync, personal cloud storage (OneDrive, Google Drive, iCloud Drive), and leveraging users' own SaaS accounts. The goal is to find a method that stays true to Novi's local-first principle: your data syncs through infrastructure you already own, not through our servers.
In the meantime, your data is always safe and portable: one-click backup/restore to a single .novibackup file, and markdown export so your notes are never locked in.
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 😅
Local-first AND one-time purchase? Take my money honestly. I've been bouncing between Obsidian and Apple Notes for months and neither fully clicks. The MCP integration with Claude is what got my attention though , being able to just talk to my notes without some janky plugin setup sounds great. Downloading now.
Novi Notes
@abdullah_mohamed14 That means a lot — welcome aboard! The Obsidian + Apple Notes combo is actually one of the most common setups I hear about. Powerful but fragmented.
Since the MCP integration caught your eye — once you open Novi, the MCP server is ready to go with Claude Desktop. No config files to edit, no API keys. Just connect and start talking to your notes.
If you run into anything or have ideas, feel free to reach out. Always happy to hear from early users!
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?
Novi Notes
@kaito_builds Thanks for the kind words on zero config — that's exactly the philosophy behind Novi!
Great question on search. Currently, Novi uses in-memory search with content caching, which works well for the workflow it's designed around.
The idea is that notes naturally flow upward: daily notes accumulate → get distilled into documents → documents mature into manuals → and eventually the polished content moves to your team's shared wiki. So rather than building up one massive archive that needs heavy indexing, content is continuously refined and promoted through stages.
That said, search already covers daily notes, documents, manuals, post-its, and TODOs with highlighted snippets — and a full-text index is on the roadmap as the product grows.
Mailmodo
Looks interesting. What's the price?
Novi Notes
@aquib Thanks for checking it out! Novi is a one-time purchase of $4.99 on the Mac App Store — no subscription, no hidden fees. You pay once and own it forever.
That's a core principle, not just a pricing decision. AI features, updates, everything included.