A self-hosted, database-less note-taking web app where a note's title is its path — built for Obsidian vaults and nested markdown trees.

globnotes is a fork of flatnotes by Adam Dullage. flatnotes deliberately keeps every note in one flat directory; globnotes keeps everything else about its spirit (zero-config, single container, distraction-free) and changes one thing: notes can live in subdirectories, and a note's title is its relative path.

data/
├── dad/
│ ├── recipes/
│ │ └── soup.md → note at /dad/recipes/soup
│ └── assets/
│ └── broth.jpg → served at /dad/assets/broth.jpg
└── ideas.md → note at /ideas

Obsidian-flavored support

globnotes renders the markdown features Obsidian users rely on — and the set grows over time.

Supported today:

• Wikilinks [[wikilink]] with |alias and #heading links
• Image and file embeds ![[image.png]], ![[doc.pdf]]
• Callouts > [!note], > [!warning], …
• Hidden comments %%comments%%
• Highlight ==mark==
• Mermaid diagrams
• YAML frontmatter (title, aliases, and more)
• KaTeX math
• Automatic URL linking

Not yet (roadmap): note transclusion (![[Note]]), block references/transclusion, task lists, footnotes, abbreviations/definition lists/emoji/sub/superscript, Dataview-style queries, and graph view.

Why

Markdown is supposed to be app-independent. If your notes already live in folders — an Obsidian vault, a git repo, a Syncthing share — globnotes gives you a clean web view (and editor) over exactly that structure, without flattening anything. Mount whatever you like as subdirectories:

volumes:
- /srv/dad-notes:/data/dad
- /srv/mom-notes:/data/mom

Folders are never "managed": creating a/b/c makes the directories, renaming a/b → x/y moves the file, and empty directories are pruned away (git-style).

Features

• Real-path notes — the URL path IS the vault path: /dad/recipes/soup is the note, /dad/assets/broth.jpg is its image. Relative links (![](broth.jpg), [x](../other.md)) work exactly like in Obsidian — no rewriting, no magic.
• Obsidian-flavored rendering — [[wiki-links]] (with |alias and #heading), ![[image embeds]], ==highlights==, > [!callouts], %%comments%%, YAML frontmatter, mermaid diagrams, KaTeX math.
• Sidebar folder tree — Obsidian-style nested tree with expand/collapse, active-note highlight, filter textbox, and hover shortcuts to folder views.
• 16 themes — light, dark, system auto-detect, Catppuccin, Dracula, Gruvbox, Nord, Solarized, Tokyo Night, and more. Pick one in the menu, preview it behind the panel, no page reload.
• Full-text search and #tags across the whole tree, scoped to a folder or recursive, with real-time filtering.
• New-note flow — Untitled N prefills in the current folder context; dead wiki-links offer a one-click "Create note" affordance.
• Attachment-aware renames — moving a note across folders prompts you to move its referenced files along too, or just fix the links.
• First-run setup wizard — no auth env vars? globnotes asks on first launch: set a password or explicitly disable auth. Each choice is deliberate.
• Agent-friendly — raw markdown and files over plain HTTP (see below).

Getting started

docker run -d \
--name globnotes \
-p 8080:8080 \
-v /path/to/your/notes:/data \
alexindigo/globnotes:latest

Open http://localhost:8080 and complete the first-run setup: create a password, choose read-only (browse and search, no editing), or disable auth entirely (trusted networks only).

Or with docker compose:

services:
globnotes:
image: alexindigo/globnotes:latestcontainer_name: globnotesrestart: unless-stoppedports:
- "8080:8080"volumes:
- ./notes:/data# Optional: mount additional sources as subdirectories# - /srv/dad-notes:/data/dad# - /srv/mom-notes:/data/momenvironment:
# Optional. Leave unset for the first-run setup wizard.# GLOBNOTES_AUTH_TYPE: "none" # trusted home network only!

The image is published to both Docker Hub (alexindigo/globnotes) and GHCR (ghcr.io/alexindigo/globnotes) — same tags (latest, 1.0, 1.0.1, …), same content; use whichever registry you prefer.

URL model

What	URL
Notes	/dad/recipes/soup — the whole root space
Vault files	/dad/assets/broth.jpg — same tree
App pages	/_/login, /_/new, /_/search
API, health, swagger	/_/api/*
Built assets	/_/assets/*

The only reserved top-level segment is _ — don't name a vault folder that. Everything else is yours.

GLOBNOTES_PATH_PREFIX is respected for multi-instance deployments (e.g. one instance at /dad/ and another at /mom/ behind one host) — note pages, files, API and assets all live under the prefix, and relative links keep working.

Configuration

Variable	Default	Description
GLOBNOTES_PATH	/data (in container)	Root directory of the notes tree. Required outside docker.
PUID / PGID	1000 / 1000	User the app runs as (container). Set to your host user's ids (id -u / id -g) so note edits can write. globnotes never chowns your vault — it only creates/owns the .globnotes index dir.
GLOBNOTES_INDEX_BATCH_SIZE	200	Notes indexed per commit batch during the initial background sync. Lower it on very constrained hosts.
GLOBNOTES_INDEX_BATCH_DELAY	0.1	Seconds to sleep between index batches (CPU throttle). 0 disables.
GLOBNOTES_SCAN_CACHE_TTL	15	Seconds the vault file listing is cached (large vaults: raise it).
GLOBNOTES_AUTO_ENABLE_PLUGINS	true	Default for new plugins in the settings UI (per-browser switches override).
GLOBNOTES_RENDER_WORKERS	2	Sandboxed Deno Workers per plugin for rendering (heartbeats + auto-respawn).
GLOBNOTES_AUTH_TYPE	(unset → first-run wizard)	none, read_only, password or totp. Env always wins over the wizard's stored choice.
GLOBNOTES_USERNAME / GLOBNOTES_PASSWORD	—	Login credentials (for password/totp). If unset, taken from the wizard's stored config.
GLOBNOTES_SECRET_KEY	—	JWT signing key. If unset, taken from the wizard's stored config.
GLOBNOTES_TOTP_KEY	—	TOTP secret (for totp).
GLOBNOTES_SESSION_EXPIRY_DAYS	30	Login session length.
GLOBNOTES_HOST / GLOBNOTES_PORT	0.0.0.0 / 8080	Listen address (container).
GLOBNOTES_PATH_PREFIX	—	Serve under a sub-path, e.g. /mom (multi-instance reverse proxies).
GLOBNOTES_QUICK_ACCESS_*	—	HIDE, TITLE, TERM, SORT, LIMIT for the home page quick-access section.

Home network deployment

GLOBNOTES_AUTH_TYPE=none turns globnotes into a home-wide knowledge source: anyone (and any agent) on the network can read and write. read_only is the middle ground — open browsing, no writes ("family wiki; editing happens in Obsidian"). Either way, everything in the tree becomes reachable, so keep it to networks you trust. A warning is logged at startup when auth is off.

Agent access

With token auth (or no auth at all), your notes are plain HTTP:

# Raw markdown
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" https://notes.example/_/api/files/dad/recipes/soup.md
# Search (add folder=dad/recipes to scope to a subtree, nested=false for root-only)
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN""https://notes.example/_/api/search?term=soup"# Drop a file into a vault
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
-F "file=@photo.jpg" -F "directory=dad/recipes" \
https://notes.example/_/api/files

Migrating from flatnotes

• Rename FLATNOTES_* env vars to GLOBNOTES_* (same names otherwise).
• Your /data works as-is: flat notes keep their titles, and the index is rebuilt automatically (.globnotes replaces .flatnotes; both are hidden and safe to delete).
• The special attachments/ directory is gone as a concept — existing attachments/x.jpg links keep working (it's now just a directory, served like any other). New uploads land beside the note being edited.

Plugins

Rendering is a markdown-it pipeline extended by plugins — each running in its own permission-narrowed Deno Worker (no network/env/write unless the manifest asks). The built-ins (globnotes-autolinks, -callout, -comments, -embeds, -mark, -mermaid) produce the Obsidian-flavored rendering out of the box; drop your own into <vault>/.globnotes/plugins/<id>/ and they join the pipeline. Per-plugin switches and the auto-enable default live in the menu → Plugins dialog. See docs/plugins.md for the authoring guide.

Deferred / future work

See FutureDevelopment.md — note transclusion, unresolved-link styling, backlinks/graph, compat hats, and more.

Development

# Server (Deno) — tests, lint, type check
deno install
deno task test# 108 integration + unit tests
deno task lint
deno task check
# Client build & tests
npm ci
npm run build
npx vitest run
# Client dev server
npm run dev

Credit

globnotes is a fork of flatnotes by Adam Dullage, who built the excellent foundation this project stands on. GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0 licensed (see LICENSE); upstream flatnotes code remains under the MIT License (see THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md). Full attribution for upstream, dependencies, and the community that shaped the design lives in THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md.