notesto

Notesto is an open-standard for note-taking and knowledge management that aims to unify the way notes are created, linked, and shared across platforms. The concept envisions notes as nodes in a network, with bidirectional links, metadata, and rich content, enabling what is effectively a personal knowledge graph. Notesto was proposed by the Notesto Foundation in the late 2010s as part of an effort to improve interoperability among note-taking applications and to reduce vendor lock-in.

The Notesto data model centers on a portable, machine-readable representation of notes. Each note is identified by a stable identifier and may contain textual content, attachments, and metadata such as creation date, authorship, tags, and citations. Crucially, notes can reference other notes via backlinks and forward links, allowing researchers and writers to trace ideas across a corpus. The format supports hierarchical notebooks, versioning, search indexing, and both markdown and rich-text content.

Implementations exist in multiple clients and services, including an official Notesto Core reference implementation and a growing set of third-party editors and viewers. Projects typically support import and export of Notesto bundles and aim to preserve link structure and metadata during migration. Some editors offer offline editing with later synchronization to cloud-backed stores, while others emphasize local-first design and encryption.

Reception to Notesto has been mixed. Proponents praise its potential to create portable knowledge graphs and reduce data fragmentation. Critics point to uneven adoption, potential complexity for casual users, and the challenges of maintaining interoperability across diverse tools.