notethe

Notethe is a lightweight note-taking system and file format designed for capturing and organizing knowledge across devices. Emphasizing portability, human readability, and extensibility, notethe combines a simple text-based syntax with a structured metadata header. It is maintained by a community of volunteers and is not tied to any single vendor.

Notes in the notethe format are stored as plain text files. Each file begins with a metadata block containing key fields such as id, title, created, modified, tags, and links. The body follows, supporting basic lists, emphasis, and code blocks, while remaining legible when opened in a basic editor. A core feature is bi-directional linking, where references to other notes use a linking syntax like [[note-id]], enabling simple navigation and the construction of a graph of relationships.

Notethe emphasizes interoperability and offline access. Tools exist to search, tag, and render notes, and to export content to other formats such as Markdown, HTML, or JSON. Because the format is plain text and the header is extensible, additional fields can be added without breaking existing readers or editors.

History and use. Notethe emerged from a community-driven initiative to provide an open, vendor-neutral knowledge base for personal and collaborative workflows. It has inspired a family of compatible editors, converters, and plugins that integrate with popular note-taking ecosystems and knowledge graphs.

Notethe is related to broader topics in personal knowledge management, including Zettelkasten methods, Markdown-based notes, and outliner styles such as Org-mode. It is one option among several open formats intended to balance readability with structured linking.