ntropy

Notes and the vault

This section covers what a note is, where it lives, and what ntropy keeps around it: the vault directory, the note file format, the Markdown it understands, templates, materialized views, encryption, and configuration.

The notes are the database

ntropy keeps no index, cache, or hidden state. The Markdown files in your vault are the single source of truth, and every command reads them fresh. Everything else it shows you, such as readable dates, tag counts, or the browsable view trees, is derived on demand. You can delete any of it and have it rebuilt.

The vault

A vault is an ordinary directory with a few well-known children:

~/notes/
├── all-notes/        # your notes, named <ulid>-<slug>.md: the source of truth
│   ├── 01j8z9k…-groceries.md
│   └── 01j8za2…-q3-planning.md
├── by-tag/           # a materialized view: symlinks grouped by the `tags` field
│   └── work/
│       └── 2026-06-24-q3-planning.md -> ../../all-notes/01j8za2…-q3-planning.md
├── by-status/        # another view, grouped by the `status` field
├── README.md         # seeded by `init`: what this directory is, how to get ntropy
└── .ntropy/          # config, templates, and themes

Only top-level *.md files in all-notes/ are notes. ntropy leaves subdirectories and non-.md files alone, so images and attachments can sit right next to your notes without being adopted as notes.

A vault can also store its notes Encrypted vaults, in which case all-notes/ holds <ulid>.age files instead and there are no view directories.

Because all of this is just files, the whole vault is yours to version: git init in it and commit your notes like any other text. The derived by-*/ view directories do not belong in git, and ntropy keeps them out for you. It maintains a root .gitignore whose managed entries always match your configured views, adding one when you add a view and pruning it when you remove one. Each managed entry carries a marker comment above it, so ntropy only ever prunes its own entries. Your own lines in that file are never touched.

ntropy never deletes a directory. When a view is removed its directory is left behind, and, no longer ignored, it shows up in git status. The command tells you so you can delete the stale tree yourself.

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