https://github.com/ljantzen/journey/blob/main/README.md

Journey - A CLI-based Journal Application

Journey is a command-line journal application written in Rust that allows you to manage daily notes with automatic timestamping and flexible date/time handling.

Features

• Vault Management: Create and manage multiple journal vaults
• Obsidian Integration: Import configuration from existing Obsidian vaults and plugins
• Automatic Timestamping: Notes are automatically timestamped
• Flexible Date/Time: Support for absolute dates, relative dates, and custom times
• Category-Based Sections: Organize notes into specific sections (work, personal, health, meetings)
• Template Files: Custom templates with variable substitution
• Phrase Expansion: Define shortcuts that expand to full phrases
• Table & Bullet Formats: Choose between bullet points or table format for notes
• Cross-platform: Works on Linux, macOS, and Windows
• Dual Binary Architecture: Separate journey and journeyctl commands

Installation

Using Cargo

cargo install journey-cli

Build from Source

git clone https://github.com/ljantzen/journey.git
cd journey
cargo build --release
cargo install --path .

Download Binaries

Download directly from the GitHub releases page.

Quick Start

1. Initialize a Vault

# Unix/Linux/macOS
journeyctl init --path ~/my-journal --name personal

# Windows
journeyctl init --path "%USERPROFILE%\my-journal" --name personal

# From existing Obsidian vault
journeyctl init --path ~/Documents/MyObsidianVault --obsidian

2. Add Notes

# Add a note for today
journey This is my first note

# Add a note for yesterday
journey --relative-date 1 Note for yesterday

# Add a note with specific time
journey --time 14:30 Afternoon meeting notes

3. List Notes

# List today's notes (default behavior)
journey

# List notes for specific date
journey --date 2025-10-24 --list

# List with table headers (if using table format)
journey --list --header

4. Organize with Categories

# Add notes to specific sections
journey -c work "Completed quarterly report"
journey -c personal "Had dinner with friends"
journey -c health "30 minutes of cardio"

Binary Architecture

Journey uses two separate binaries:

journey - Note Operations

Main journal application for daily note operations:

• Add notes
• List notes
• Edit notes

journeyctl - Vault Management

Administrative tool for vault configuration:

• Initialize vaults
• Manage default vault
• List/unlist vaults
• Show today's file path

Core Concepts

Vaults

A vault is a directory containing your journal notes. You can have multiple vaults for different purposes (work, personal, projects, etc.).

Notes & Timestamps

Each note is automatically timestamped when created. Notes are stored in daily markdown files with frontmatter.

Categories

Organize notes within daily files using categories. Each category can have its own section header (e.g., "Work Notes", "Personal Notes").

Basic Commands

Adding Notes

# Basic note
journey My note content

# With date
journey --date 2025-10-24 Note for specific date

# Relative dates (positive = past, negative = future)
journey --relative-date 1 Note for yesterday
journey --relative-date -1 Note for tomorrow

# With time
journey --time 14:30 Note with specific time

# With category
journey -c work "Work-related note"

# From stdin (each line becomes a note)
echo -e "First note\nSecond note" | journey --stdin

Listing Notes

# List today's notes
journey
journey --list

# List for specific date
journey --date 2025-10-24 --list

# List by category
journey --list -c work

# With table headers (table format only)
journey --list --header

Editing Notes

# Edit today's notes
journey --edit

# Edit specific date
journey --date 2025-10-24 --edit

Vault Management

Initialize Vaults

# Regular vault
journeyctl init --path ~/journal --name personal

# From Obsidian vault (auto-detects plugins)
journeyctl init --path ~/Documents/ObsidianVault --obsidian

Default Vault

# Set default vault
journeyctl set-default personal

# Show current default
journeyctl show-default

# Unset default
journeyctl unset-default

List and Manage Vaults

# List all vaults
journeyctl list

# Unlist a vault (removes from config, doesn't delete files)
journeyctl unlist-vault vault-name

# Show today's file path
journeyctl today
journeyctl today --vault vault-name
journeyctl today --verbose

Configuration

Configuration file location:

• Linux: ~/.config/journey/journey.yaml
• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/journey/journey.yaml
• Windows: %APPDATA%\journey\journey.yaml

Basic Configuration

vaults:
  personal:
    name: personal
    path: ~/Documents/journal
    locale: en_US.UTF-8
    list_type: bullet  # or "table"
    section_header: "Daily Log"
    phrases: {}

Advanced Configuration

vaults:
  work:
    name: work
    path: ~/Documents/work-journal
    locale: en_US.UTF-8
    
    # File organization
    file_path_format: "{year}/{month:02}/{date:02}.md"
    template_file: ~/templates/work-daily.md
    
    # Note format
    list_type: table
    table_headers:
      time: "Time"
      content: "Content"
    
    # Category sections
    section_header: "General Notes"
    section_header_work: "Work Tasks"
    section_header_personal: "Personal Notes"
    section_header_health: "Health & Fitness"
    section_header_meetings: "Meeting Notes"
    
    # Phrase expansion
    phrases:
      "@meeting": "Team meeting about project status"
      "@standup": "Daily standup meeting"
      "@review": "Code review completed"

Advanced Features

Categories and Sections

Organize notes into different sections within your daily files. See docs/CATEGORIES.md for details.

journey -c work "Completed deployment"
journey -c personal "Dinner with family"

Template Files

Use custom templates for new daily files with variable substitution. See docs/TEMPLATE_VARIABLES.md for details.

template_file: ~/templates/daily.md

Phrase Expansion

Define shortcuts that expand to full phrases. See docs/PHRASE_EXPANSION.md for details.

phrases:
  "@meeting": "Team meeting about project status"

Custom File Paths

Organize notes in any directory structure. See docs/FILE_PATH_FORMATS.md for details.

file_path_format: "{year}/{month:02}/{date:02}.md"

Table Mode

Display notes in table format with customizable headers. See docs/TABLE_MODE.md for details.

list_type: table

Obsidian Integration

Import configuration from Obsidian vaults and plugins. See docs/OBSIDIAN_INTEGRATION.md for details.

journeyctl init --path ~/ObsidianVault --obsidian

Localization

Support for multiple locales with locale-aware date parsing and table headers. See docs/LOCALIZATION.md for details.

locale: no_NO.UTF-8  # Norwegian

Command Reference

journey (Note Operations)

Option	Description
<NOTE>	Add a note (default action)
-l, --list	List notes for the specified date
-e, --edit	Edit notes for the specified date
-d, --date <DATE>	Specify date (multiple formats supported)
-r, --relative-date <DAYS>	Days offset (positive=past, negative=future)
-t, --time <TIME>	Specify time (HH:MM or HH:MM:SS)
--time-format <FORMAT>	Force time format (12h or 24h)
-c, --category <CATEGORY>	Specify category (work, personal, health, meetings)
--header	Include table headers when listing (table format only)
--stdin	Read input from stdin (each line = one note)
-V, --vault <NAME>	Specify vault name
-v, --version	Show version information

journeyctl (Vault Management)

Command	Description
init --path <PATH>	Initialize a new vault
init --path <PATH> --obsidian	Initialize from Obsidian vault
list	List all configured vaults
set-default <NAME>	Set default vault
show-default	Show current default vault
unset-default	Remove default vault
unlist-vault <NAME>	Remove vault from configuration
today	Show today's file path
today --vault <NAME>	Show path for specific vault
today --verbose	Show detailed information

Date Format Support

Journey supports multiple date formats based on your locale:

English/US (en_US.UTF-8):

• 2025-10-24 (ISO)
• 10/24/2025 (US)
• October 24, 2025 (Long)

Norwegian (no_NO.UTF-8):

• 2025-10-24 (ISO)
• 24.10.2025 (Norwegian)
• 24. oktober 2025 (Long)

Custom override:

date_format: "DD.MM.YYYY"

Path Expansion

Journey supports automatic path expansion:

Unix/Linux/macOS:

path: ~/Documents/journal  # Expands to /home/user/Documents/journal

Windows:

path: "%USERPROFILE%\Documents\journal"  # Expands to C:\Users\user\Documents\journal

File Structure

Default structure (can be customized):

vault-directory/
├── 2025-10-24.md
├── 2025-10-23.md
└── 2025-10-22.md

Each markdown file contains:

---
date: 2025-10-24
---

- 13:35:27 This is my first note
- 13:35:35 This is my second note

Or in table format:

---
date: 2025-10-24
---

| 13:35:27 | This is my first note |
| 13:35:35 | This is my second note |

Examples

Daily Workflow

# Morning: Add standup notes
journey -c work "@standup discussed project status"

# Afternoon: Log activities
journey -c work "Completed code review"
journey -c personal "Lunch with colleague"

# Evening: Review the day
journey --list

Working with Multiple Vaults

# Set default vault
journeyctl set-default work

# Add to default vault
journey "Note in work vault"

# Add to specific vault
journey --vault personal "Note in personal vault"

Batch Operations

# Import notes from file
cat notes.txt | journey --stdin

# Add multiple categorized notes
echo -e "Task 1\nTask 2\nTask 3" | journey --stdin -c work

Integration with Other Tools

# Export today's notes
journey --list --header > daily-report.md

# Copy to clipboard (Linux)
journey --list --header | xclip -selection clipboard

# Email notes
journey --list --header | mail -s "Daily Notes" team@example.com

# Find today's file for external editing
vim $(journeyctl today)

Documentation

Detailed documentation is available in the docs/ directory:

• OBSIDIAN_INTEGRATION.md - Obsidian vault integration
• CATEGORIES.md - Category-based section organization
• TEMPLATE_VARIABLES.md - Template file variables
• PHRASE_EXPANSION.md - Phrase shortcuts
• FILE_PATH_FORMATS.md - Custom file path formats
• TABLE_MODE.md - Table format and headers
• LOCALIZATION.md - Locale support and internationalization
• SECTION_BASED_NOTES.md - Section-based note organization
• DATE_FORMAT_OVERRIDE.md - Custom date formats
• TIME_FORMAT_OVERRIDE.md - Time format overrides
• DEFAULT_BEHAVIOR_UPDATE.md - Default behavior changes
• SINGLE_VAULT_AUTO_SELECTION.md - Single vault auto-selection

Development

# Build
cargo build

# Run tests
cargo test

# Run with debug output
RUST_LOG=debug cargo run -- --help

License

This software is licensed under a combined MIT and SPPL license. It is basically a MIT license, but in order to be compliant you need to send me a postcard. Details in LICENSE.