zen

Overview

Zen is a self-hosted notes application built as a single Go binary with notes stored as markdown in SQLite. It offers full-text search with BM25 ranking, flexible tagging instead of rigid folders, and various markdown features. The application includes experimental MCP functionality that allows searching, listing, and reading notes through the Model Context Protocol. It's designed for low resource usage while maintaining feature-rich note-taking capabilities.

Try asking AI

After installing, here are 5 things you can ask your AI assistant:

• search_notessearch_notes(query: string) -> []Note

  Search notes using full-text search with BM25 ranking

  Try:Find notes about project deadlinesTry:Search for recipes with chicken
• list_noteslist_notes(tags?: string[], archived?: boolean) -> []Note

  List all notes with optional filtering by tags and archive status

  Try:Show all my work notesTry:List notes tagged with 'meeting'
• read_noteread_note(id: string) -> Note

  Read the content of a specific note by ID

  Try:Show me note with ID abc123Try:Display the content of my grocery list

Comparable tools

Installation

$ make build

$ make dev

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "zen": {
      "command": "path-to-zen-executable",
      "args": ["--mcp"]
    }
  }
}

FAQ

What MCP operations does Zen provide?

Zen provides MCP functionality for searching, listing, and reading notes through the Model Context Protocol.

How resource-efficient is Zen?

Zen is designed for very low resource usage, making it suitable for running on modest hardware or in constrained environments.

On Hacker News

Recent discussion from the developer community.

• Zen Notes: Go/Markdown/SQLite notes app with minimal deps and 10MB memory usage▲ 2
  Story by rkwz · 2025-09-23

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