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.

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.

journey-cli 0.9.11