znote-server

The local HTTP server crate for znote, built with Axum.

znote-server runs on your machine and handles all the work that needs a proper server: serving your notebooks over the local network, rendering Typst documents, producing PDFs, and exposing the REST API that the znote desktop app talks to. It can be embedded inside the Tauri app or run as a standalone binary on a home server or NAS.

What this crate does

Local network serving

When znote-server is running, every notebook in your library is accessible as a navigable website from any browser on your local network. This is useful for reading notes on a phone or tablet, or for sharing a knowledge base with others on the same network.

• Serves the Svelte 5 frontend bundle at the root
• Exposes individual notes and notebooks as addressable URLs
• Applies your configured theme (light, dark, custom CSS)
• Renders Markdown, Typst, and HTML blocks into clean web pages
• Serves canvas pages as embedded SVG

REST API

The desktop app communicates with znote-server over a local HTTP connection. The API covers:

• CRUD for notes, folders, and notebooks
• Full-text search across the library
• Tag management and saved-search queries
• Graph data (nodes and edges for the link topology view)
• User settings and workspace configuration

Export pipeline

• HTML export: renders a note or an entire notebook to self-contained HTML files, suitable for uploading as a static site
• PDF export: drives headless Chromium to capture rendered pages as PDF, preserving canvas drawings, math typeset by Typst, and layout fidelity
• Typst compilation: compiles .typ source files to HTML or PDF on demand, invoked from both the editor (live preview) and the export pipeline

Standalone mode

znote-server is a fully independent binary. You can run it without the desktop app on a headless machine and access your notes entirely through a browser. Configuration is via a single TOML file or environment variables.

cargo run -p znote-server

# or, once released
znote-server --config ~/.config/znote/server.toml

Architecture notes

• Built on Axum with Tokio async runtime
• Static file serving for the Svelte 5 frontend bundle
• Typst compilation runs in a worker thread pool to keep the HTTP layer responsive
• All note data is stored as plain files on the local filesystem; no database is required

Related

• znote: the Tauri desktop application that embeds this server
• Root workspace README: full feature overview and architecture

License

Apache 2.0, see LICENSE.