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Show HN: Tolaria – Open-source macOS app to manage Markdown knowledge bases

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Re: Show HN: Tolaria – Open-source macOS app to manage Markdown knowledge bases

#131

Post by _false »

Barbing wrote: post #85
_false wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I solve it by using Apple Notes for quick capture and then copy pasting from my mac to obsidian daily/specific notes, that I want to keep. I also just keep long running notes for tracking things workouts and meals with headers for dates. Works better than things like obsidian mobile and copy pasting is a natural filter.

Good tips! >I also just keep long running notes for tracking things workouts and meals with headers for dates. This I'd say fine on the phone but frustrating heading to the Mac and start wishing for at least a spreadsheet.

> start wishing for at least a spreadsheet

What exactly makes you wish that? I used to use google sheets for workouts but realised:

1. plain text notes are more ergonomic on the phone

2. dumping them into Claude produces more useful analysis than I could hope to extract for the same amount of effort.

Re: Show HN: Tolaria – Open-source macOS app to manage Markdown knowledge bases

#132

Post by evertvdbruel »

zby wrote: post #84

Everybody is building their own llm-wiki systems these days. I have my own and compiled a big list of other agent memory systems in it: https://zby.github.io/commonplace/agent-memory-systems/ I'll add yours promptly. And just today I also vibed a wish list (based on all the material I gathered) for such systems: https://zby.github.io/commonplace/notes/designing-agent-memo... I wish we could collaborate.

Hey zby, if you're collecting these, Hjarni (hjarni.com) would fit your source-only tier alongside Fintool and Supermemory. Hosted SaaS with MCP built in, hierarchical LLM instructions (global/team/container/note), and a shared-note protocol for Claude/ChatGPT multi-agent workflows. Happy to write up a page in whatever shape you want.

The wishlist doc you linked is good, would be up for collaborating on that.

Re: Show HN: Tolaria – Open-source macOS app to manage Markdown knowledge bases

#133

Post by CrompyBlompers »

tarr1124 wrote: post #109
fiatpandas wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be nice if you could “see” the AI in your vault making changes. Almost like a Google doc collab session. Even if you weren’t directly interacting with the agent, and it was making change thru a CLI/MCP, its presence would be highlighted in the frontend. And then it appears as its own contributor in the git history.

Git is great as the durable layer, but what fiatpandas is pointing at is a bit different — real-time awareness that the agent is active right now, not a retrospective diff. I've been working on this split in a side project ( https://github.com/rillmd/rill — vault layer on top of Claude Code). Git still handles the durable side for free, since the CLI agent just writes files and commits normally. The live side comes f…

Respectfully, did you use an LLM to write this comment? You're responding to flatpandas here. Having "what flatpands is pointing at..." is similar to the output of an LLM if you were to link to that comment and get a generated summary.

Re: Show HN: Tolaria – Open-source macOS app to manage Markdown knowledge bases

#135

Post by wkcheng »

lucaronin wrote: post #67
wkcheng wrote: post #57

Nice work! This looks really cool. I downloaded and am trying it out, but I'm running into a pretty annoying sorting bug that's preventing me from using it for real. I copied over files from my Obsidian vault (preserving file times), and the first time it loaded, everything seemed to work fine. After doing the first git commit, however, Tolaria cannot seem to sort properly by last modified anymore (I'm getting notes…

that's weird will look into it! thanks for reporting

This was my workflow (this is repro-able 100%): 1. Take an obsidian vault (just a few folders and subfolders of markdown files) 2. Copy the entire folder (keep all of the dates with cp -a) to a new folder 3. Install Tolaria, point it to the new folder you created. 4. Open it up. This creates a git repository. 5. Click on the bottom UI to "Restore Tolaria AI Guidance." After this point, the sorting doesn't work and will continue failing. Everything says that it was created or modified recently.

Edit: I think I found the cause. When you initialize a git repository, the file modified times stay the same, but sorting by modified appears to sort by the commit date, which is now all the same for every file (since it was committed in one go)

Re: Show HN: Tolaria – Open-source macOS app to manage Markdown knowledge bases

#136

Post by quicklywilliam »

lucaronin wrote: post #68
msephton wrote: post #46

I would be all over this if it was a native macOS app

I started Tolaria in Swift but met very real limitations especially in the Markdown editor part. It's very hard to build something that is Notion like in that department with Swift. But give it a try because Tauri is very fast

Curious if you looked at using SwiftDown (https://github.com/qeude/SwiftDown), MarkupEditor (https://github.com/stevengharris/MarkupEditor) or any other libraries for live/WYSIWYG Markdown editing.

Re: Show HN: Tolaria – Open-source macOS app to manage Markdown knowledge bases

#137

Post by quicklywilliam »

zby wrote: post #84

Everybody is building their own llm-wiki systems these days. I have my own and compiled a big list of other agent memory systems in it: https://zby.github.io/commonplace/agent-memory-systems/ I'll add yours promptly. And just today I also vibed a wish list (based on all the material I gathered) for such systems: https://zby.github.io/commonplace/notes/designing-agent-memo... I wish we could collaborate.

This is a really cool list and repository of ideas. Seems like the focus of the work is on making knowledge legible to AI. I wonder if you (or others) have done a similar level thinking about the inverse – making AI more legible to humans?

Re: Show HN: Tolaria – Open-source macOS app to manage Markdown knowledge bases

#139

Post by trueno »

zby wrote: post #84

Everybody is building their own llm-wiki systems these days. I have my own and compiled a big list of other agent memory systems in it: https://zby.github.io/commonplace/agent-memory-systems/ I'll add yours promptly. And just today I also vibed a wish list (based on all the material I gathered) for such systems: https://zby.github.io/commonplace/notes/designing-agent-memo... I wish we could collaborate.

> Everybody is building their own llm-wiki systems these days

there is a dark side to this. my coworker is insistent that his variant of this is going to become the teams backbone and i can't get him to stop even when i showed him a page of beyond wrong answers. he straight up doesn't understand that having a knowledge base != claude now sees all of it at once and can consider the endless breadth and shades of gray that make up human decisions. he's 100% convinced that claude grepping through the files is foolproof and won't miss any details lol

i personally just stopped messing with grand knowledge base ideas and these techs. i think everyone's shooting a lil too high and can't fully define what exactly they're after.

so i stepped back and i keep claude there for a very black and white need. claude's there to speed up stuff in domains i know well so i can guardrail him with massive success and have him code pieces im simply too lazy to code myself or alley oop something im struggling with. in a tortoise and the hare parable kind of way im the only guy here who isnt getting huge gotcha holes from AI in the solutions im delivering. all polished with the same attention to detail ive always had. i've just found these grand wiki everything ideas are just not yielding what people think they're yielding. for whatever reason i'm still the meatware layer thats a better index in the end if ive done my homework. perhaps something is lost when we cede a huge chunk of our journeys to seek information. i've still yet to be impressed by any "claude tied all these things together and found this insight this is insane" moments, every single time ive pointed out that any of that could've been a report.

Re: Show HN: Tolaria – Open-source macOS app to manage Markdown knowledge bases

#140

Post by tarr1124 »

CrompyBlompers wrote: post #133
tarr1124 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Git is great as the durable layer, but what fiatpandas is pointing at is a bit different — real-time awareness that the agent is active right now, not a retrospective diff. I've been working on this split in a side project ( https://github.com/rillmd/rill — vault layer on top of Claude Code). Git still handles the durable side for free, since the CLI agent just writes files and commits normally. The live side comes f…

Respectfully, did you use an LLM to write this comment? You're responding to flatpandas here. Having "what flatpands is pointing at..." is similar to the output of an LLM if you were to link to that comment and get a generated summary.

I wrote it. English is my second language, so I reach for "what X is pointing at" constructions a lot — partly as a self-check that I've parsed the parent correctly. If any specific claim in there looks wrong or generated, happy to have it pointed out.
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