{"id":30835782,"url":"https://github.com/internaut/memex","last_synced_at":"2026-05-09T06:02:29.083Z","repository":{"id":145536970,"uuid":"508626095","full_name":"internaut/memex","owner":"internaut","description":"encrypted chronological note keeping tool for unix CLIs","archived":false,"fork":false,"pushed_at":"2025-03-23T12:39:57.000Z","size":7,"stargazers_count":1,"open_issues_count":0,"forks_count":0,"subscribers_count":1,"default_branch":"main","last_synced_at":"2025-09-06T17:22:33.128Z","etag":null,"topics":["bash","encryption","linux","memex","note-keeper","note-keeping","shell-script","unix"],"latest_commit_sha":null,"homepage":"","language":"Shell","has_issues":true,"has_wiki":null,"has_pages":null,"mirror_url":null,"source_name":null,"license":"mit","status":null,"scm":"git","pull_requests_enabled":true,"icon_url":"https://github.com/internaut.png","metadata":{"files":{"readme":"README.md","changelog":null,"contributing":null,"funding":null,"license":"LICENSE","code_of_conduct":null,"threat_model":null,"audit":null,"citation":null,"codeowners":null,"security":null,"support":null,"governance":null,"roadmap":null,"authors":null,"dei":null,"publiccode":null,"codemeta":null}},"created_at":"2022-06-29T09:26:06.000Z","updated_at":"2025-03-23T12:40:01.000Z","dependencies_parsed_at":"2023-04-08T10:17:01.396Z","dependency_job_id":null,"html_url":"https://github.com/internaut/memex","commit_stats":null,"previous_names":[],"tags_count":0,"template":false,"template_full_name":null,"purl":"pkg:github/internaut/memex","repository_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/internaut%2Fmemex","tags_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/internaut%2Fmemex/tags","releases_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/internaut%2Fmemex/releases","manifests_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/internaut%2Fmemex/manifests","owner_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/owners/internaut","download_url":"https://codeload.github.com/internaut/memex/tar.gz/refs/heads/main","sbom_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/internaut%2Fmemex/sbom","scorecard":null,"host":{"name":"GitHub","url":"https://github.com","kind":"github","repositories_count":286080680,"owners_count":32809147,"icon_url":"https://github.com/github.png","version":null,"created_at":"2022-05-30T11:31:42.601Z","updated_at":"2026-05-08T08:22:46.396Z","status":"online","status_checked_at":"2026-05-09T02:00:06.633Z","response_time":123,"last_error":null,"robots_txt_status":"success","robots_txt_updated_at":"2025-07-24T06:49:26.215Z","robots_txt_url":"https://github.com/robots.txt","online":true,"can_crawl_api":true,"host_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub","repositories_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories","repository_names_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repository_names","owners_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/owners"}},"keywords":["bash","encryption","linux","memex","note-keeper","note-keeping","shell-script","unix"],"created_at":"2025-09-06T17:13:27.011Z","updated_at":"2026-05-09T06:02:29.077Z","avatar_url":"https://github.com/internaut.png","language":"Shell","funding_links":[],"categories":[],"sub_categories":[],"readme":"# memex – encrypted chronological note keeping tool for unix CLIs\n\nMarkus Konrad \u003cpost@mkonrad.net\u003e, June 2022\n\n## Description\n\nThe *memex* tool is a bash script that can be used on almost any Unix-like OS for chronological note keeping on a day-by-day basis. It enables you to realize (daily) note keeping and recalling [as described by Cory Doctorow](https://doctorow.medium.com/the-memex-method-238c71f2fb46), who in turn based his thoughts on the ideas of a \"memory expanded\" by [Vannevar Bush, 1945](https://www.w3.org/History/1945/vbush/).\n\nYour notes will be encrypted with your private GPG key to keep them safe even when you store them in an untrusted environment (e.g. a cloud space or an unencrypted flash drive). **Note however that reading and editing requires temporary storage of unencrypted data so you should read and write notes only in trusted environments.**\n\nMemex allows to periodically review past notes by retrieving notes from previous dates on fixed time-deltas, e.g. \"one week ago\", \"one month ago\", \"one year ago\", etc. to form a *\"powerful mnemonic\"* (Doctorow). You can also add attachments (i.e. any files like images, videos, etc.) to each day's note – these will also be encrypted.\n\n## Requirements\n\n1. a Unix-like operating system with a bash shell and standard tools `date`, `tar`, `grep`, `gpg`, an editor like `vim` and optionally `xdg-open` if you want to open note attachments in a graphical environment\n2. a gpg keypair; generate one if you haven't so far; keep note of the identity email used in your gpg keypair\n\n## Setup\n\n- make sure the `memex` script file is executable (`chmod +x memex`)\n- edit the `memex` script file to set the following variables right at the beginning of the script:\n  - `IDENT`: identity email used in your gpg keypair\n  - `TMPDIR`: local, trusted temporary folder; must be writable; unencrypted data will be written temporarily to this location and deleted after reading/writing\n- memex will use your default editor specified by the `EDITOR` environment variable; if that's not given it will use `vim`; you can also hardcode an editor to use by editing the `EDIT` variable\n\n## Usage\n\nInteract with `memex` using the commands described below. `\u003c...\u003e` denotes required arguments, `[...]`  denotes optional arguments. The `date` argument is very important. It allows you to specify for which date you want to read or write a note. The way you specify that date is very flexible: You can specify the day in \"year-month-day\" format (e.g. \"2022-06-29\") or in a relative way, e.g. \"2 days ago\", \"3 weeks ago\" or \"last friday\". See the [documentation for the Unix `date` utility](https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/Date-input-formats.html) for more information.\n\nAll data is stored in the sub-folder \"memexdb\", where each day has a folder named in the \"year-month-day\" (YYYY-MM-DD) format inside a folder for the year. Inside these folders the encrypted data is stored as `YYYY-MM-DD.tar.gpg`. The encrypted data contains at least one text note file named `YYYY-MM-DD.txt` and optional attachment files.\n\n### Commands\n\n- `./memex` or `./memex write [date] [attach]`: create a new note or edit a note for \"date\" or today (default); if \"attach\" is given, open folder to add attachment files\n- `./memex read [date]`: if date is given, read the note at that date; else read notes for a sequence of past dates\n- `./memex search \u003cpattern\u003e`: search (encrypted) notes for a given grep pattern; this may take some time since all notes need to be decrypted one by one; decrypted data is directly piped to `grep` so no temporary unencrypted data is stored\n- `./memex last`: show the date of the last note that was taken\n- `./memex encrypt`: encrypt all note data in the memexdb that is not encrypted so far; the unencrypted notes must be named in the \"YYYY-MM-DD.txt\" format inside the respective days' folders; if all data is encrypted the command will not report anything\n\n## License\n\nThis project is licensed under MIT License. See *LICENSE* file for the full text.\n\n","project_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Finternaut%2Fmemex","html_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/projects/github.com%2Finternaut%2Fmemex","lists_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Finternaut%2Fmemex/lists"}