personal-knowledge-manager

README

Personal Knowledge Manager (pkm) 📙

pkm is a terminal-first, encrypted personal knowledge manager inspired by the Zettelkasten method. It helps you build a second brain using small, interconnected notes — all stored securely on disk and fully controlled by you.

✨ Think: Obsidian-style linking + Git-friendly storage + strong encryption — without leaving the terminal.

Why pkm?

• 🧠 Zettelkasten-inspired — notes are atomic, linkable, and discoverable
• 🔐 Security first — notes are encrypted at rest (AES-256-GCM)
• ⚡ Fast & local — no cloud, no latency, no vendor lock-in
• 🗂 Clean filesystem layout — works naturally with Git
• 🧑 Multi-user support — separate encrypted knowledge bases per user

Features 🚀

Core

• ✅ Create, edit, list, and delete notes
• ✅ Link notes to build a knowledge graph
• ✅ Tag notes for categorization
• ✅ Full-text keyword search
• ✅ Tag-based search
• ✅ Note indexing for fast queries

Security

• ✅ AES-256-GCM encryption on disk
• ✅ PBKDF2 key derivation (100k iterations)
• ✅ Per-user encryption keys
• ✅ Zero plaintext storage

System

• ✅ Multi-user support
• ✅ Git-safe encrypted notes
• ⏳ Multi-machine sync (planned)
• ⏳ Terminal UI (TUI) (planned)

Installation ⚙️

Option 1: Download from GitHub Releases (Recommended)

Prebuilt binaries are available for major platforms on the GitHub Releases page.

# Example (Linux x86_64)
curl -LO https://github.com/<username>/personal-knowledge-manager/releases/latest/download/pkm-linux-amd64
chmod +x pkm-linux-amd64
mv pkm-linux-amd64 /usr/local/bin/pkm

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Option 2: Build from source

Prerequisites

• Go (latest stable)
• task (Taskfile runner)

git clone https://github.com/<username>/personal-knowledge-manager.git
cd personal-knowledge-manager
task build

Add the binary to your PATH:

export PATH="$PATH:$(pwd)/build"

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Option 3: Package Managers (Planned)

• Homebrew
• AUR
• Scoop

Contributions welcome 🙂

Quick Start ⚡

# 1. Create a user
pkm user init alice

# 2. Create a note
pkm --user alice note new "My first note"

# 3. List notes
pkm --user alice note list

# 4. Link notes
pkm --user alice link add <source-id> <target-id>

# 5. Search notes
pkm --user alice search keyword "zettelkasten"

Data Layout 📁

~/.pkm/
├── .crypt               # Encrypted user keys (DO NOT commit)
├── alice/
│   ├── <note-id>.pkm    # Encrypted notes
│   └── .index.pkm       # Encrypted search index

Git Usage

✔ Safe to commit:

• User directories (<username>/)
• Encrypted .pkm files

❌ Never commit:

• .crypt

Security Model 🔐

• AES-256-GCM authenticated encryption
• PBKDF2 key derivation
• Random salts and nonces per user
• Passwords are never stored
• No plaintext ever written to disk

Even if your repo is public, your notes remain private.

Philosophy 🧩

pkm is designed around these principles:

• Small notes > big documents
• Links create insight
• Local-first > cloud-first
• You own your data

Roadmap 🛣

• 🔄 Multi-machine sync
• 🖥 Terminal UI (TUI)
• 📊 Graph visualization
• 🔌 Plugin system

Contributing 🤝

Contributions, ideas, and feedback are welcome. Open an issue or submit a PR — even small improvements matter.