Your First Day

You've installed journal and Ollama. Let's get your first journal set up and capture something in it.

Initialize a journal

Navigate to the folder where you want to keep your notes, then run:

journal init

This scaffolds a few directories and a config file:

.journal/config.yaml    your settings (committed to git)
.journal/index/         the search index (gitignored — rebuilt from your notes anytime)
daily/                  your daily notes land here
projects/               long-running threads go here
reflections/            AI synthesis output

journal also creates a .gitignore that excludes the search index — it's a cache, not source of truth.

If you already have a git repository in this folder, that's fine. journal init works in existing repos too.

Capture your first note

journal capture "Set up journal — this is going to be useful"

That's it. journal creates a file at daily/YYYY/MM/YYYY-MM-DD.md (today's date), appends a timestamped entry, and commits it to git. You didn't have to open a file, format anything, or remember where you put it.

Want to write something longer? Leave off the text and your editor opens:

journal capture

Journal follows $EDITOR, or falls back to nano if none is set.

Build the search index

Before you can search, journal needs to embed your notes:

journal index

This runs through your notes and builds the local search index using Ollama. It only processes notes that are new or changed since the last index run.

Now try a search:

journal search "what did I set up today"

Journal embeds your query and finds the most relevant notes — semantically, not just by keyword. You'll see the matching entry, the file it came from, and the exact lines.

See today's notes at a glance

journal today

This shows everything you've captured today, your open todos, and any meetings. A useful command to run at the start or end of your day.

Keep the index fresh

As you capture more notes, you'll want the search index to stay current. The easiest way is to run the watcher in a background terminal:

journal index --watch

This stays running, notices when your notes change, and re-indexes them automatically. See Capturing Notes for more on the watcher and auto-indexing options.

You're up and running. The next sections walk through each feature in more detail — but honestly, journal capture and journal search will cover 80% of your daily use.