zk is a GPL-3.0-licensed, Go-based command-line tool that maintains a plain text Zettelkasten or personal wiki from Markdown files on disk, and it is built for programmers, researchers and writers who want their notes stored as files they own rather than inside a proprietary note application.

What it is

zk is a command-line note-taking assistant written in Go and released under the GPL-3.0 licence. It maintains a plain text Zettelkasten or personal wiki: the notes themselves are ordinary Markdown files stored in a folder, and zk operates on that folder rather than on a private database. It supports most Markdown syntax flavours, YAML frontmatter for note metadata, both regular Markdown links and Wikilinks, and several tag syntaxes including hashtags, colon:separated:tags: and Bear-style multi-word tags. The registry lists it under Content & Publishing, in the Documentation & Knowledge Base category, with roughly 2,800 stars and 189 forks.

The concrete problem it solves is the bookkeeping that accumulates once a plain text notebook grows past a few dozen files: keeping links, backlinks, mentions, tags and index notes consistent, and finding anything again without manual searching. zk centralises that work behind commands for note creation from templates, search and filtering, and notebook housekeeping, so the folder stays a folder of Markdown while the link graph and tag structure stay queryable. It deliberately is not a note editor and is not a tool that serves notes on the web; the README points readers to static site solutions for publishing, which keeps zk in the role of maintaining the collection rather than owning the writing or presentation of it.

Key capabilities

• Note creation from templates, so new notes start with consistent structure and frontmatter.
• Advanced search and filtering across tags, links and mentions, rather than plain text matching alone.
• Link support for both regular Markdown links and Wikilinks, with mentions tracked alongside them.
• Tag support for hashtags, colon:separated:tags: and Bear-style multi-word tags.
• Editor integration for any LSP-compatible editor, plus dedicated zk-emacs, zk-nvim for Neovim 0.8+ and zk-vscode clients.
• An interactive browser powered by fzf for navigating the notebook from the terminal.
• Git-style command aliases and named filters, configured for repeatable, scriptable workflows and automation.

Who uses it and how

• Neovim 0.8+ users drive the notebook through zk-nvim, while Emacs and Visual Studio Code users use zk-emacs and zk-vscode respectively.
• Users of any LSP-compatible editor connect through the language server integration instead of a dedicated plugin.
• Terminal-centric users browse and navigate notes through the fzf-powered interactive browser without leaving the shell.
• Automation-minded users define command aliases and named filters to script note creation, searching and notebook housekeeping.
• Writers keeping a Zettelkasten or personal wiki use zk to maintain cross-references while keeping every note as a portable Markdown file.

Getting started

Install from the pre-built binaries for macOS, Linux and Windows, or through a package manager: brew install zk on Homebrew, nix run nixpkgs#zk and the Home Manager module on Nix, apk add zk from the Alpine testing repositories, or pacman -S zk from the Arch official repositories.

How it compares

The facts provided name no paid products that zk replaces, and they name no peer note-taking tools either; the editor plugins listed are companion integrations for this project, not alternatives to it. On the evidence available, zk stands alone in this registry.

When to use it — and when not to

A self-hoster must supply the editor, the backup strategy and any publishing pipeline, because zk runs as a local command-line tool over a folder of Markdown files and serves nothing on the web. The pre-built binaries are not code-signed, and Windows Defender and other security tools have flagged some Windows releases as malicious in the past, so building from scratch is the recommended workaround on Windows. Anyone wanting a graphical note editor, a hosted service or a note-publishing website should look elsewhere, since the README states plainly that zk is not an editor and not a web server for notes.

brew install zk

brew install --HEAD zk

nix run nixpkgs#zk

nix shell nixpkgs#zk

environment.systemPackages = [
  # Your other packages here
  nixpkgs.zk
];

programs.zk.enable = true;

# Modify `${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/zk/config.toml` through this attr
programs.zk.settings = {
  # Add your own configuration settings for zk here
};

apk add zk

sudo pacman -S zk

sudo port install zk

git clone https://github.com/zk-org/zk.git
cd zk
make build

git checkout dev
make build

$ make
$ ./zk -h