Journal

Dayfile

A journal in a folder of Markdown files you own. Three things set it apart: each day drafts itself from the traces you already left (git commits, calendar, photos); the memory your agent builds from it records not only what is true but since when and when the journal learned it; and nothing is behind an account or a subscription.

[Dayfile demo: a drafted day, the entry, memory over time, and an agent answering from the journal over MCP]

Why

Journals die because writing every day is work. Agents forget you because their memory lives in someone else's cloud, in a form you cannot read or fix. Dayfile does both jobs with one folder. Day One has an agent connector too, on Mac with a subscription, against its own database; Dayfile's version is a folder you can open, diff, sync and correct, and it is the only one that reads your commits.

• A day that writes its first draft. Point it at your code folders, a calendar feed and a photo folder. When you open the app (or at your reminder time) it drafts today: meetings, what you committed, where the photos were taken. You add a line about how it went and keep it, or discard it. Nothing runs in the background and nothing is read that you did not list.
• Memory with a timeline. Your agent pulls durable facts out of entries (where you live, who people are, what you are working on) into memory/<topic>.md. Facts are never overwritten. A new fact ends the old one, so "where did I live in 2023?" and "what did the journal believe last month?" both have answers, and every fact links to the entry it came from. You can open the file and correct it.
• Plain files. One .md per entry with YAML frontmatter, photos in a content-addressed folder, memory as readable YAML. Sync with iCloud Drive, Dropbox, Syncthing or git. The SQLite index is a cache rebuilt from the files. See docs/format.md.
• A real journal app. Timeline, calendar, On This Day, full-text search (works for Korean, Japanese, Chinese), tags, templates, a passcode screen, a reminder, a trash with Undo, and Day One import.

Install

Desktop app: download the build for macOS, Windows or Linux from Releases. The macOS builds are signed and notarized.

CLI (also the MCP server):

brew install --cask sjh9714/tap/dayfile   # macOS; or grab a binary from Releasesdayfile init                              # creates ~/Journal (or follows the app's folder)

Draft your day

dayfile sources add git ~/codedayfile sources author [email protected]      # only your commitsdayfile sources add calendar "https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/…/basic.ics"dayfile sources add photos ~/Pictures/Phonedayfile capture                             # today's draftdayfile drafts                              # what waits for reviewdayfile keep <id>                           # or discard it: `dayfile delete <id>`

A draft looks like this, and stays out of the timeline, search and stats until you keep it:

Standup +1, 4 commits to shop-api, 3 photos
- 09:30–09:45 · Standup- 10:12–16:40 · shop-api · 4 commits (Add order endpoint; Fix refund rounding; +2 more)- 19:00–21:00 · Algorithms study- 18:20–18:41 · 3 photos

Capturing the same day again only adds what is new. The app does the same from Settings → Capture.

Let your agent in

claude mcp add dayfile -- dayfile mcp serve

Claude Desktop: download the .mcpb file from Releases and open it.

The server has 19 tools and two prompts. Run the review_day prompt in the evening: the agent captures the day, asks you a couple of questions, writes the entry in your words, and records what it learned in memory. Then ask things like "what did I work on last week?", "when did I move to Seoul?", or "summarise my month". --read-only if you only want it to read. Details in docs/mcp.md.

Memory from the shell

dayfile remember Home "Lives in Seoul" --since 2024-03-01 --replaces f3a9c2e1dayfile recall --topic home --as-of 2023-06-01      # Lives in Busandayfile history Homedayfile topics

Everyday journaling

dayfile add "First entry" -t lifedayfile add --template gratitudedayfile search riverdayfile on-this-daydayfile statsdayfile delete <id>                # to the trash; `dayfile trash restore <id>` undoes it

Import from Day One

Day One → Export → JSON. Then in the app: Settings → Import Day One export, or:

dayfile import dayone ~/Downloads/Export.zip

Entries, photos, tags, location, weather and stars come across. Re-importing never duplicates.

On your phone

There is no mobile app yet. Because entries are plain Markdown files, keep the journal folder in iCloud Drive (or Dropbox, Syncthing) and open it with any Markdown editor on the phone. On iPhone, Obsidian (free) works well: create a vault, choose "Existing folder", pick the journal folder in iCloud Drive, and new entries follow the format in docs/format.md. The desktop app picks the edits up the next time it is focused.

Privacy

No account, no server, no telemetry. Capture reads only the folders and feeds you list, only when you or your agent ask (or at app launch and the reminder). A git source covers every repository under that folder (four levels deep), your own commits only, so keep work repositories out of the folders you list if their commit messages should not reach the journal or the agent you review it with. Calendar and git sources stay in the app's config on this machine, not in the synced folder. Optional location and weather for new entries use the OS location service or a city-level guess from ipapi.co, then Open-Meteo; one toggle turns that off.

Build from source

(cd apps/desktop && npm install)scripts/check.sh                       # tests, clippy, web buildcd apps/desktop && npm run tauri build

Status and limitations

Desktop app (macOS, Windows, Linux), CLI, MCP, capture from git, calendars and photos, bi-temporal memory, Day One import. Not yet: mobile, built-in sync, encryption at rest, more capture sources (shell history, browser).

Know these before you rely on it:

• The passcode screen hides the app. It does not encrypt anything; the files stay plain text on disk.
• An agent's update_entry replaces the body and there is no undo for it (deletes go to the trash, edits do not). Keep the journal folder in git or a synced folder with version history if agents may write to it, or pass --read-only.
• Windows and Linux builds come from CI and have not been tried on real hardware.

MIT. "Day One" is a trademark of Automattic; this project only reads its export format.