Chronote

Study smarter inside Obsidian. Chronote turns the notes you already have into a spaced-repetition study system and uses AI to search your vault, generate flashcards and quizzes, and plan your revision — all without leaving your editor.

What Chronote does for you

• Spaced repetition on your existing notes — Every note becomes a flashcard-style review. Score how well you remember it (1–5) and Chronote schedules the next review automatically.
• Tests and exams — Group related notes into a test, see your preparation progress, and let Chronote track each linked note's exam date.
• Flashcards and quizzes — Ask the AI to generate flashcards or a quiz from any note, then study them as a saved deck.
• AI study planner — Chat with the AI about what's due. It knows what you're due to review and what tests are coming up, and it can tell you what to prioritize.
• Vault-wide AI search — Every note is indexed locally so the AI can find the right information when you ask.

Why people use Chronote

• You don't lose your notes — Review state lives in each note's own frontmatter. Your data stays in your vault, in plain Markdown.
• You pick the AI — Use a free local model or bring your own API key, whichever you prefer.
• It's keyboard-friendly — Most of what you do is a one-line command: log a review, ask the AI, open the dashboard.

(Note: This plugin was originally called Cortex, but we renamed it to Chronote to avoid confusion with another existing plugin of the same name.)

Quick start

1. Install Chronote into your vault.

   • Download the latest release and copy main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css into your vault's /.obsidian/plugins/chronote/ folder.
   • Open Obsidian, go to Settings → Community plugins, and turn on Chronote.

2. Open the Dashboard.

   • Click the brain icon in the ribbon (left side of Obsidian), press Cmd+M (Ctrl+M on Windows/Linux), or run Open Chronote Dashboard from the Command Palette.
   • This is your home base — you'll see what's due and what's coming up.

3. Pick an AI provider.

   • Open Settings → Chronote and choose a provider from the dropdown.
   • Local, free, no API key: Install Ollama or LM Studio on your computer and pick one of those. Chronote fills in the local URL for you.
   • Bring your own key: Pick Google Gemini, OpenAI, Anthropic, or any OpenAI-compatible service (OpenRouter, Groq, Together, vLLM, llama.cpp, …) and paste your API key.
   • When you're done, click Test connection to confirm everything is reachable.

4. Turn on vault search (optional but recommended).

   • Still in Settings → Chronote, open the Indexing section.
   • Pick an Embedding preset — Ollama, LM Studio, OpenAI, OpenRouter, … — to pre-fill the URL and default model in one click. You can still override the fields.
   • Local servers (Ollama at http://localhost:11434/v1, LM Studio at http://127.0.0.1:1234/v1) don't need a key; cloud providers do.
   • Click Test embedding to confirm the endpoint is reachable.
   • Click Reindex vault to embed your notes. This runs in the background.

5. Start reviewing.

   • Open any note and press Cmd+R (Ctrl+R on Windows/Linux) or run Log Chronote Review from the Command Palette.
   • Pick a score from 1 (I forgot) to 5 (I could recite it in my sleep).
   • Chronote writes the score and the next review date into the note's frontmatter. Open the Dashboard to see it appear under "Due Reviews."

First run? The first time you activate Chronote (or open the Dashboard), a short welcome modal walks you through this loop. Both shortcuts are defaults — you can rebind or remove them anytime in Settings → Hotkeys.

How to use Chronote day to day

This is the rhythm most people settle into:

1. Keep studying your way

Chronote doesn't change how you take notes. Write the way you always do. When a note contains something you want to remember — a definition, a concept, a fact — add two short lines to the top of the file:

---
confidence: 4
next_review: 2026-06-20
interval: 7
---

If you don't want to write YAML, you don't have to: scoring through the Log Chronote Review command fills this in for you.

2. Review what's due

Open the Dashboard. The Due Reviews panel shows what's on your plate today. Click a note to open it, then run Log Chronote Review and pick a score. Chronote pushes the next review out further (or pulls it back in, if you forgot).

3. Group notes into a test

When an exam or deadline is approaching, create a Test from the Dashboard (click + in the Upcoming Tests panel). Then, on any note you want to study for it, press Option+T (Alt+T on Windows/Linux) or run Add Current File to Test from the Command Palette. Chronote tracks your overall preparation and syncs the exam date to every linked note.

4. Let the AI help

• Plan your revision — Open the chat from the Dashboard and ask something like "What should I review today?" The AI checks what's due and what tests are coming up, then tells you what to prioritize.
• Generate flashcards — In the chat, ask "Make flashcards from the photosynthesis note." Chronote proposes cards, you flip through them, and you save the ones you like into a deck.
• Take a quiz — Ask for a quiz on a note or topic. The AI writes the questions, you answer them, and you get immediate feedback.
• Find things in your vault — Ask "What did I write about spaced repetition?" Chronote searches your indexed notes and shows you the relevant passages.

5. Stay in control

• Cap your daily reviews. In Settings → Chronote → Study, set a daily review limit. If you fall behind, overflow automatically shifts to the next day.
• Remove a note from a test. Open the test in the Dashboard and click Remove next to the note. Chronote deletes that test link and clears its test date unless the note is still linked to another test.
• Take a break. Chronote is just YAML in your notes. If you stop using the plugin, your notes still work, and your data still works.

Tips

• Start with 5–10 notes. Don't try to index your entire vault on day one. Add a handful of important notes, log a few reviews, and get a feel for the loop before scaling up.
• Reviews are cheap. A "review" can take 5–10 seconds if you already know the material. The point is the small, frequent touch.
• The AI only sees what you ask about. Chronote sends a prompt to your chosen AI provider when you open the chat. It does not silently upload your vault.
• Local first. If you'd rather nothing leave your computer, run Ollama or LM Studio on your laptop and pick them in Settings. Both work for chat and for vault indexing.

Documentation

• docs/architecture.md — System design, data flow, and subsystem overview
• docs/security.md — API key storage, and privacy model
• docs/developer-guide.md — Setup, build commands, and conventions for contributors

Requirements

• Obsidian desktop
• For AI features (optional — turn them off in Settings → Chronote → AI features if you don't want them):
  • A free local server (Ollama, LM Studio) — recommended if you don't want to send your data anywhere
  • Or an API key for Google Gemini, OpenAI, Anthropic, or any OpenAI-compatible service

Privacy at a glance

• Your notes stay in your vault. Chronote only reads them.
• API keys and review state are stored inside the plugin's data.json, in your vault. They are not encrypted; if you sync your vault to a cloud service you trust, this is fine — if you don't, keep that in mind.
• When you ask the AI a question, the question (and any context Chronote needs to answer it) is sent to the AI provider you've selected. Pick a local one if you'd rather keep that on your machine.
• Want zero AI? Settings → Chronote → AI features → Enable AI features turns everything off with one switch — chat, vault indexing, flashcard and quiz proposals, and provider credentials disappear. Chronote keeps working fully offline: reviews, tests, and studying all run locally and make no network calls.
• No analytics, no telemetry, no background phone-home.