grove.el

An Obsidian-like note-taking mode for Emacs. One keybinding opens a full workspace with a file tree sidebar and your org notes.

Features

• File tree sidebar with expand/collapse, indent guides, current file tracking, item counts, optional nerd font icons, and note preview on navigation
• Quick capture — just type, first line becomes the title, saved to your inbox
• Wikilinks — [[note title]] syntax with font-lock, click to follow, create on missing
• Backlinks — ripgrep-powered, computed on demand, displayed in a side panel
• Daily notes — one keybinding for today, yesterday, or tomorrow
• Search — full-text ripgrep search with optional Consult integration
• Tag search — find notes by #hashtag or org :tag: syntax
• Inbox review — triage untagged notes
• Graph view — visualize note connections via Graphviz

No database. No external Emacs dependencies. Just org files, a directory, and ripgrep.

Requirements

• Emacs 29.1+
• ripgrep (rg) on your PATH

Optional:

• Consult for live search with preview
• Graphviz (dot) for graph view
• Nerd Fonts for file/folder icons in the tree sidebar

Installation

MELPA

Grove is available on MELPA. After adding MELPA to your package archives:

(use-package grove
  :ensure t
  :bind-keymap ("C-c v" . grove-command-map)
  :custom
  (grove-directory "~/notes/")
  :config
  (global-grove-mode 1))

global-grove-mode activates grove-mode in any org buffer that lives inside grove-directory, which enables wikilink font-locking and the C-c C-l keybinding for inserting links. Omit it if you’d rather enable grove-mode manually per buffer.

Manual

Clone the repository and add it to your load path:

(use-package grove
  :load-path "~/path/to/grove"
  :bind-keymap ("C-c v" . grove-command-map)
  :custom
  (grove-directory "~/notes/")
  :config
  (global-grove-mode 1))

Usage

Set your vault directory and press C-c v v to open the workspace.

Key	Command	Description
C-c v v	grove-open	Open the grove workspace
C-c v q	grove-close	Close and restore layout
C-c v n	grove-capture	Quick capture a new note
C-c v f	grove-find	Find note by title
C-c v s	grove-search	Full-text ripgrep search
C-c v d	grove-daily	Open today’s daily note
C-c v b	grove-backlinks	Show backlinks for note
C-c v t	grove-search-tag	Search by tag
C-c v i	grove-inbox-review	Triage untagged notes
C-c v l	grove-link-insert	Insert a wikilink
C-c v g	grove-graph	Show vault graph

Tree sidebar

Key	Action
RET	Open file / toggle dir
TAB	Toggle directory expand
n / C-n	Next entry (with preview)
p / C-p	Previous entry (with preview)
g	Refresh tree
q	Close sidebar

Capture

C-c v n opens *grove-capture*, a blank org buffer. Type freely — no prompts, no template. The first line becomes the title; everything below becomes the body.

• C-c C-c saves to the inbox
• C-c C-k discards

For example, typing:

Project ideas for next quarter

- migrate to ripgrep
- add a graph view

and pressing C-c C-c writes inbox/project-ideas-for-next-quarter.org:

#+title: Project ideas for next quarter

- migrate to ripgrep
- add a graph view

Filenames are derived from the title (lowercased, spaces to dashes). A numeric suffix is appended on collision.

Inbox review

C-c v i opens *grove-inbox*, a triage buffer that lists notes needing attention. The buffer groups notes by the reason they showed up — currently, Untagged: notes with no #+filetags: line and no inline #hashtags.

Key	Action
RET	Visit the note at point
n / p	Move to next / previous line
g	Refresh the buffer
q	Close the buffer

The intended workflow is short loops: open the inbox, jump into a note with RET, add tags or wikilinks, save, and either come back with C-c v i or refresh in place with g. Notes drop off the list as you tag them, so the buffer doubles as a progress indicator.

The list is built from the vault cache, so it covers your whole vault — not just files under grove-inbox-directory. Tag a note anywhere and it disappears from the next refresh.

Graph

C-c v g renders a graph of all notes and their [[wikilinks]] using Graphviz. Requires dot on your PATH.

The graph display adapts to your frame width — on wide frames (160+ columns) it opens as a right side panel, otherwise it uses a full buffer. You can override this with grove-graph-display: 'side, 'buffer, or 'auto (default).

Use + / - to zoom in/out and 0 to fit to window.

Configuration

;; Required: set your vault directory
(setq grove-directory "~/notes/")

;; Optional: customize subdirectories (defaults shown)
(setq grove-inbox-directory "inbox")
(setq grove-daily-directory "daily")

;; Optional: daily note filename format (default shown)
(setq grove-daily-format "%Y-%m-%d")

;; Optional: tree sidebar width (default shown)
(setq grove-tree-width 30)

;; Optional: show nerd font icons in the tree sidebar
(setq grove-tree-icons t)

;; Optional: graph view settings (defaults shown)
(setq grove-graph-layout "neato")    ; or "dot", "fdp", "sfdp"
(setq grove-graph-display 'auto)     ; or 'side, 'buffer
(setq grove-graph-min-width 160)     ; frame width threshold for auto

License

GPL-3.0. See LICENSE.