AI assistant
Noted's AI features work with a provider you choose and configure. Nothing is sent anywhere until you set one up, and by default requests to cloud providers are masked for personal data first (see PII masking).
Providers
Configure your provider in Settings → AI.
Cloud
- OpenAI
- Anthropic
- Google Gemini
- OpenRouter
Local
- LM Studio (OpenAI-compatible, default
http://localhost:1234/v1) - Ollama (default
http://localhost:11434)
For local providers, if you leave the model blank Noted auto-detects one by querying the running server; you can also press Detect models to pick from the list. For cloud providers you enter an API key (stored with the macOS Keychain via safeStorage when available) and a model name.
A provider counts as configured when a cloud provider has an API key, or a local provider has a model available. Until then, the assistant shows a setup prompt instead of running.
No streaming
Responses are returned whole rather than token-by-token. Requests time out after 60 seconds and retry with backoff on transient errors; failures surface as clear, localized messages (bad key, rate limit, model not found, provider unreachable, and so on).
Inline suggestions (ghost text)
As you write, Noted can propose a faint continuation after your cursor. Press Tab to accept it, Esc to dismiss it, or just keep typing to clear it.
Choose the behavior in Settings → Editor → AI suggestions:
- Off
- Manual — trigger a suggestion on demand with ⌘L (the default)
- Auto while typing — suggestions appear on their own after a brief pause
Slash commands
Type / at the start of a block (or after a space) to open the AI command menu:
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
| Continue | Continues the text for a few sentences |
| Expand | Expands and deepens the surrounding text |
| Summarize | Summarizes the whole note into a few bullets |
| Improve | Improves clarity and flow, keeping your meaning |
| Bullets | Rewrites the text as a bullet list |
| Translate | Translates between Italian and English (other languages to English) |
Navigate with the arrow keys, run with Enter or Tab, and press Stop to abort a running command.
AI actions bar
Enable the actions bar with Settings → Editor → Show AI bar (off by default). It sits under the toolbar with two groups:
- Transform — Continue (appends), and Expand, Shorten, Refine (rewrite the selected text).
- Analysis — Summarize, Review, Devil's advocate, and Q&A, each appended below a divider.
Rewrite actions require a text selection, so they can never silently overwrite a whole note; a badge shows when a selection is active. Any running action turns into a Stop button.
Chat
Open the AI Assistant tab in the right panel to chat with your notes as context. The chat sends the active note (trimmed to a configurable size) plus the most relevant notes from your vault, retrieved automatically. It keeps the last ten turns and can be cleared at any time.
Retrieval (RAG)
When it needs context, the assistant retrieves the most relevant notes from your vault rather than sending everything.
- By default retrieval is lexical (TF-IDF over note chunks) — fast and fully local.
- Optionally, enable dense embeddings (Settings → Integrations, labeled Beta) for hybrid semantic retrieval, using OpenAI, LM Studio, or Ollama to compute embeddings.
Retrieval is tunable in Settings → AI: how many notes to send (Top-K, default 3), how many notes to consider (default 100), and how much of the active note to include (default 8000 characters). A debug toggle shows the per-note relevance scores.
PII masking
Masking is on by default. Before any request goes to a cloud provider, Noted replaces detected personal data — emails, phone numbers, card numbers, and similar patterns — with typed placeholders such as [EMAIL_1]. Requests to local providers (LM Studio, Ollama) are sent verbatim, since they never leave your machine.
You can toggle it under Settings → Editor → PII masking. The chat panel shows a shield indicator and how many items were masked.
A hint, not a guarantee
PII masking is a best-effort filter over common patterns, not a security boundary. Review sensitive content before sending it to a cloud provider.
Smart tag suggestions
Enable smart tags (Settings → AI, off by default) to have Noted suggest a few tags after a substantial edit. Suggestions appear as a dismissible chip picker; accepted tags are appended to the note.
Next steps
- Git integration — version your vault and open pull requests.