Grug Notes

A simple self-organizing tool for text.

Paid

Description

Grug Notes provides a straightforward, web-based platform for capturing plain text notes quickly and easily. Designed with minimal friction in mind, it offers basic formatting and wiki-like features such as internal linking and tagging. The core strength lies in its integrated AI, which assists users by automatically identifying and organizing key information like people, companies, and dates found within the notes. This AI also extracts relevant attributes and powers a semantic search function, allowing users to find information by asking natural language questions, effectively turning unstructured text into an organized knowledge base.

Inspired by the needs of a manufacturing business, Grug Notes emphasizes speed, particularly on cold starts, and functional design over complex features. It aims to be a practical tool for users who need to keep track of information like customer relationships, maintenance logs, or operational procedures but prefer not to spend time manually organizing. The AI handles much of the structuring automatically, creating backlinks and grouping notes to surface relevant connections without user intervention, positioning itself as a 'second brain' or database for unstructured information.

Key Features

Plain Text Notes: Easy, fast note-taking with minimal formatting.
AI Organization: Automatically identifies and links people, companies, and natural language dates.
Attribute & Data Extraction: AI pulls structured data and attributes from notes.
Semantic Search: Find information by asking natural language questions about your notes.
Wiki Functionality: Supports markdown styling, [[links]], #tags, and attributes for long-term knowledge organization.
Automatic Backlinks: Creates links from AI analysis, tags, and auto tags to group related notes.
Voice Notes: Features push-to-talk recording, talk-to-edit, and speech-to-search functionality.

Use Cases

Simple note-taking
Personal knowledge management (PKM)
Organizing unstructured information
Tracking customer relationships
Logging machine maintenance
Improving quality control documentation
Maintaining operating manuals
Building a 'second brain' or personal database
Small business record-keeping

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this PKM or TFT software?

We fit those categories but aim to be general-purpose productivity software. Our focus is on improving organization and record-keeping, generalized from the needs of a canoe manufacturing company. We hope others find it useful for both personal and small business use.

What are the core features?

We have #hashtags and [[bracket tags]] to create links internally. We have backlinks and tag synonyms. Each tag is a "prompt" with its own URL. We think of each text box as an individual plain text file. AI automatically extracts datatypes like dates, people, and companies, along with attributes. Some outliner-like functionality (indentation) and markdown support are included.

Who should not use this?

If you require local-first storage, end-to-end encryption, extensive media support (images, PDFs), or enjoy manually creating complex organizational systems, Grug Notes might not be the best fit.

Why should I invest my time in an app that may be around for only a short time?

We have no funding but are part of Kamanu Composites (est. 2007) and aim for sustainability with about 100 users. The developer has a long history of maintaining websites. Data import/export features are planned to avoid lock-in.

What's the long-term vision?

To be a tool to manage information simply, inspired by manufacturing needs to simplify processes. We aim to use AI to make software more straightforward and solve real problems for personal use and small businesses.