Quick Note

Capture thoughts instantly without leaving your workflow. One hotkey from anywhere on your desktop -- a minimal popup appears, you type, and the note lands in your Obsidian vault with full context about what you were working on. No app switching, no friction, no lost ideas.

Quick Note knows where you are. It captures the VS Code project you have open, the browser tab you're reading, or the terminal path you're working in -- and attaches that context to every note automatically.

  

Why Quick Note?

Your best ideas don't arrive on schedule. They hit while you're debugging, reading docs, or reviewing code -- and they vanish just as fast if you have to context-switch to write them down.

Quick Note eliminates that friction. Press Win+Shift+N, type your thought, and hit Enter. Your note is saved as a properly formatted Obsidian markdown file, tagged and timestamped, with a link back to exactly what you were doing. You never leave your current window for more than a few seconds.

Features

Instant Capture

• Global hotkey (Win+Shift+N) -- popup appears instantly from any application
• Resizable window with dark/light theme support that matches your system preference
• Full keyboard control -- Ctrl+C/V/X/A/Z all work natively in the editor

Smart Context Detection

Every note automatically records what you were doing when inspiration struck:

Source	What's captured
VS Code	Project name
Chrome / Edge / Firefox	Page title + full URL (via Windows UI Automation)
Windows Terminal / Git Bash	Working directory / project path
Any other app	Window title

Organization

• Tag buttons -- one-click categorization: project, idea, todo, learning
• Auto-tag inference -- notes starting with action words (fix, bug, update, add, remove, change, debug, broken) are tagged todo; speculative phrases (maybe, what if, could we, should we) become idea
• Obsidian-ready output -- proper YAML frontmatter, kebab-case filenames, drops into your 00-Inbox/ folder

AI Integration

• Send to Claude (Ctrl+Shift+Enter) -- opens an interactive Claude Code session pre-loaded with your question and the URL you were viewing

Notepad++ Watcher

A background file watcher monitors a folder for .txt files saved from Notepad++ (or any editor). Multi-note files are automatically split on --- separators or two or more blank lines, and each chunk becomes its own Inbox entry. Great for brain-dump sessions.

Example Output

A note captured while working in VS Code:

---
type: note
tags: [quick-capture, todo]
created: "2026-03-22T14:30:52"
source: "vscode"
context: "project: homelab-dashboard"
---

# Fix the sidebar alignment

## Captured Context
- **From**: vscode -- homelab-dashboard
- **When**: 2026-03-22 14:30

A note captured while reading in Chrome:

---
type: note
tags: [quick-capture, learning]
created: "2026-03-22T15:10:00"
source: "chrome"
context: "page: How DNS Works | url: https://example.com/dns-guide"
---

# Interesting DNS article

## Captured Context
- **From**: chrome -- "How DNS Works"
- **URL**: https://example.com/dns-guide
- **When**: 2026-03-22 15:10

Requirements

• Windows 10 or 11
• AutoHotkey v2
• Python 3.12+ with watchdog
• An Obsidian vault with an 00-Inbox/ folder
• Claude Code CLI (optional, for the Send to Claude feature)

Installation

1. Install AutoHotkey

   winget install AutoHotkey.AutoHotkey
   

2. Clone the repo

   git clone https://github.com/NormlT/quick-note.git
   cd quick-note
   

3. Install Python dependencies

   pip install -r requirements.txt
   

4. Create your config

   mkdir local
   cp quick-note-config.example.json local/quick-note-config.json
   

   Edit local/quick-note-config.json and set your paths:

   Key	Required	Description
   inbox_path	Yes	Your Obsidian vault's inbox folder (e.g. C:/Users/you/Vault/00-Inbox)
   python_path	Yes	Path to your Python executable
   watch_path	Yes	Folder where Notepad++ saves quick notes
   vault_name	No	Your Obsidian vault name for the "Open Inbox" tray action. Auto-derived from inbox_path parent folder if omitted.
   log_path	No	Where to write logs (defaults to local/quick-note.log)
   hotkey	No	Global keyboard shortcut (default: #+n = Win+Shift+N). See Changing the keyboard shortcut.

   The local/ folder is gitignored -- your config, logs, and runtime files stay private.

5. Run it

   Double-click quick-note.ahk or run from a terminal:

   "%LocalAppData%\Programs\AutoHotkey\v2\AutoHotkey64.exe" "quick-note.ahk"
   

6. Auto-start on login (optional)

   Create a shortcut in your Startup folder:

   $WshShell = New-Object -ComObject WScript.Shell
   $Shortcut = $WshShell.CreateShortcut("$env:APPDATA\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\QuickNote.lnk")
   $Shortcut.TargetPath = "$env:LocalAppData\Programs\AutoHotkey\v2\AutoHotkey64.exe"
   $Shortcut.Arguments = '"C:\path\to\quick-note.ahk"'
   $Shortcut.WorkingDirectory = "C:\path\to\quick-note"
   $Shortcut.Save()

Usage

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Win+Shift+N	Open note popup
Ctrl+Enter	Save note to Obsidian
Ctrl+Shift+Enter	Send to Claude
Ctrl+C / V / X	Copy / Paste / Cut
Ctrl+A	Select all
Ctrl+Z	Undo
Escape	Cancel

Tag Buttons

Click a tag to categorize your note. Click again to deselect. If you skip tagging, the auto-tagger will infer one from the note text when possible.

System Tray

Right-click the Quick Note icon in the system tray for:

• New Note -- same as Win+Shift+N
• Open Inbox -- opens the inbox folder in Obsidian
• Pause/Resume Watcher -- toggle the Notepad++ file watcher
• Dark Mode -- toggle between dark and light themes
• Exit -- stop Quick Note and the file watcher

Changing the keyboard shortcut

The default shortcut is Win + Shift + N. To change it, add a hotkey entry to quick-note-config.json (in your local/ folder) using these modifier codes:

Code	Key
#	Win
+	Shift
^	Ctrl
!	Alt

Combine the codes with a letter. Examples:

Config value	Shortcut
"#+n"	Win + Shift + N (default)
"^+n"	Ctrl + Shift + N
"#n"	Win + N
"!+n"	Alt + Shift + N

Add it to your config file like this:

{
    "hotkey": "^+n"
}

The change takes effect automatically within a few seconds (the script watches for config changes).

Architecture

Win+Shift+N
    |
    +-- AHK captures: window title, process name, browser URL (via UI Automation)
    +-- Shows popup GUI (embedded HTML/CSS via WebBrowser control)
    |
    +-- [Save]   --> JSON temp file --> Python enriches context --> .md in Inbox
    +-- [Claude]  --> prompt temp file --> Python launches Claude Code session

The Notepad++ watcher runs as a background process alongside the main AHK script, monitoring for new or changed .txt files. It splits multi-note files on --- separators or two or more blank lines and creates individual Obsidian Inbox entries. A content-hash database prevents duplicate processing.

Project Structure

File	Purpose
quick-note.ahk	AutoHotkey v2 script: hotkey, popup GUI, system tray, browser URL capture
popup.html	HTML/CSS/JS for the note popup UI (rendered in embedded browser control)
note_capture.py	Context enrichment, markdown generation, file writing
note_watcher.py	Notepad++ folder monitor with debounce and note splitting
claude_launcher.py	Launches interactive Claude Code session with prompt context
quick-note-config.example.json	Template config -- copy to local/ and edit
test_note_capture.py	Tests for note capture (45 tests)
test_note_watcher.py	Tests for note watcher (8 tests)

Running Tests

pip install pytest
python -m pytest test_note_capture.py test_note_watcher.py -v

License

MIT