--- title: "Your First Note" description: "Create your first note in the web editor: the file tree, the title as the first line, and saving as a plain .md file on disk." --- # Your First Note You made it through setup and landed in the editor. Now let's create your first note and see what happens on disk: in Notarium a note isn't a row in someone else's database — it's an ordinary `.md` file in your own folder. Everything you write sits there as plain Markdown text that opens in any editor and outlives Notarium itself. ## The file tree on the left On the left is the tree of folders and notes in your space. It mirrors the file structure under `/data/spaces` one-to-one: a folder in the tree is a folder on disk, a note is a file inside it. The tree is built for tens of thousands of entries and loads a folder's contents as you expand it. This is also where the core operations live: create a note or folder, rename in place, drag it into another folder. One important detail: changing the folder or the title of an existing note **moves the file itself** rather than spawning a duplicate. > [!note] Empty folders are first-class > A folder doesn't disappear when you remove its last note. You can lay out your structure ahead of time. ## The title is the first line Notarium has **no separate "Title" field**. A note's title is its leading `# H1` — that is, the first line of the document. You edit it right there in the text, just like everything else. A new note opens already on a `# ` line with the cursor sitting at the title — just start typing. If there's no leading `# H1`, the title becomes the first non-empty prose line — a quick jot doesn't turn into a database full of "Untitled." But if the document opens with a structural block (code, list, quote, table, an H2-or-lower heading) and no title ever gets set, the note won't save without a title: that way the first line of code doesn't silently leak into the title. The title ties together the file name, search, the graph, and history — which is why there's a single editing surface instead of a "field + body" that drifts apart. ## Writing modes Notarium always edits **raw Markdown** — the single source of truth. How that text looks while you edit it is set by the writing mode (a personal preference in **Settings → Appearance**): - **Source** (default) — raw Markdown as-is: monospaced font, syntax highlighting. Markers like `#`, `**`, `[]()` show up as plain text. For those who work with the source directly. - **WYSIWYM** — "what you see is what you mean": the text is styled (headings larger, bold rendered bold, quotes with a background), but the Markdown markers stay on screen, dimmed. Line length doesn't change, so the caret doesn't "jump." Both modes edit the very same line and save it byte-for-byte the same — switching the mode doesn't change the file's contents. Separate from the modes is the **Preview** button in the top bar: at any moment it shows the final HTML render of the note, without saving. For longer texts there are the writing helpers **Focus** (dims everything except the active sentence/line/paragraph) and **Typewriter** (keeps the line with the caret centered). ## Links between notes Wiki-links work inside the text: `[[note title]]` or `[[title|label]]`. A click takes you to that note within the app. If no note with that title exists, Notarium offers to create it — and until then it hangs in the link graph as a hollow "ghost" node. ## Saving and what lands on disk Saving is `Ctrl/Cmd+Enter`. What goes to disk is clean Markdown with no re-escaping or re-normalization: exactly what you typed. Notarium derives the file name from the title (kebab-case, transliterating Cyrillic), so the file reads well outside the app too. A small frontmatter block goes at the top of the file, and in it is the **`notarium-id`** key: a stable 12-character identifier for the note. It — not the path or the file name — is the note's true identity: renaming and moving between folders don't break links or lose version history, because the log is keyed to `notarium-id`. > [!tip] Editing from outside is a normal mode > Edited the `.md` file in another editor, or pulled it from git? Notarium picks up the changes on its next scan. The files stay the source of truth; the index simply rebuilds to match them. Every save goes into the **revision history**: a full snapshot of the note's state with provenance — who edited it and how (you, an external editor, or an agent). Any version can be viewed, compared, and rolled back. ## Next - [Connect an agent](/docs/getting-started/connect-agent/) — let an AI agent write into the same knowledge base over MCP. - [Editor](/docs/guides/editor/) and [Keyboard shortcuts](/docs/guides/hotkeys/) — modes, formatting, and shortcuts in detail. - [File-first](/docs/concepts/file-first/) and [Versions and history](/docs/concepts/versioning/) — how the storage model works.