MemoBox

Japanese README

MemoBox is a VS Code extension for daily memo workflows. It focuses on a maintainable architecture, practical memo operations, and an opt-in AI layer.

Status

• Current release: 0.1.0
• Positioning: initial public release

MemoBox 0.1.0 is intended to be a usable daily memo extension for VS Code with a stable core workflow, built-in setup/admin surfaces, incremental indexing, and an optional AI layer.

Screenshots

Admin dashboard:

First-run setup:

Workflow demo:

Quick memo:

Grep:

Setup:

AI title assist:

Features

• Dated memo creation with template selection
• Quick append into today's memo
• List/Edit, tag browse, grep, todo extraction, and related memo discovery
• Relative memo link insertion and Markdown link completion
• Backlink lookup and [[memo]] open-or-create flow
• Markdown slash commands, table formatting, and footnote helpers
• Admin dashboard, Setup flow, workspace-file generation, and custom pages
• Persisted memo index with backup recovery, incremental updates, and maintenance commands
• Template and snippet scaffolding from bundled resources
• Localized command titles, settings, Admin UI, and Setup UI
• Output-channel logging for MemoBox and AI operations
• Optional AI title, summary, tag, translation, Q&A, report, and link assistance

Commands

Core commands:

• MemoBox: New Memo
• MemoBox: Today's Quick Memo
• MemoBox: List/Edit
• MemoBox: Browse Tags
• MemoBox: Insert Memo Link
• MemoBox: Show Backlinks
• MemoBox: Open or Create [[memo]]
• MemoBox: Grep
• MemoBox: Todo
• MemoBox: Related Memos
• MemoBox: Re:Date
• MemoBox: Open Markdown In Browser
• MemoBox: Format Markdown Table
• MemoBox: Insert Footnote

Setup and maintenance:

• MemoBox Admin: Open Admin
• MemoBox Admin: Open Setup
• MemoBox Admin: Open Settings
• MemoBox Admin: Create Workspace
• MemoBox Admin: Open Memo Folder
• MemoBox Admin: Refresh Index
• MemoBox Admin: Rebuild Index
• MemoBox Admin: Clear Index Cache
• MemoBox Admin: Show Logs
• MemoBox Admin: Show AI Logs
• MemoBox: Open Custom Page

AI commands, hidden by default until memobox.aiEnabled is enabled:

• MemoBox: AI Generate Title
• MemoBox: AI Summarize
• MemoBox: AI Auto Tag
• MemoBox: AI Proofread
• MemoBox: AI Translate
• MemoBox: AI Question
• MemoBox: AI Suggest Template
• MemoBox: AI Report
• MemoBox: AI Link Suggest
• MemoBox: AI Set API Key
• MemoBox: AI Clear Stored API Key

Default keybindings:

• Ctrl+Alt+N for New Memo
• Ctrl+Alt+T for Today's Quick Memo
• Ctrl+Alt+G for Grep
• Ctrl+Alt+Shift+M for Open Admin

Daily Workflow

MemoBox: New Memo creates a dated memo file under memobox.memodir using memobox.datePathFormat. It supports template selection from .vscode-memobox/templates/*.md, seeded filenames from the current selection or clipboard, and optional date suffixes.

MemoBox: Today's Quick Memo appends a timestamped block to today's memo. titlePrefix and dateFormat control the inserted heading format.

MemoBox: Insert Memo Link inserts a relative Markdown link to another memo. Link completion also works while typing [[... or a Markdown link target like [Label](https://github.com/mmiyaji/vscode-memobox/blob/HEAD/, and it tolerates small typos in longer queries.

MemoBox: Show Backlinks lists memos that already point to the active memo and jumps to the matching line. MemoBox: Open or Create [[memo]] resolves the wiki-style link under the cursor, replacing it with a relative Markdown link and creating a new dated memo when no exact match exists.

MemoBox also adds lightweight Markdown authoring helpers:

• Slash commands in Markdown when typing /
• MemoBox: Format Markdown Table for the selected pipe table
• MemoBox: Insert Footnote to insert a numbered footnote reference and append the matching definition

Command Launcher

MemoBox: Commands opens a grouped QuickPick launcher for Daily, Context, Maintenance, and AI commands. It is optional, but useful when you want a smaller command surface than the global Command Palette.

Templates and Snippets

MemoBox scaffolds bundled starter assets from resources/scaffold into the memo metadata directories. The default scaffold currently includes:

• simple.md
• meeting.md
• memo.json

The default templates start with YAML frontmatter and include:

• title
• tags
• date

simple.md includes a starter inbox tag. Template and snippet directories can live either under the default meta directory or at custom absolute paths via settings.

Indexing Model

MemoBox keeps a persisted metadata index for memo files. That index stores path, timestamps, size, frontmatter title, and frontmatter tags, but does not cache full memo bodies.

Current behavior:

• Initial load reads the persisted index from primary -> backup -> transient backup
• Normal editing uses incremental updates driven by save, create, delete, and rename events
• Full recursive scans are reserved for first load, explicit maintenance refreshes, unknown change sources, and periodic verification
• Unreadable files are skipped instead of failing the whole operation
• Safe writes use temp files plus backup files to reduce corruption risk

This index powers:

• List/Edit
• Browse Tags
• Related Memos
• Grep
• Todo
• Memo link insertion and completion
• Admin summaries

Admin, Setup, and Custom Pages

MemoBox uses two built-in webviews and supports user-authored custom pages:

• Setup Used for first-run and repair flows. It stores memobox.memodir globally first, then optionally creates a .code-workspace file.
• Admin Used as an operational dashboard for recent files, pinned files, tags, templates, snippets, AI status, logs, and index state. Custom page links appear in the Admin panel when pages are available.
• Custom Pages User-authored HTML pages placed in .vscode-memobox/pages/. Each page opens in its own independent webview panel. Pages support template variables ({{VERSION}}, {{MEMO_ROOT}}, {{TOTAL_FILES}}, etc.) and loop blocks ({{#each RECENT_FILES}}...{{/each}}). Pages can also be opened from the Command Palette via MemoBox: Open Custom Page.

The Admin dashboard can also toggle memobox.adminOpenOnStartup.

AI

AI is explicitly opt-in.

• memobox.aiEnabled Default: false
• memobox.ai Structured JSON configuration for profiles, provider settings, timeouts, and network options

When AI is disabled:

• AI commands are hidden from the Command Palette
• AI submenu entries are hidden from the Markdown editor context menu

API keys are resolved in this order:

1. VS Code SecretStorage
2. apiKeyEnv
3. apiKey in settings JSON (legacy compatibility)

For OpenAI-style profiles, SecretStorage or environment variables are preferred over direct settings JSON.

Set an API key with SecretStorage:

1. Enable memobox.aiEnabled.
2. Configure memobox.ai with the profile you want to use.
3. Open the Command Palette and run MemoBox: AI Set API Key.
4. Choose the target profile.
5. Paste the API key and confirm.

The stored key does not appear in settings.json. To remove it, run MemoBox: AI Clear Stored API Key.

Logging

MemoBox writes to two VS Code output channels:

• MemoBox
• MemoBox AI

Use memobox.logLevel to control verbosity. The default is warn.

• off
• error
• warn
• info

The Admin dashboard includes buttons to open both log channels.

Configuration

Current settings surface:

• memobox.memodir
• memobox.datePathFormat
• memobox.memotemplate
• memobox.metaDir
• memobox.templatesDir
• memobox.snippetsDir
• memobox.titlePrefix
• memobox.dateFormat
• memobox.memoNewFilenameFromClipboard
• memobox.memoNewFilenameFromSelection
• memobox.memoNewFilenameDateSuffix
• memobox.listSortOrder
• memobox.listDisplayExtname
• memobox.displayFileBirthTime
• memobox.openMarkdownPreview
• memobox.searchMaxResults
• memobox.excludeDirectories
• memobox.maxScanDepth
• memobox.grepViewMode
• memobox.todoPattern
• memobox.relatedMemoLimit
• memobox.recentCount
• memobox.adminOpenOnStartup
• memobox.locale
• memobox.logLevel
• memobox.aiEnabled
• memobox.ai

Development

Requirements:

• Node.js 20.19.0
• npm 10.x

Commands:

npm install
npm run build
npm run lint
npm run test
npm run validate
npm run test:e2e
npm run capture:readme-screenshots
npm run capture:readme-gif

Run the extension in VS Code:

1. Open this repository in VS Code.
2. Run npm install.
3. Press F5 to launch the extension host.
4. Run MemoBox Admin: Open Admin from the Command Palette.

Packaging and Tests

• Unit tests cover core logic such as indexing, grep/todo, tags, related memos, templates, snippets, logging, and link completion.
• Playwright E2E covers Setup, Admin pin/unpin, New Memo template selection, Grep/Todo flows, settings grouping, and AI command visibility.
• VSIX packaging excludes docs, tests, Playwright assets, scripts, and source maps through .vscodeignore.

Package a VSIX:

npm run package:vsix

Repository Structure

src/
  core/         domain logic and configuration
  features/     VS Code commands and UI features
  infra/        provider-specific integrations such as AI
  shared/       shared helpers and extension metadata
test/           unit tests for pure modules
docs/           product notes and planning
resources/      scaffold files and webview templates

License

MIT

MemoBox is developed under the influence of satokaz/vscode-memo-life-for-you. It is an experimental extension shaped around the features I personally want to use.