VS Journal

VS Journal is a lightweight journaling extension for Visual Studio Code, designed for quickly capturing daily work notes.

It allows you to organize Markdown-based notes with hashtags, letting you keep a seamless work log without ever leaving your editor.

GitHub: https://github.com/watagashi-dev/vs-journal

Overview

VS Journal is designed for developers who use VS Code daily and want a frictionless way to keep work notes.

• Fully Local: All data is stored as local Markdown files.
• No Database Required: Notes are managed on a simple file-based system.
• High Performance: The lightweight design ensures it won't interrupt your workflow.

Installation

Install VS Journal from the VS Code Marketplace.

1. Open the Extensions view (Ctrl+Shift+X)
2. Search for VS Journal
3. Click Install

Alternatively, install it directly from the marketplace:

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/

Quick Start

1. Open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P / Cmd+Shift+P)
2. Run VS Journal: New Entry
3. Start writing your notes in Markdown and organize them using hashtags.

Example:

# Work Notes — 2026-03-05

_March 5, 2026_ _10:15_

## Today's Work

- Updated the README
- Implemented tag support
- Improved the UI

#work #project/vs-journal

Screenshots

Editing an Entry

Easily write notes in Markdown. Tag autocompletion is also supported.

Markdown Preview

Click a title in the tag tree to open the preview. In the preview, click anywhere or press Enter to switch back to the editor.

Tag View

Organize and browse your notes in a tree structure based on hashtags.

Features

1. Lightweight by Design

VS Journal is built to be fast. It doesn't require complex setups or heavy databases.

2. Markdown-Based

All notes are saved as standard .md files.

• Leverage VS Code's powerful editing features.
• Your data is portable, making backups or migrations to other tools easy.

3. Hashtag-Based Organization

Flexibly organize your content using hashtags.

Example:

#work
#idea
#project/vs-journal

Hierarchical Tags: Tags can be nested using a / separator (up to 4 levels deep). Example: #project/dev/frontend

Note: Hashtags are only recognized as tags when they appear on their own line or on a heading line. Hashtags within a sentence are ignored.

4. Tag Autocompletion

Existing tags are suggested as you type, helping you avoid typos and classify notes efficiently.

5. Local File Storage

By default, notes are saved in $HOME/vsJournal, but you can configure this to any folder you prefer.

Usage

Creating a New Entry

Run the following command from the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P / Cmd+Shift+P):

VS Journal: New Entry

Shortcut:

• Windows / Linux: Ctrl+Alt+N
• macOS: Cmd+Option+N

Writing a Note

Simply write your notes in Markdown. When creating a new file, the current date and time can be automatically inserted based on your settings.

Previewing a Note

Click on a file in the tag tree to open a preview.

• Click anywhere in the preview or press Enter to switch to edit mode.
• Click an external link to open it in your browser.

Commands

Keyboard Shortcuts

Configuration

You can customize the extension's behavior in your VS Code settings (settings.json).

Example settings.json:

{
  "vsJournal.journalDir": "/Users/username/Document/Journal",
  "vsJournal.autoSave": 3000,
  "vsJournal.enableDateTime": false
}

Directory Structure

Files are stored flatly in the specified directory without creating subfolders, simplifying file management.

vsJournal/
├── 2025-03-07-10-08.md
├── 2025-03-08-14-30.md
└── 2026-01-01-18-23.md

Philosophy

This tool was created for those who want a simple, fast, and self-contained note-taking system that lives inside VS Code. The goal is to reduce context switching and manage notes across different topics (tags) and dates.

The design is heavily inspired by HOWM (Hitori Otegaru Wiki Modoki) for Emacs.

Roadmap

• [ ] Add support for virtual tags
• [ ] Concatenated preview for multiple files
• [ ] Enhanced Markdown input assistance
• [ ] Improved tree view for heading tags

License

MIT License