I built Google Keep for Developers — here's why

#webdev #showdev #productivity #google

Every developer I know has the same problem: code snippets scattered across 15 different places.

A regex you wrote six months ago? Somewhere in a Slack DM. That Docker Compose template you always reuse? Maybe in a Notion page. The SQL query that saved you three hours last quarter? Lost in a .txt file called notes_final_v2.txt.

I tried everything — GitHub Gists, Notion, Apple Notes, random text files, bookmarked Stack Overflow answers. None of them felt right. Gists are too heavy for a quick snippet. Notion doesn't understand code. Google Keep is perfect for quick capture, but try pasting a 20-line function in there — no syntax highlighting, no Markdown, no structure.

So I built CodesKeep — Google Keep, but designed from the ground up for developers.

What it does

CodesKeep is a web app for saving, organizing, and finding your code snippets and Markdown notes. Think of it as the simplicity of Google Keep meets the developer-awareness of a code editor.

Here's what makes it different:

Markdown & code-first — full Markdown support with syntax highlighting out of the box. Your notes look like they belong in a README, not a sticky note.
Instant capture — open it, paste your snippet, tag it, done. No friction, no folder hierarchies to navigate.
Search that actually works — find that snippet by language, tag, keyword, or content. No more digging through 50 untitled notes.
Built for reuse — snippets are meant to be grabbed and dropped into your project. Copy with one click.

Why I built it

I'm an Android developer by day. I work in Kotlin, Jetpack Compose, and a bunch of other tools — and I was constantly losing useful code. Not big libraries or modules, but the small stuff:

A Compose modifier chain I always forget
Environment variable configs for different projects
Bash one-liners for Docker cleanup
API response formats I reference weekly

These are too small for a repo, too important for a sticky note, and too code-heavy for a regular notes app.

I realized what I actually wanted was Google Keep with syntax highlighting and Markdown. That's it. Not a full IDE, not a documentation platform, not a second brain. Just a fast, clean place to keep code notes.

The stack

For those curious about the technical side:

Frontend: Modern web app, responsive and fast
Focus: Speed of capture and retrieval — the two things that matter most for a snippet tool

I intentionally kept the feature set tight. Every snippet manager I tried suffered from feature bloat — team workspaces, presentation modes, social sharing, marketplace integrations. Those are fine for some products, but they slow down the one thing I actually need: save this code now, find it later.

What's next

I'm actively building and would love feedback from the community. Some things on the roadmap:

Browser extension — snip code blocks directly from Stack Overflow, GitHub, or docs
VS Code / JetBrains integration — save and insert snippets without leaving your editor
Team sharing — share collections with your team (without the bloat)
API access — for the automation-minded among us