Here's a question most note-taking apps would rather you didn't ask: who owns your notes?
The uncomfortable answer, for most cloud note apps, is: they do. Your notes live on their servers, in their private format. Export is messy, migration is painful, and — in the AI era — your years of notes may quietly become training data for someone else's model.
reflect-open (1.4k stars, MIT) is the open-source rewrite of Reflect, and it takes the opposite stance: your notes are plain Markdown files in a folder you choose. Nothing more.
Data sovereignty as the default
reflect-open doesn't lock your data:
- Notes are just Markdown files on disk, not records in an app-only database;
- No account required;
- Sync via iCloud Drive, or versioned backup via git/GitHub;
- Want to leave? Copy the folder. Every note comes with you, intact.
The value isn't subtle. It's the difference between "your notes are this app's data" and "your notes are your files" — the latter surviving even if the app dies next decade.
It ships an "ask your notes" feature
⌘J queries your notes through your own OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, or OpenRouter key, and every answer cites the source notes. Two details matter: the key is yours (no lock-in to its cloud), and answers cite sources (no hallucinated recollections).
Even better: mark a note private: true, and its content is excluded from AI and external services entirely. You decide what the AI gets to see.
Everything a linked-note system needs
Daily notes, [[wiki links]] + backlinks, ⌘K local search (optional local semantic search), audio memos with transcription, and a Chrome capture extension.
And a door left open for agents
The CLI — reflect today, reflect search, reflect show — means your AI agents can read and write your notes directly. Not through a proprietary API; just your Markdown files on disk. Your note system becomes your agent's knowledge base, not a walled-off data island.
The honest caveat
It's Mac + iPhone for now (iOS via TestFlight), so Windows users are out of luck on the desktop side. And as an open-source rewrite, it's still moving fast — don't expect commercial-polish stability yet.
But the direction is right: the first principle of notes should be your files, your sovereignty, with AI, sync, links, and search built on top — not the other way around.
I've localized the README and core docs to Chinese: https://github.com/yangshun2005/reflect-open-cn
If you find this project useful, a star on the original repo supports the author's ongoing maintenance.
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