I made a note-taking and productivity app because my job won't let me use obsidian
I work at a place that is very strict on their cloud and external web exposure, and data integrity and protection is essential for the business.
As a result, the options for PKM and productivity solutions at work are pretty slim.
Notion is out, because it's online-first, and there's a built in LLM, which means both data-exfil and data-training are a problem.
Obsidian is out, because of the ability to turn on Obsidian Sync. It turns out preventing it from turning on is kind of hard, so the teams decided it was better to be safe than sorry.
Todoist is also disallowed because cloud.
Some of the older programs, like Notational Velocity and NValt might work, but they are very old and pretty limited these days, and no longer supported.
Knowing all of this, I knew the app I needed to make had to have:
- plain-text files
- no cloud sync
- no built-in LLM
- no web calls outside of updates
I also knew, due to my own preferences, it needed to have:
- interlinking
- pop-out and pinned notes
- the ability to add to-do list checkboxes and search for them
- the ability to add due dates to notes
- templating
So, I got to work. I am not a programmer at all, but I have had a career in IT support and I have a good amount of experience driving projects, so I decided I would give Claude Code a try for this application. Over the last 8 weeks, I have been developing what I think is a pretty robust solution and a dang good note-taking app. I decided to call it Envy, which is a reference to the app that inspired most of the PKM apps, Notational Velocity.
As someone with ADD, keeping track of the things I need to know (and need to remember!) in order to do my job effectively can be astoundingly hard. There are weeks where I lose everything I was working on because of how ineffectively I recorded information. Also, as a result of not having a dedicated note taking app, I was storing little tidbits of incomplete information all over the place - sending teams messages to myself, texting myself, emailing myself - as a result, I could not figure out where the information was located half the time and it would increase my frustration.
Now, because I have Envy, I have one place that I can use for notes, references, and tasks. If I have an item I need to remember, I can put a due date on it (like @2026-08-08) and it will show the due date as a pill inside the note and in the title bar! Even better, I can search my notes (for example, with due: ) and it will show me every note that has an active due date in it! That really changed the game for me, because then the important part is only that I remember to put one on there. I don't need to think about where the note really is, or bother organizing it, because I can search for it later.
The same is true for tasks - I can put a checkbox inside a note (with [ ] ) and it will let me later search for any note with an unchecked box in it with todo: - I cannot express how awesome this is for my ADD brain.
I use the app every day at work and push bug fixes weekly. If you have a Mac (windows is in beta!) and you want a no-nonsense, no AI, no cloud note-taking app with a ton of really awesome features - please give it a shot! I want to know what you guys think, and I really, really hope you love it.
Website link: Envy