bsawyer/scratchpad

CLI for managing multiple project notes with one repository

Scratchpad CLI

What is it?

scratchpad is a cli for managing multiple project notes with one repository

Why would I want that?

• Keep notes separate from actual source code
• Maintain the benefits of source control without the need for keeping track of branches or commit messages
• Easily switch between project notes with one command

Pages

Each page is simply one markdown file that gets committed to its own branch

Commands

init

Description

initializes a git repository at $HOME/scratchpad with a blank markdown file pad.md

Usage

~ scratchpad init
Initialized scratchpad at '$HOME/scratchpad/pad.md'

flip

Description

Flipping to a page stages and commits the current page then checks out the target pages branch. If a page is not specified it checks out a new branch.

Usage

~ scratchpad flip
Flipped to page 2

~ scratchpad flip 1
Flipped to page 1

tag

Description

Creates a symbolic ref to the current pages branch. If no name is specified it just stages and commits the current pages branch.

Usage

~ scratchpad tag meeting-notes
Tagged page 2 as meeting-notes

~ scratchpad flip
Flipped to page 3

~ scratchpad flip meeting-notes
Flipped to page 2

trash

Description

Deletes target pages symbolic refs and branch.

Usage

~ scratchpad trash 1
Trashed page 1

copy

Description

Copies all the pages to a single branch and creates a readme.md with relative links to each page.

Usage

~ scratchpad copy master
Copied scratchpad to master

Config

By default the git repository is initialized in $HOME/scratchpad and a markdown file pad.md is used as a page. It's possible to change these by creating a file $HOME/.scratchrc

scratchpadDir=$HOME/scratchpad
scratchpadFilename=pad.md

Install

clone this repo git clone

symlink the script ln -s ./scratchpad $HOME/bin/scratchpad

Misc.

• tags can't start with a number ;)
• I alias the script to pad: ln -s ./scratchpad $HOME/bin/pad
• I keep pad.md as a pinned tab in my IDE for easy note taking
• A neat trick is to associate a page with a particular branch in another repository on your local machine simply by adding a hook to .git/hooks/post-checkout that flips to a page mapped to the branch