▚corTeX v3.2.1

● local-firstlatency 0ms

$ whoami

A SECOND BRAIN
FOR PEOPLE WHO
LIVE IN THE SHELL

corTeX is markdown, a graph database, and a CLI. Capture with one keystroke, link notes automatically, and query your entire brain without touching a mouse.

~/.cortex/session.log

❯cortex capture "spaced repetition beats cramming — revisit at expanding intervals"

✓ stashed → inbox/2026-08-21-0932.md

⟲ auto-linked: evergreen/spaced-repetition.md (+3)

❯cortex recall "why do i keep forgetting apis"

1 hit · evergreen/spaced-repetition.md

“you wrote: retrieval practice > rereading. schedule reviews at 1d, 3d, 7d…”

❯

# command palette

⌕search 41,208 notes…⌘K
  • >_capture noteC
  • >_jump to graph viewGG
  • >_today’s daily pageD
  • >_fuzzy find fileCtrlP

NAME

graph-native notes

Every note is a node. Backlinks are first-class. Type [[ and corTeX suggests the connections you would have missed.

~/brain
├── evergreen/
│   ├── spaced-repetition.md      [12 links]
│   ├── zettelkasten-primer.md    [8 links]
│   └── memory-palaces.md         [5 links]
├── inbox/
│   ├── 2026-08-21-0914.md        new
│   └── hn-thread-on-forgetting.md
└── .cortex/
    └── graph.db                  41,208 nodes

$plain files

Markdown + YAML frontmatter. No lock-in, no cloud required. grep-friendly forever.

$zero latency

A native binary backed by SQLite. Cold start in 11ms. Works on a plane.

$git sync

Version your brain. Diff your thinking. Merge conflicts only in the good way.

“I piped my whole Zettelkasten through it in an afternoon. Now my terminal knows me better than my therapist.”
@ksyluan · maintainer of dotfiles-you-have-heard-of

# install

$ brew install cortex[copy]

also on npm, cargo, and nix · MIT licensed

Read the manual (RTFM)