NoteRoot 🌳

Tree-based markdown documentation. No database for content. Single binary deployment.

NoteRoot is a high-performance, self-hosted documentation engine designed for developers, homelabs, and internal engineering teams. It treats the local filesystem as the absolute source of truth for your content while layering on an embedded SQLite database for authentication and user permission management, all delivered as a single compiled Go binary.

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Architecture & Tech Stack

NoteRoot is built on a decoupled client-server architecture, bound together during the final build process.

Backend (Go / Gin)

• Language: Go 1.23
• Routing: gin-gonic/gin for high-throughput HTTP REST API routing.
• Persistence: modernc.org/sqlite (CGO-free embedded SQLite) strictly for user management and auth state. Content is strictly filesystem-bound.
• Authentication: golang-jwt/jwt/v5 handling stateless JWT issuing and verification.
• Utilities: gosimple/slug for URL-safe path generation, x/crypto/bcrypt for secure credential hashing.

Frontend (React / Vite)

• Framework: React 19 + TypeScript, bundled with Vite.
• Routing & State: react-router-dom for client-side routing, zustand for lightweight global state management.
• UI & Styling: Neo-brutalist Design System built via TailwindCSS, featuring bold contrast, flat colors, and framer-motion for micro-interactions. Accessible base primitives powered by Radix UI.
• Markdown Rendering: react-markdown ecosystem (remark-gfm, rehype-highlight) for GitHub-flavored markdown and syntax highlighting.

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Core Systems & Implementation Details

Filesystem Page Store

NoteRoot intentionally avoids storing documentation content in a relational database.

• The PageStore interface implemented in internal/core/tree/ traverses a specified target directory (--docs).
• Directories represent structural nodes; .md files act as standard pages, while index.md acts as a directory's root content.
• Page rendering, structural tree generation, and path resolution happen dynamically. Slug collisions are mitigated via backend sequence checking.

Authentication & Authorization Flow

• Stateless API Layer: Protected routes use Go middleware to validate Bearer JWT tokens embedded in the Authorization header.
• User Segregation: The system supports Admin and Editor roles. Read-only endpoints do not inherently require auth if public viewing is enabled, while mutations (POST/PUT/DELETE) enforce rigid JWT checks against the SQLite user table.

Embedded SPA Mode

The typical deployment model compiles the React frontend into static assets (dist/), which are then embedded directly into the Go binary using the embed package. The Gin router serves static files natively, routing all unrecognized paths to index.html to allow react-router to take over client side routing.

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Building from Source

Ensure you have Go 1.23+ and Node.js installed.

1. Build the Frontend

cd ui/noteroot-ui
npm install
npm run build

Copy the contents of ui/noteroot-ui/dist/ into internal/http/dist/ if you are embedding the UI into the binary.

2. Build the Backend

# Return to the repo root
go build -o noteroot ./cmd/noteroot

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Development Environment

For local active development, run the backend and frontend separately:

Start the Go API Server:

go run ./cmd/noteroot/main.go --port 8080 --jwt-secret "dev-secret" --docs ./test-docs

Start the Vite Dev Server:

cd ui/noteroot-ui
npm run dev

The Vite dev server proxies all /api requests to localhost:8080, bypassing CORS issues and ensuring exact environment parity with production.

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Configuration Variables

NoteRoot can be configured using command-line flags or environment variables.

Flag	Environment Variable	Default	Description
--docs	NOTEROOT_DOCS	./docs	Target directory for Markdown storage.
--port	NOTEROOT_PORT	8080	HTTP listener port.
--host	NOTEROOT_HOST	0.0.0.0	Bind interface.
--admin-password	NOTEROOT_ADMIN_PASSWORD	admin	Seed password for the initial admin user.
--jwt-secret	NOTEROOT_JWT_SECRET	runtime	Cryptographic secret for signing auth tokens.

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API Reference (Internal)

REST architectural endpoints mapped in router.go:

Auth & User (/api/auth, /api/users)

• POST /api/auth/login → Validates bcrypt hash, issues short-lived JWT.
• GET /api/users → Returns sanitized user structs (Admin only).

Tree & Pages (/api/tree, /api/pages)

• GET /api/tree → Recursively generates JSON schema of the doc tree.
• GET /api/pages/by-path → Traverses filesystem to return specific MD payload.
• POST /api/pages → Injects new node into the virtual tree, writes literal .md file to disk.
• PUT /api/pages/:id/move → Triggers an OS-level file move/rename, re-indexes virtual tree.

Assets (/api/pages/:id/assets)

• Handles multipart/form-data uploads, streaming bytes directly to the associated page directory alongside the .md file.

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Philosophy

NoteRoot was built with a strict adherence to operational simplicity:

1. No External Dependencies: Docker, Postgres, Redis, and reverse proxies are strictly optional.
2. Text is King: Standard tools (git, grep, rsync) remain the best ways to interact with text. NoteRoot layers on top of this abstraction, rather than hiding text in a DB BLOB field.

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Contributing

1. Fork the Project
2. Create your Feature Branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)
3. Commit your Changes (git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature')
4. Push to the Branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)
5. Open a Pull Request

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License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for more information.