Apple Notes Skill

Native Apple Notes automation for AI agents on macOS. Uses only built-in osascript with JavaScript for Automation (JXA) and Notes.app — no MCP server, database access, third-party CLI, or background service.

What it does

• List folders and notes
• Search and read notes (by title or unique ID)
• Create and append notes (handling plain text or HTML bodies)
• Move notes between folders
• Delete notes or folders only after explicit confirmation
• Organize notes in cautious batches

Requirements

• macOS with Notes.app
• osascript (built in)
• Automation permission for your terminal/agent host to control Notes

Install

Copy skills/apple-notes into your agent's skills directory.

git clone https://github.com/lishix520/apple-notes-skill.git
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
cp -R apple-notes-skill/skills/apple-notes ~/.claude/skills/apple-notes
chmod +x ~/.claude/skills/apple-notes/notes.sh

See compatibility.md for Codex, OpenClaw, and Hermes paths.

Use

Ask your agent:

• “Search my Apple Notes for Qwen quantization.”
• “Read the project note named X and continue from its next steps.”
• “Create a note in Research with this summary.”
• “Move the confirmed notes from Inbox to Archive.”

Minimal Run Example (Manual Test)

Verify permission and functionality directly in your terminal:

./notes.sh list-folders
./notes.sh search-notes "test"

Safety & Privacy Model

• Safe ID matching: If multiple notes share the same title, operations refuse to run blindly and return exit code 4, requiring ID selection.
• Enforced confirmation: Destructive actions (delete, move) refuse to execute unless --confirm is provided (returns exit code 5).
• Privacy First: The skill accesses Notes only through standard macOS Apple Events (JXA); it does not read the sqlite databases directly or send note contents to any third-party service.

Scope & Non-Goals

This is an Apple Notes operator, not a RAG system, database adapter, or general-purpose desktop automation framework.

Attachments, scans, drawings, checklists, shared-note collaboration, and nested folders are outside the current compatibility guarantee. Multiple folders with the exact same name are also not supported.

For design philosophy and advanced workflows, see advanced-workflows.md.

License

MIT