Drawn from a 2025/26 deep-dive on the note-taking and code-editor landscape. See the conversation-of-record (this repo's session notes) for the underlying research and citations.
Notepad++ for the agent era. Local-first. AI that acts, with permission. No plugin marketplace, no cloud lock-in, no surprises.
Note++ sits in the gap between Notepad++ (great launcher, no AI) and Cursor / VS Code (great AI, heavy install, cloud-leaning). The bet is that a small, fast, local-first developer notepad with the right slice of futuristic features will keep mind-share that the bigger players can't.
- AI auto-magic — click 🤖, Note++ detects → installs (prompts) → starts daemon → downloads
qwen2.5-coder:1.5b→ connects. No other local AI editor does this. Cursor needs an account, Continue needs config, Cline needs a model picker. - Local-first encryption + AI — no other product in the landscape combines AES-256-GCM per-file encryption with a local AI agent. Cursor is cloud-only AI; Standard Notes has no AI; Obsidian's encryption is paid-plugin.
- Lightweight enough to be a notepad, powerful enough to refactor a function — boots in <2 s, has a real Source Control panel, runs Ollama locally, edits via Monaco diff preview.
Quick wins that keep Note++ on the standards curve. Each is small and self-contained.
| Feature | Effort | Why | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
AGENTS.md support — read from repo root, inject into AI system prompt |
1 hr | Vendor-neutral standard adopted by Cursor, Codex, Copilot, Jules, Gemini, Windsurf, Zed, Cline (60k+ repos). Free compatibility with the entire agentic ecosystem. | 🟡 In progress |
Project memory at .notepp/memory.md — auto-loaded into agent context every turn |
2 hrs | Match Claude Code / VS Code Agent Skills pattern. Tiny but important — gives users a place to write project-specific instructions the AI will always see. | 🟡 In progress |
Quick-action buttons in AI panel — ✨ Polish / 🔧 Refactor / 📝 Add comments / 🧪 Generate tests |
2 hrs | Granola's $1.5B wedge is "polish my mess." Pre-canned Agent-mode prompts that Just Work. Reuses existing diff modal. | 🟡 In progress |
| Multi-model picker — separate models for chat vs agent vs quick-actions | 3 hrs | Speed/quality tradeoff per task; Continue & Cursor both do this. E.g., qwen2.5-coder:1.5b for chat speed, deepseek-coder:6.7b for agent quality. |
🟡 In progress |
| Voice prompt input in AI panel | — | Tried: Web Speech API (no Google API key in Electron), @xenova/transformers whisper-tiny in renderer (renderer killed on inference, both main-thread and proxy modes), the same in main process via onnxruntime-node + AudioWorklet PCM capture (worked end-to-end but had assorted rough edges). All voice/dictation code removed in v1.3 cleanup. Reintroduce via native whisper.cpp bindings when the broader Tier 3 voice work happens. |
🗑 Removed (deferred) |
| Feature | Effort | Why | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Distraction-free / Zen mode — F11 hides tabs, toolbar, statusbar; pure full-screen editor | 2 hrs | Top Sublime Text praised feature. Writers + focus sessions. Pure CSS + toggle; zero dependencies. | ✅ Shipped |
| Auto-save to disk — configurable interval (e.g. every 30 s) writes dirty files to their actual path | 3 hrs | #3 most-downloaded Notepad++ plugin (AutoSave). Different from session save — eliminates crash data loss for saved files. Opt-in via Settings. | ✅ Shipped |
| Spell check — toggle in status bar / View menu; highlights misspellings in comments, strings, markdown, plain text | 1 day | #1 or #2 most-downloaded Notepad++ plugin (DSpellCheck). Use Electron's built-in webContents.session.spellCheckerLanguages + Monaco squiggles via custom marker provider. Works offline, no external service. |
⬜ Planned |
| Tab color-coding — right-click tab → pick from 8 accent colours; persists in session | 3 hrs | Notepad++ built-in, praised for large sessions. Simple DOM + session JSON change. | ✅ Shipped |
| Large-file safe mode — files > 10 MB auto-disable IntelliSense, minimap, diff gutter, syntax highlight | 4 hrs | Notepad++ handles multi-GB logs; Monaco freezes. Warn user + offer lite mode. Unblocks a real sysadmin/devops use-case. | ✅ Shipped |
The leverage moves. Each one moves Note++'s capability ceiling significantly.
| Feature | Effort | Why |
|---|---|---|
| MCP client support — connect to community MCP servers (filesystem, GitHub, Brave Search, Postgres, etc.) | 1–2 wks | MCP became the universal tool protocol in ~12 months (~97M monthly SDK downloads). Implementing MCP client multiplies capability instantly. Anthropic's protocol; OpenAI / LF agentic-AI foundation backed it. |
| Inline AI completion (Cursor Tab pattern) via Ollama FIM | 1 wk | Predictive ghost-text edits as you type. Cursor's Sept 2025 numbers: −21% suggestions, +28% acceptance once they predicted where the cursor jumps. Monaco supports this via registerInlineCompletionsProvider. |
| Repo-wide chat — when a workspace folder is open, AI can read/search across files | 4–5 days | Closes the gap with Cursor's repo chat. Uses the file-tree code we already have. |
| Inline git diff gutter (added/modified/deleted markers in editor) | 3–4 days | Already on GIT.md's deferred list. Showed up in both research streams as the universal expectation. Cheap with Monaco's decoration API. |
Local semantic search via nomic-embed-text over open workspace files |
1 wk | "Find similar code" / "find file about X" without uploading anywhere. Karpathy's LLM-Wiki pattern + a small embedding model. Works offline. |
| Feature | Effort | Why |
|---|---|---|
User snippets — define abbreviations (iife, cls, log) that expand to multi-line templates; managed via a JSON file + UI |
1 wk | Monaco has the registerCompletionItemProvider + SnippetString backend; just needs the management UI (add/edit/delete rows, assign language scope). Sublime Text's most-loved productivity feature; Notepad++'s Snippets plugin is widely installed. |
NppExec-style command runner — Tools → Run… dialog: enter any shell command with $(FILE) / $(DIR) / $(SEL) variables; output streams into a new Results tab |
1 wk | More flexible than the current F5 run-in-terminal. Power users use this for compilers, linters, custom scripts. Keeps terminal clean; output is capturable/searchable. |
| Macro recording & playback — record a sequence of editor actions, save as named macro, replay with a shortcut or N times | 2–3 wks | Notepad++'s single biggest differentiator over VS Code / Cursor. No Monaco-based editor ships this. Intercept Monaco commands via editor.onDidType + action dispatch; serialize to JSON; add a Macros menu. Massive power-user differentiator. |
Each one would be a marketing line on its own.
| Feature | Why it's worth it |
|---|---|
| Encrypted Vault (multi-note encrypted workspace) | Expand encrypted-pad to a vault model, 1Password-style. Quick toggle between plaintext workspace and encrypted vault. Differentiated against everyone except Standard Notes (and they have no AI). |
| Background agents on git worktrees | Cursor 2.0's parallel-agent fan-out, but local. "Try 3 approaches to this refactor in parallel" — Note++ already has git integration; git worktree add is the missing piece. |
| Voice-to-code (full inline) — Whisper.cpp + Cursor-style voice mode | Real differentiator; Whisper runs offline; opens accessibility. |
| Vision input — paste screenshot of a hand-drawn diagram → AI converts to Mermaid | Plays to Note++'s Mermaid + Whiteboard strengths. LLaVA-equivalent runs in Ollama. |
| Sandbox / permission boundaries for Agent mode | Confirm-before-shell, confirm-before-multi-file-write, deny-list for sensitive paths. Pitch: "the AI editor that won't rm -rf your home folder" — competitive positioning amid the 30+ prompt-injection RCE bugs disclosed across Cursor, Windsurf, Kiro, Copilot, Zed, Roo, Cline, Junie in Dec 2025. |
| Mobile capture companion (PWA) | The universal mobile-desktop-parity complaint. Simple PWA captures voice/text → syncs to a Note++ inbox file via cloud-sync. |
Karpathy LLM-Wiki view for .md workspaces |
"70× more efficient than RAG for personal scale." Curated markdown handed wholesale to long-context model. Good fit for users with a Markdown notes folder. |
| Feature | Why it's worth it |
|---|---|
| Hex viewer / editor — open any binary file in a hex+ASCII split view; edit bytes in place | Popular Notepad++ plugin (HEX-Editor). Niche but high-signal: sysadmins, reverse engineers, firmware devs. Implement via a dedicated tab type backed by a Uint8Array model + custom Monaco-free renderer, or find a WASM hex-editor component. |
| ❌ Don't | Why |
|---|---|
| Plugin marketplace | #1 unspoken Obsidian complaint is plugin supply-chain risk. Skiff (Notion-acquired then killed Feb 2024) showed the danger of becoming dependent on one platform's ecosystem. |
| Graph view | "Universally treated as eye-candy, not a workflow." Tana's typed-node supertags > Roam-style backlinks. Graph view is dead as a feature; schema-on-read is alive. |
| Cloud-native sync of notes | Notion fatigue is real (HN/Trustpilot complaints cluster around lock-in, surprise billing). Note++ wins by not being that. Cloud session sync (already shipped) is fine; cloud-host of notes themselves is not. |
| AR/VR notes | IDC: ~14M units by end-2025 vs ~300M PCs sold/year. No breakout note app on Vision Pro. Treat as long-tail bet, not a 1–3yr play. |
| Compete with Cursor/Windsurf on parallel worktrees, custom foundation models | Different product category, they raised $10B+. Compete on focused, lightweight, local-first. |
| Proprietary "Note++ rules" file format | AGENTS.md won the standards war in 12 months. Don't fragment further. |
| Brain-dead RAG over notes | Karpathy's LLM-Wiki pattern (curated markdown → long-context LLM) is "70× more efficient" for personal scale. Skip embeddings for notebooks under ~10k notes. |
Ten most impactful community-validated gaps vs Notepad++ and Sublime Text, in priority order:
| # | Feature | Signal source | Note++ status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Macro recording & playback | Notepad++'s single most-cited differentiator vs VS Code; no Monaco editor ships it | Tier 2 |
| 2 | Spell check | #1–2 most-downloaded Notepad++ plugin (DSpellCheck); praised in every user review | Tier 1 |
| 3 | Auto-save to disk | Top plugin (AutoSave); universal request; distinct from session save | Tier 1 |
| 4 | Distraction-free / Zen mode | Top Sublime Text praised feature; writers + focus use-case | Tier 1 |
| 5 | User snippets | Sublime's most-loved productivity feature; Monaco backend already exists | Tier 2 |
| 6 | Tab color-coding | Notepad++ built-in; praised for large multi-project sessions | Tier 1 |
| 7 | Hex viewer | Popular HEX-Editor plugin; niche but high-signal for target users | Tier 3 |
| 8 | Large-file safe mode | Notepad++ handles GB+ logs; Monaco struggles; devops use-case | Tier 1 |
| 9 | NppExec-style command runner | Power-user staple; more flexible than F5 terminal runner | Tier 2 |
Research sources: Notepad++ community forum, GitHub issues, TrustRadius/G2 reviews, Hacker News Sublime Thread (Jan 2026), plugin download rankings, developer surveys.
- Cursor 2.0 (Oct 2025): own foundation model "Composer", parallel agents on git worktrees, voice control
- Windsurf (Cognition): Cascade planner+executor split
- Zed: GPL open-source, $32M Sequoia, deep Anthropic integration
- VS Code + Copilot: Agent Mode + MCP GA, Next Edit Suggestions, Prompt Files, Agent Skills, Agents Window
- Cline (~58k stars), Roo Code (~22k stars), Continue (~32k stars) — open-source agents winning
- MCP: universal in ~12 months; ~97M monthly SDK downloads
- AGENTS.md: 60k+ repos in a year
- Granola: $43M Series B → $125M Series C ($1.5B val) in months
- Notion 3.0 (Sept 2025): AI Agents → Custom Agents (Feb 2026)
- Standard Notes acquired by Proton AG (Apr 2024); Skiff acquired and shut by Notion (Feb 2024)
- Tana: supertags = the genuine Roam-evolution
- 30+ prompt-injection RCE bugs in AI IDEs (Dec 2025 disclosure)
- Local AI: Qwen2.5-Coder 32B matches GPT-4o on HumanEval; Ollama is the dominant runner
Tier 1 + a chunk of Tier 2 (MCP + inline completion). Then Note++ has:
- Standards-compliant AI hosting (
AGENTS.md,.notepp/memory.md, MCP) - Multi-model + quick-action UX
- Voice capture (where supported)
- Inline ghost-text completions
- Repo-wide chat
- Plus everything already shipped (Git, encryption, whiteboard, agent diff)
That stack alone moves Note++ from "good 2024 editor with AI" to "competitive 2026 editor with a clear differentiation story" — without taking on any of the risks (plugin ecosystem, cloud sync, AR/VR) the research warns against.