Quickstart

Get searching in under 5 minutes.

Prerequisites: See Installation for setup. Run gno doctor to verify.

1. Initialize with Your Notes

# Initialize GNO with your notes folder
gno init ~/notes --name notes

# Or initialize with a specific pattern
gno init ~/Documents --name docs --pattern "**/*.md"

This creates your config and sets up the first collection.

2. Index Your Documents

# Full index: ingest files + generate embeddings
gno index

This runs both BM25 (keyword) and vector indexing. GNO indexes Markdown, PDF, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, and plain text.

Note: On first run, GNO automatically downloads the required embedding model (~80MB). Subsequent runs use the cached model.

Check what’s indexed:

gno ls

3. Search Your Knowledge

Full-Text Search (BM25)

gno search "project deadlines"

Vector Search (Semantic)

gno vsearch "how to handle errors"

Hybrid Search (Best of Both)

gno query "authentication best practices"

Get AI Answers

gno ask "what is the main goal of project X" --answer

Output Formats

Default output is terminal-friendly. For scripting:

# JSON output
gno search "important" --json

# Just file URIs
gno search "important" --files

# CSV
gno search "important" --csv

# Markdown
gno search "important" --md

Common Workflows

Add Another Collection

gno collection add ~/work/projects --name projects --pattern "**/*.md"
gno index

Tag Your Documents

Tags are extracted from markdown frontmatter automatically. You can also manage them via CLI:

# List all tags
gno tags

# Add tags to a document
gno tags add abc123 work project/alpha

# Remove a tag
gno tags rm abc123 draft

# Search with tag filters
gno query "auth" --tags-all backend,security
gno query "meeting" --tags-any urgent,priority

Documents can link to each other using wiki links ([[Note]]) or markdown links ([text](path.md)). GNO tracks these relationships:

# Show links FROM a document
gno links my-note.md

# Show documents linking TO this document (backlinks)
gno backlinks my-note.md

# Find semantically similar documents
gno similar my-note.md

Re-Index After Changes

# Full re-index (sync + embeddings)
gno index

# Or just sync files without re-embedding (faster)
gno update

Incremental by default: GNO tracks file content via SHA-256 hashes. When you run gno index or gno update:

  • New files → indexed
  • Modified files → re-indexed
  • Unchanged files → skipped (instant)

This makes re-indexing fast even for large collections. Just run gno index after adding or editing files.

Check System Health

gno doctor

View Indexed Documents

# List all documents
gno ls

# As JSON
gno ls --json

# Get specific document content
gno get <docid>

Web UI

Prefer a visual interface? Start the web server:

gno serve

Open http://localhost:3000 in your browser for:

  • Dashboard with index stats
  • Visual search with highlighted results
  • Document browser with collection filtering
  • Rendered document viewer with syntax highlighting

Example Session

# Setup
gno init ~/notes --name notes
gno index

# Search (CLI)
gno search "meeting notes"
gno vsearch "project timeline concerns"
gno query "what did we decide about the API"

# Or use the web UI
gno serve

# Get details
gno ls --json | head
gno get abc123

# AI answer
gno ask "summarize the authentication discussion" --answer

Next Steps