Notes
Cockpit's Notes are scratchpads for the things that don't belong in a commit or a chat message — memos, todos, links you'll re-open, scratch calculations, anything you want around between sessions. There are two scopes:
| Scope | When to use |
|---|---|
| Global note | Cross-project memos, todos, bookmarks. Stays with you regardless of which project tab you're on. |
| Project note | Pinned to a specific project — decisions, paths, scratch calculations that only make sense inside that codebase. |
Both scopes share the same editor and the same auto-save — they just live in different places.
Open a note
- Global note — the "Notes" button at the bottom of the left sidebar (below Scheduled Tasks, above Skills). Cockpit has exactly one global note, shared across every project.
- Project note — hover over a project row in the left sidebar and click the note icon (also reachable from the "Project notes" icon next to the Agent input). One note per project, scoped to the project directory —
~/code/backendand~/code/frontendkeep separate notes.
Each scope has exactly one note — there's no "create note" or "switch note" workflow to think about.
What it's good for
The kinds of things that pile into Notes:
- Memos — "remember to ask AI about X tomorrow", "where the staging credential lives", scratch decisions you'll need to recall.
- Todos — bullet list with
/taskcheckboxes; tick them off as you go. Lives outside any issue tracker — just for your own working state. - Web links — paste URLs you'll want to re-open: docs you're reading, a PR to review, an issue you'll fix later.
- Code snippets — a one-liner shell command you re-type every week, a regex you can never remember.
- Chat-reply extracts — copy useful AI replies out of the chat so they're still there after you scroll, clear, or close the session.
The global note carries things that follow you everywhere; the project note carries things only meaningful inside one codebase.
The editor
Tiptap-based rich-text editor with Markdown sensibility:
- Headings (H1 / H2 / H3) — type
# titleor use the slash menu. - Bullet lists, numbered lists, task lists (checkboxes, with a todo / doing / done tri-state).
- Blockquotes, code blocks, tables, horizontal rules.
- Links.
- Built-in undo / redo (the StarterKit ships with History).
Slash menu
Type / and a menu appears with formatting commands — 11 built-in actions total:
/ | Inserts |
|---|---|
/h1, /h2, /h3 | Heading levels |
/bullet | Bulleted list |
/ordered | Numbered list |
/task | Task list (checkboxes) |
/quote | Blockquote |
/code | Code block |
/table | 3×3 table |
/hr | Horizontal rule |
/link | Link insertion |
These are only in the Notes editor — they don't appear in the chat input. The chat input has its own different slash menu for Skills.
Keyboard shortcuts
The editor also carries a set of org-mode-style structural shortcuts (only active in the Notes editor):
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
Tab | Fold / unfold the heading at the cursor. Binary toggle (expanded ↔ folded) when it has no sub-headings; a three-way cycle expanded → folded → titles-only (every descendant shows as a title) when it does. Clicking the gutter arrow toggles that one heading only. |
Alt+↑ / Alt+↓ | Move the current line up / down. A heading moves its whole subtree; a list / task item reorders within its list, hopping out to an adjacent paragraph at the list edge. Headings, code blocks, tables, and quotes are hard boundaries. |
Alt+← / Alt+→ | Cycle a heading / paragraph's rank on the ring H1 → H2 → H3 → paragraph (wraps); a list item outdents / indents. |
Shift+← / Shift+→ | Cycle task state on the ring paragraph → todo → doing → done (wraps), converting between a plain line and a task item across the "paragraph" boundary. Only fires with an empty selection inside a text line, so Shift+arrow selection keeps working elsewhere. |
Auto-save
Both notes auto-save about 5 seconds after you stop typing. There's no "save" button; while you're editing, a small "saving..." indicator shows in the top-right. If you close the modal mid-edit, the pending change is flushed first.
Limits
- No image embedding — text and code only.
- No file attachments.
- No cross-tab live sync — if you have the same note open in two windows, the later save overwrites the earlier one.
- Notes aren't shared with collaborators — they're local to your machine. For shared docs use Tech Plan Review instead.
- No cross-note search — the editor doesn't ship a built-in search; use the browser's
Cmd+Fto find things inside a note.
Next
- Tech Plan Review — for notes you want to share with teammates