Wren

a note taking application and a to-do management system that is ridiculously simple, yet very advanced.

Wren is simple because every note is one file. The filename is the title, and the content is the note's content. This makes it very easy to sync tasks between devices, as conflicts can almost never happen, even if syncing isn't done real time. The files are plain text, so you can just write. If you want a task to repeat every Saturday you just prefix it with a cron syntax, e.g. 0 8 * * 6 weekly swim, and if you want a task to appear from a specific time you just start it with the date, like 2030-01-01 check if Wren became super popular.

Wren is advanced because it is very extensible - it comes (optionally!) with a Telegram bot that you can chat with to manage your notes, a Matrix bot, and even get AI-driven daily summaries as if you had a personal assistant. It also includes a tiny HTTP server that you can use to manage tasks using an API or from the browser, which can be used for displaying you tasks elsewhere (e.g. in your e-reader).

wren.mp4

Installation

The easiest way to install Wren is with pip:

$ pip install wren-notes

To install with all optional dependencies:

$ pip install "wren-notes[telegram,http]"

Usage

The management of tasks in Wren is simple:

• Tasks are just files living your notes folder. You might as well create them with touch task and edit them with vim task.
• Completed tasks are moved to your done folder.
• Tasks starting with a YYYY-MM-DD will not appear in the list of tasks before their time arrived.
• Tasks starting with a cron signature will not be moved when completed. Instead they'll be copied to the done directory, and will reappear automatically when the copied file is old enough.

Command line

The regular usage mode Wren is the command line. For the following examples, n is my alias to wren, but you can use any alias or just call wren directly. Normal tasks can be created by just typing them

$ n build a spaceship
created task: build a spaceship

$ n go to the moon
created task: go to the moon

$ n 'discuss galaxy peace with aliens
tell them that we won't hurt them
and that we can probably reach some agreement'
created task: discuss galaxy peace with aliens

Reading a task content is done with the -r flag:

$ n -r galaxy
discuss galaxy peace with aliens
tell them that we won't hurt them
and that we can probably reach some agreement

Note that when referring to a task, you can give Wren any part of the task title.

For listing your current tasks, just run n. Or if you want to filter your tasks, you can use n --ls query:

$ n
➜ discuss galaxy peace with aliens
➜ go to the moon
➜ build a spaceship

$ n --ls th
➜ discuss galaxy peace with aliens
➜ go to the moon

Use -e to edit a task in your $EDITOR or -d to mark it as done:

$ n -d moon
marked "go to the moon" as done

Check out everything you've done by using -d without a value:

$ n -d
➜ go to the moon

If you want to postpone a task, just prepend some timestamp to it:

$ n --prepend 2030-01-01 galaxy
renamed "discuss galaxy peace with aliens" to "2030-01-01 discuss galaxy peace with aliens"

Integrations

Random task

Use --one to print one random task. I'm using it with Waybar to always have one task displayed at the bottom of my screen, like this:

  "custom/task": {
    "tooltip": true,
    "max-length": 20,
    "interval": 60,
    "exec": "wren --one"
  },

AI Assistant

Wren can also work like an AI Assistant. If you use --summary it will use GPT4 to create a nice human like message telling you what's waiting for you today, and congratulate you for the stuff you have completed recently. You can use it to update /etc/motd daily, or through the Telegram bot (below).

Telegram bot

Using --telegram will spin up a Telegram bot listener that will respond to your messages and allow you to create tasks, list them, edit them and so on. It will also allow you to set a cron-based schedule for receiving AI Assistant messages. This can be handy if you want to start your day with a message from Wren telling you about your upcoming tasks.

• List tasks using /list
• Create task by just writing it, e.g. make a plan for going back to earth
• Mark as done with /done plan
• See more at /help

If you want to run it outside your computer (e.g. so it's always available), I highly recommend using Syncthing to sync your notes.

HTTP Server

With --http you get both a simple tiny website that works through the browser, and an API server that accepts and returns JSON. Either browse to http://localhost:8080 or send requests directly with the proper headers:

• List tasks: curl http://localhost:8080
• Create task: curl http://localhost:8080 -d '{"task": "create HTTP interface"}' -H 'content-type: application/json'
• Mark as done: curl http://localhost:8080/content -X DELETE

The HTTP server can be used to integrate with voice assistants, Home Assistant, Tasker etc. Like with the Telegram bot, if you want to run it outside your computer, I recommend using Syncthing.

Matrix bot

Using --matrix will spin up a Matrix bot that works very similarly to the Telegram bot.

• List tasks using !list
• Create task by just writing it, e.g. make a plan for going back to earth
• Mark as done with !done plan
• See more at !help

Configuration

See the configuration path on your operating system using --version.

The schema is as follows and all keys are optional. Remove the comments from your actual file.

{
  "notes_dir": "~/Notes",  // This can absolute or include ~
  "done_dir": "done",      // This can be relative to the notes dir, or absolute
  "http_user": "",         // Fill this to enable basic HTTP auth for the HTTP server
  "http_password": "",     // Same as above
  "openai_token": "",      // Fill this if you want to use summaries
  "telegram_token": "",    // Fill this if you want the Telegram bot
  "allowed_telegram_chats": [
    1234564868             // Initiating a chat will print out the chat ID you should fill here
  ],
  // Below you can put context to give the AI assistant
  "about_user": "I work at NASA as Product Manager. Mars is the name of my dog." 
}