VS Code extension

Your notes, inside your editor.

Visp Notes turns the Markdown already in your workspace into a connected note system: live editing, wiki links, backlinks, checkbox tasks, and an interactive graph. No proprietary database, no network service, no second app to keep in sync.

Install from the Marketplace View the source

Version 0.5.0
VS Code 1.96+
MIT licensed
Free

In the editor

Markdown that reads as itself while you write it.

Live mode renders headings, quotes, callouts, tables, and fenced code as themselves, and hands the raw Markdown back on whichever line the caret is on. The text never leaves the document.

The Visp Notes editor in Live mode showing a note titled Designing a note system, with frontmatter as a property block, nested outline items with fold controls, wiki links, and checkbox tasks. — Frontmatter, folds, wiki links, and tasks in one continuous document. The context strip carries the note's location, tags, backlink count, and open tasks.

A note in Live mode showing a rendered callout with an accent bar, a table with aligned columns, and a fenced code block with a language label. — Callouts take the tone their type declares, table columns line up, and fences render as code — without rewriting a byte of the file.

The Visp Notes knowledge graph with a note selected: its links are highlighted in blue and its seven connections are listed in a side panel with link and tag types. — Every note, tag, and unresolved link in the workspace, laid out by a live force simulation. Select a node to keep its neighbourhood visible and list its connections.

The Visp Notes Tasks view grouping open checkbox tasks by due date, each showing its priority and the note it came from. — Checkbox tasks from every note in one place, grouped by due date, note, or tag, and tickable from the Activity Bar.

What it does

Six things the extension adds to a folder of Markdown.

Live and Markdown modes

One CodeMirror document behind both views, so switching preserves the caret, selection, scroll position, and undo history.

Wiki links and backlinks

Aliases, heading links, and block references with context-aware completion, exact-anchor navigation, and backlinks shown with their source context.

Tasks that stay Markdown

Ordinary checkboxes with optional due dates, priorities, and tags. Dashboards group them by due date, note, or tag without changing a line.

Local and workspace graphs

One- and two-hop local graphs plus a force-directed workspace graph with drag, pan, cursor-centred zoom, fit and centre controls, and non-destructive search.

Rename without breaking links

A native before/after diff previews the change. The rename is staged, every affected source is revalidated, and the file name rolls back if anything fails.

Your files stay yours

The index is an in-memory projection rebuilt from your Markdown. Delete the extension and every note is still a plain file you can read anywhere.

Install

Running in about a minute.

Visp Notes needs Visual Studio Code 1.96 or newer. It does not take over the Markdown files you already have.

Open the Extensions view

Press Ctrl+Shift+X (Cmd+Shift+X on macOS) and search for Visp Notes. Or paste the install command into Quick Open:
```
ext install visp-code-note.visp-notes
```
Open a folder with Markdown in it

Any workspace works. New notes are created under notes/ by default; change vispNotes.notesFolder to use another workspace-relative folder.
Open Visp Notes from the Activity Bar

Run Visp Notes: New Note. New notes open in the Visp Notes editor in Live mode, and the toolbar switches to raw Markdown without changing editors.
Start linking

Type [[ anywhere to fuzzy-search notes and aliases, then # for headings or ^ for block IDs. Ctrl+Shift+L (Cmd+Shift+L) inserts a link at the caret.

Your existing README.md keeps opening in VS Code's own text editor. To change that, run Visp Notes: Use Visp Notes as the Default Markdown Editor, which writes the standard workbench.editorAssociations setting and can be undone just as easily.

Conventions

Plain Markdown, read a little more closely.

Everything Visp Notes understands is syntax you could type by hand, and every file stays readable in any other editor.

Wiki links

[[Architecture decisions]]
[[Architecture decisions|system design]]
[[Architecture decisions#Indexing]]
[[Architecture decisions^parser-block]]

Add ^parser-block after a paragraph or heading to make it addressable.

Callouts

> [!note] Current direction
> Keep files human-readable.

> [!warning] Migration needed
> The old index format is dropped.

Six tones — note, tip, important, warning, danger, success — with aliases resolving to the closest one.

Tasks

- [ ] Prototype live editing @due(2026-07-22)
      @priority(high) #product

Metadata is read without changing the line, so the checkbox stays a valid Markdown checkbox.

Frontmatter

---
title: Architecture decisions
aliases: [ADRs, Design records]
tags: [engineering, architecture]
---

Rendered as a property block in Live mode. Tag edits from the context strip only ever touch frontmatter.

Reference

Commands and settings.

Command palette

Visp Notes: New Note
Visp Notes: New Task
Visp Notes: Toggle Task
Visp Notes: Insert Link
Visp Notes: Show Backlinks
Visp Notes: Open Local Graph
Visp Notes: Open Workspace Graph
Visp Notes: Toggle Live / Markdown
Visp Notes: Rename Note and Update Links
Visp Notes: Find Broken Links
Visp Notes: Rebuild Index
Visp Notes: Open Tasks
Visp Notes: Search Notes and Tasks
Visp Notes: Add Tag
Visp Notes: Remove Tag
Visp Notes: Use Visp Notes as the Default Markdown Editor
Visp Notes: Restore the Built-in Markdown Text Editor

Settings

vispNotes.notesFolder: Workspace-relative folder for new notes.
vispNotes.exclude: Glob patterns kept out of the index.
vispNotes.editor.fontFamily: Font for rendered note prose. Empty follows VS Code's interface font; code always follows editor.fontFamily.
vispNotes.editor.contentWidth: Readable, wide, or full measure for note content. Also changeable from the editor's context strip.
vispNotes.graph.defaultDepth: Default local-graph link depth.
vispNotes.openRenderedAfterCreate: Open newly created notes in the Visp Notes editor.

Data safety

Your Markdown stays the source of truth.

Editor changes reach the extension host as ordered, narrow patches. The host keeps the newest draft, coalesces rapid typing, and validates the authoritative document before each write. An external change never silently replaces local typing — the editor asks whether to keep your draft or take the external version — and a draft that cannot be applied is stored so it survives a reload.

No proprietary note database No network service Disposable, rebuildable index Anchors validated before a link is called healthy

Also available

Prefer a standalone app?

The VispNote desktop app covers the same local-first ground with canvases, reminders, novelist mode, and optional AI, on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Download VispNote