Installing plugins

Premium Part of the plugin platform. See Licensing.

There is no in-app plugin browser or marketplace. A plugin is a Markdown file, so installing one is copying a file — the same thing you would do to add a note.

Installing

Put the plugin’s .md file in the plugins/ folder inside your vault:

~/Documents/ShadyNotes/
├── plugins/
│   └── my-bookshelf.md      ← here
├── Projects/
└── Welcome.md

Caution

The plugins folder is read once, at launch. A file you drop in while the app is running will not appear until you quit and reopen Shady Notes.

After restarting, the plugin shows up in Preferences → Plugins under Installed Plugins, and in the puzzle-piece tab in the sidebar.

Enabling and disabling

Preferences → Plugins lists everything the app found, built-in and installed, each with a toggle. Right-clicking a row offers the same Enable / Disable.

A disabled plugin stays installed — it just stops appearing in the sidebar. Nothing about your notes changes either way, because a plugin only ever reads the Markdown that was already there.

Updating

Replace the file with the newer version and restart. If the new file carries the same plugin: id, it takes over from the old one.

Uninstalling

Right-click an installed plugin in Preferences → Plugins and choose Uninstall. That deletes its .md file from plugins/.

Your notes are untouched. A Kanban board is a view over notes that already existed; removing the view leaves every note exactly as it was.

Built-in plugins cannot be uninstalled — they ship inside the app rather than as files in your vault. Disable them instead.

Built-ins need none of this

The five built-in plugins — Daily Notes, Kanban, Board, Tasks and Recent — are already present. They only need enabling. See Plugins.

What a plugin can reach

A plugin reads and writes notes in the folder it is scoped to. It has no access to the rest of your Mac, and no network access of its own.

Since a plugin can write to your notes — the Kanban board rewriting status is exactly that — install ones you understand, the same judgement you would apply to any other editor extension. A plugin is a readable Markdown file, and right-clicking it in the sidebar offers View Definition, so you can read exactly what it does before you enable it.