File formats

Everything Shady Notes writes is either a Markdown file you can read, or macOS preferences. There is no database.

Notes

Plain .md, UTF-8, one per note, in your vault:

~/Documents/ShadyNotes/
├── Welcome.md
├── Meeting Notes.md
├── Projects/
│   ├── Roadmap.md
│   └── Launch Checklist.md
└── _img/
    └── diagram.png

Folders in the vault are folders in the sidebar. Rename or move files in Finder and Shady Notes follows.

Front matter

An optional YAML block at the very top:

---
status: in-progress
tags: [docs, launch]
---

# The note starts here

Ignored by the editor except that it is not rendered as content. Plugins read these fields.

Wikilinks

[[Another Note]]
![[diagram.png|400]]

The first links to a note by name; the second embeds an image at a width. Both are the Obsidian conventions.

Attachments

Images go in _img/ beside your notes by default, configurable in Preferences → Editor. They are ordinary files — nothing is embedded in the .md.

Plugins

A plugin is itself a Markdown file, its behaviour declared in front matter. → Writing a plugin

What is not in the vault

Lives in macOS preferences	Not in your notes folder
Window size and position
Theme
Open tabs and their order
Workspaces and file trees
Starred notes
Keyboard bindings

Version history is separate again — a git repository outside the vault. → The git backend

Taking your notes elsewhere

Copy the folder. That is the whole export process: no conversion, and nothing left behind but configuration you would not want on another machine anyway.