Quickstart

Get searching in under 5 minutes.

Prerequisites: See Installation for setup. Run gno doctor to verify.

1. Initialize with Your Notes

# Initialize GNO with your notes folder
gno init ~/notes --name notes

# Or initialize with a specific pattern
gno init ~/Documents --name docs --pattern "**/*.md"

This creates your config and sets up the first collection.

2. Index Your Documents

# Index all configured collections
gno update

GNO indexes Markdown, PDF, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, and plain text.

Check what’s indexed:

gno ls

3. Search Your Knowledge

Full-Text Search (BM25)

gno search "project deadlines"

Vector Search (Semantic)

gno vsearch "how to handle errors"

Hybrid Search (Best of Both)

gno query "authentication best practices"

Get AI Answers

gno ask "what is the main goal of project X" --answer

Output Formats

Default output is terminal-friendly. For scripting:

# JSON output
gno search "important" --json

# Just file URIs
gno search "important" --files

# CSV
gno search "important" --csv

# Markdown
gno search "important" --md

Common Workflows

Add Another Collection

gno collection add ~/work/projects --name projects --pattern "**/*.md"
gno update

Re-Index After Changes

gno update

Only changed files are re-indexed.

Check System Health

gno doctor

View Indexed Documents

# List all documents
gno ls

# As JSON
gno ls --json

# Get specific document content
gno get <docid>

Example Session

# Setup
gno init ~/notes --name notes
gno update

# Search
gno search "meeting notes"
gno vsearch "project timeline concerns"
gno query "what did we decide about the API"

# Get details
gno ls --json | head
gno get abc123

# AI answer
gno ask "summarize the authentication discussion" --answer

Next Steps