~/diary

A private, terminal-themed diary that runs in the browser. One user, one SQLite file, one binary.

• Rust + axum backend, SQLite storage, Svelte 5 frontend.
• Markdown entries with full-text search (SQLite FTS5).
• Drag, drop or paste images, video and audio straight into an entry.
• Share any entry behind an unguessable link — revocable at any time.
• Real vim keybindings on the desktop (CodeMirror 6 + vim mode), plain taps on mobile.
• The whole frontend is embedded in the release binary, so deploying is copying one file.

Quick start

cp .env.example .env      # set DIARY_USER, DIARY_PASSWORD and DIARY_SECRET
make build                # builds the frontend, then the release binary
./target/release/narl-diary

Then open http://127.0.0.1:4242.

DIARY_SECRET signs the session cookie; generate one with openssl rand -base64 32. Changing it logs every device out. The database and uploads live under DIARY_DATA_DIR (./data by default) — that directory is the entire backup.

Development

make dev-api   # cargo run, serving the API on :4242
make dev-web   # vite dev server on :4243, proxying /api to :4242

In debug builds the binary reads web/dist from disk, so cargo run alone also works once the frontend has been built at least once.

Keys

The desktop UI is modal. In the browse pane:

key	action
j / k	move down / up
gg / G	first / last entry
Enter, l	open the highlighted entry
o	new entry, straight into insert mode
i, a	edit the open entry
Esc, h, q	back out to the list
/	full-text search (n clears it)
s / y	toggle sharing / copy the share link
x, dd	delete the entry
:	command line
Ctrl-S	save from anywhere
?	help

Inside the editor the full vim keymap is live — w/b, dd, ciw, visual mode, macros, :w to write. :help lists every ex command; the useful ones are :w, :wq, :q!, :new [yyyy-mm-dd], :date, :title, :share, :link, :upload, :media, :search, :set theme=mocha|green|amber|ice and :set novim.

On a touch device modal editing is turned off and the same actions are buttons.

Sharing

:share mints a 192-bit random token and copies https://your-host/s/<token>. That page needs no session, renders the entry read-only, and serves only the media files that entry currently embeds — dropping a picture out of a shared entry immediately makes it unreachable through the link. :unshare destroys the token, and a new :share mints a different one.

API

Everything except the two share routes requires the session cookie.

method	path	purpose
POST	/api/login, /api/logout	session
GET	/api/me	current user
GET/POST	/api/entries	list (?q= searches) / create
GET/PUT/DELETE	/api/entries/{id}	read / update / delete
POST/DELETE	/api/entries/{id}/share	mint / revoke a share token
GET/POST	/api/media	list / upload (multipart)
GET/DELETE	/api/media/{id}	serve / delete a file
GET	/api/share/{token}	public: read a shared entry
GET	/api/share/{token}/media/{id}	public: media inside a shared entry

Deploying

Put a TLS-terminating reverse proxy in front of it, point it at DIARY_BIND, and set DIARY_SECURE_COOKIE=1. Nothing else is needed: no database server, no runtime dependencies, no build tools on the host.

Docker

cp .env.example .env   # set DIARY_USER, DIARY_PASSWORD, DIARY_SECRET
docker compose up -d --build

The image builds the frontend with bun and the binary with cargo, then ships only the binary on debian:trixie-slim (~86 MB), running as an unprivileged user. DIARY_BIND and DIARY_DATA_DIR are forced in compose.yml, so the values in .env do not have to change; everything else is read from .env. Database and uploads live in the diary-data volume and survive recreation.

By default the port is published on 127.0.0.1:4242 only. To serve it through traefik instead, copy compose.override.yml.example to compose.override.yml and adjust the host — it joins the external narl network, drops the published port, and routes to container port 4242. Set DIARY_SECURE_COOKIE=1 in .env once it is served over HTTPS.