ZenNotes/zennotes v2.70.0 on GitHub

ZenNotes 2.70.0 lets a script react the moment a task changes status: the zn CLI bundled with the app is now 0.8.0, whose zn task watch prints one line for each status change, and assistants connected through MCP see each task's status. Quick capture's shortcuts work with Vim in normal mode, Ctrl+P moves up in Search Notes on Linux and Windows instead of closing it, and the phones finish syncing when you leave the app.

Released from 9e50b245 through #945 on 2026-10-14. All installers are verified.

New

React when a task changes status: zn task watch (#941). The zn CLI that ZenNotes bundles on macOS and Linux is now 0.8.0 (it was 0.7.1). zn task watch prints a line each time a task's status changes: a task note's status:, a checkbox task's @status:, or the checkbox itself. Dragging a card on the Kanban board, editing the note in ZenNotes or any other editor, and zn task toggle all count; editing a task's words, or saving it with the same status, does not. With --json, each change is one line with the note's path, title and link, the task's text, and its previousStatus and status, so a script can start an agent the moment a card reaches Ready without parsing files or remembering what it saw. zn only reports: what runs on a change is your own script, so nothing that executes lives in the vault, where it would sync to every device. It watches a local vault through its files, and a ZenNotes Server through the changes it pushes. zn task list --json gives each task's status too. A zn installed from Settings → CLI moves to 0.8.0 with this update if it has not already; with Homebrew, run brew upgrade zn. Thanks to @mateusmatiazzi for the idea and the clear write-up.
Assistants see each task's status. Through ZenNotes' MCP server (Settings → MCP), list_tasks now gives each task's status, the column it sits in when the Kanban board is grouped by Custom status: a task note's status: (open when it has none), and for a checkbox task its @status: or the status its note's frontmatter gives it, read the way the app reads them. Asked "what is in Review?", an assistant can now answer. The tool's status argument still filters by state (open, done, waiting), and its description now says so. zn mcp gives the same field from zn 0.8.0, so both servers answer alike.
The phones finish syncing when you leave the app. On iPhone and Android, ZenNotes Cloud synced only while the app was on screen, and leaving it stopped a sync that was running, so a note written just before switching apps reached your other devices only the next time you opened ZenNotes on the phone. Leaving the app now finishes the sync first: the last edit is saved and uploaded within seconds. Settings → Cloud → Sync in the background turns it off. It does not sync while the app stays closed: both systems freeze an app soon after you leave it, so changes made on other devices still arrive when you open it again. With iPhone 1.26.0 and Android 1.1.40. Thanks to Dave for asking on Discord.

Fixes

Quick capture's shortcuts work with Vim in normal mode (#942, #944 by @uNyanda). With Vim on, the Quick capture window's Ctrl+P (open a note), Ctrl+N (new note) and, on Linux and Windows, Ctrl+W (hide) did nothing unless the editor was in insert mode: Vim took them as its own keys first. On Linux and Windows those are the window's main shortcuts; on macOS the Cmd versions worked and the Ctrl ones did not. They now work in every mode, and inside the note picker or the command palette Ctrl+N and Ctrl+P move the selection, as the footer and the manual now say. The picker shows each note's name in full, with its folder before it and the path inside the folder after it, cut from the left when it is long; until now the path came first and pushed the name out of view. Both lists keep the selected row in view as you move past the bottom. The footer shows the keys that work at that moment, and its close hint is your Close active tab key, following a rebind, or gone when it is unbound. Thanks to @uNyanda, who reported it, fixed it and wrote 11 tests.
Ctrl+P moves up in Search Notes on Linux and Windows (#938, #939 by @uNyanda). Search Notes opens with Ctrl+P on Linux and Windows (Cmd+P on macOS), and Ctrl+P is also the key that moves up in every list in ZenNotes, as Ctrl+N moves down. In Search Notes it closed the palette instead. It moves the selection up now. Search Notes is no longer a toggle on any platform: Escape, opening a note or clicking outside closes it, so on macOS Cmd+P inside the open palette no longer closes it either. Thanks to @uNyanda.

For contributors

MCP task status (#943, b74d25ba): VaultTask.status in apps/desktop/src/mcp/vault-ops.ts, set on every task note (open when it has none) and on every line that has a status, from the first @status: on the line (lower-cased) or the note's frontmatter default. The app's own field reader, inlineTaskField, is now exported from packages/shared-domain and imported by the MCP server rather than copied again. The token stays in content, so task ids and content do not change. The legacy TypeScript CLI shares this scan, so its task list --json gains the field. list_tasks' description names the field, and its status argument says it filters by state, in the same words as zn mcp. The Go mirror is ZenNotes/tui 7657716 and 58b0e56 (zn 0.8.0).
Quick capture (#944, e91aa5cd by @uNyanda; review follow-up f8e7fe17): QuickCaptureApp.tsx claims Mod+N, Mod+P and Mod+Shift+P in a capture-phase window listener that stands aside while an overlay is open, the treatment App.tsx gives its own editor chords (#510, #579); useCloseWindowShortcut takes a capture flag that only this window sets. The picker row mirrors BufferPalette's #635 layout, with the subpath wrapped in U+202A/U+202C inside a dir="rtl" span so a path starting with digits reads in order. Both overlays scroll the selection into view, keyed on data-qc-idx. useCloseShortcutDisplay() (close-shortcut.ts) reads the Close active tab binding the way useCloseWindowShortcut does, kept current through the same storage event. 13 new tests.
Search Notes (#939, 7565112b by @uNyanda; comment follow-up 4ac1f637): focusPaneHandler in App.tsx runs in the capture phase and its global.searchNotes branch toggled the palette closed, with preventDefault() and stopImmediatePropagation(), before the palette's isPalettePreviousKey() saw Ctrl+P. The toggle is gone; the open path and #510's capture-phase registration are unchanged.
Note grammar (#940, ea5528ea): no change to the parser. The header of cm-markdown-language.ts says why both full reads stay (after a parse runs out of time, and when the body start moves): reusing blocks after a cut was tried and was stale 29 times in 50,000 checks against a fresh parse, against 3 for the grammar as it is. A new test pins the read after a cut.
Bundled CLI: zn 0.8.0 (fb4177b7), its terminal-release.json copied byte for byte after it verified against zn-release-1 (source commit 58b0e56, protocol 1, all four archives matching checksums.txt); the staged darwin-arm64 binary reports zn v0.8.0.
What's New: the 2.70.0 entry in packages/app-core/src/lib/whats-new.ts (9e50b245).
Docs: the in-app manual's CLI card (0.7.2 and 0.8.0), the Tasks and folders card (zn task watch), and the Quick capture window's Ctrl+N / Ctrl+P; on the website, the same three and the zn docs for zn task watch (live since ZenNotes/website#79).
Phones: final sync on leaving the app, ZenNotes/zennotesios#61 and ZenNotes/zennotesandroid#113: src/bridge/background-sync.ts in each shell, a native begin and end around the last sync (iOS UIApplication.beginBackgroundTask), setting key zn:background-sync (absent means on). Android's 15-minute WorkManager job was built and removed before merging: once Android freezes the app, the WebView renderer that runs the sync is a separate frozen process a job cannot wake.

Demos

In docs/releases/v2.70.0/media/ (local), 1080p with captions burned in and a .vtt beside each, recorded on the packaged 2.70.0 build with scratch vaults:

zn-task-watch.mp4 (20 s): the zn 0.8.0 bundled in the app runs zn task watch --vault ./Work under the Kanban board, grouped by Custom status. Shift+L moves Parser rewrite from backlog to ready and on to review, then a save from outside the app moves Docs refresh to ready. Each change prints one line: the time, the old and new status, the task and its note. The terminal is zn's real output, recorded on the same clock as the app.
quick-capture-vim.mp4 (18 s): the Quick capture window with Vim on. A thought is typed and Escape returns to normal mode; Ctrl+P opens the note picker, where each note's name comes before its subfolder; Ctrl+N and Ctrl+P move; Escape closes it; and Ctrl+N saves the draft to Quick Notes and starts a new one.

Verification

How to test locally. Build once with npm run build --workspace @zennotes/desktop and launch with isolated stores: ZENNOTES_USER_DATA_PATH=$(mktemp -d) ZENNOTES_CONFIG_DIR=$(mktemp -d) npx electron apps/desktop/out/main/index.js. For the Vim steps, put [vim] and enabled = true in a config.toml in that config dir first.

zn task watch (#941). In a vault with a task note inbox/Parser.md whose frontmatter says status: backlog, run zn task watch --json --vault <vault folder> in a terminal (the bundled one is ZenNotes.app/Contents/Resources/zn-cli/zn on macOS). In the app, open Tasks → Kanban, set Group by to Custom status, and drag the card to another column. One line appears: "previousStatus":"backlog","status":"ready". Change a word in the task, or save the note unchanged: nothing. In a note with - [ ] Ship @status:review, change the token to @status:done: one line, "previousStatus":"review","status":"done", without kind, which only a task note carries ("kind":"file").
Status through MCP. In the same vault, ask an assistant connected through Settings → MCP to list your tasks: each carries status. Or cd apps/desktop && npx vitest run src/mcp/vault-ops.test.ts -t "status".
Quick capture with Vim (#942). Open the Quick capture window (Space q, or the global hotkey), type a line and press Escape for normal mode. Press Ctrl+P: the note picker opens (before: the cursor moved up a line and nothing opened). Ctrl+N and Ctrl+P move in it; a note inbox/2026/Planning/Roadmap.md reads INBOX Roadmap 2026/Planning, its name before its path. Escape, then Ctrl+N: the draft is saved to Quick Notes and a fresh capture opens. On Linux and Windows, Ctrl+W hides the window. The footer reads ⌘W close on macOS; rebind Close active tab in Settings → Keymap and the hint follows.
Search Notes (#938). On Linux or Windows press Ctrl+P, type a few letters, press Ctrl+N twice, then Ctrl+P. Before: the palette closed. After: the selection moves up one row. Escape closes it. On macOS, Cmd+P inside the open palette no longer closes it.
Phones (once the updates are out): with Cloud linked, type a line in a note and switch to another app right away; on another device the line arrives within seconds. With Settings → Cloud → Sync in the background Off, it waits until ZenNotes is opened again on the phone.
What's New. Launch 2.70.0 with a profile last used by 2.69.1: "What's new in ZenNotes 2.70.0" lists four highlights.

Distribution channels

GitHub release: installers for macOS (Apple silicon and Intel DMG and zip), Windows (x64 and ARM64 installer and zip) and Linux (x64 and arm64 AppImage, deb, rpm, pacman, tar.gz), with five update manifests.
AUR: zennotes-bin 2.70.0-1 (AUR clone dcc7b9c, repo e169b57a), pinned to ZenNotes-2.70.0-linux-x64.tar.gz SHA-256 f9eb5ce4…967d (GitHub's own digest for the asset), after the bump script checked the bundled CLI folder is world-readable; aur-check passed.
Nix: packaging/nix/release-data.json lifted from the update workflow (run 38626637349, bot PR #946 closed) as 9408dab6; its desktopHash is the same digest as the AUR pin, and nix-build on main passed.
nixpkgs: NixOS/nixpkgs#572180, still waiting for review, now proposes 2.64.0 -> 2.70.0 (df5b1f8e); the source hash comes from the tag tarball, by the same prefetch that reproduces the 2.64.0 hash in nixpkgs today.
Homebrew: zennotes 2.70.0 in the tap (234f96b), mirrored in 5ff943df; both DMGs were downloaded and their SHA-256 matches the cask and GitHub's digest; brew style clean.
Website: ZenNotes/website#81 merged at 40be0c90 with the 2.70.0 entry and its two clips, and the docs for this release (desktop 2.70.0 bundles CLI 0.8.0, and Quick capture's Ctrl+N / Ctrl+P); the zn docs for zn task watch went live earlier today with ZenNotes/website#79. Laravel Cloud deployed it, and the live check passed: /releases leads with 2.70.0 and its new titles, one clip and the other's captions match the local files byte for byte, a Range request on the other answers 206, and /docs says desktop 2.70.0 bundles CLI 0.8.0.
zn CLI: 0.8.0 (ZenNotes/tui#10, tag v0.8.0, Homebrew formula 0b664e8, tap 205389f), released earlier today and bundled here: zn task watch, each task's status in zn task list --json and in zn mcp's list_tasks.
Server: ZenNotes/znserver v2.70.0 pins web-2.70.0-web.h661b8da927ac7586, built from this release's commit (#30), so the browser app gets the Search Notes fix; its five binaries match SHA256SUMS, and the released darwin-arm64 binary reports v2.70.0, serves the app, answers 401 without the token and lists all five tasks of the test note with it. Docker adibhanna/zennotes:2.70.0, 2.70 and latest (linux/amd64 and arm64, one digest 39b1974b…); README #31.
Boundary packages: built by CI from 9e50b245 and published as pre-releases, never "latest": web-2.70.0-web.h661b8da927ac7586 and core-2.70.0-core.hbed9639c9831ecf7, the core published once both phone apps had been submitted on it. No new share viewer: nothing that published pages render changed since viewer-2.69.0, which the website keeps.
Phones: iPhone 1.26.0 (42) and Android 1.1.40 (43), both on core-2.70.0-core.hbed9639c9831ecf7: the final sync on leaving the app, Convert to database's name in a long note (core 2.69.1), and the Search Notes key on a hardware keyboard. iPhone: zennotesios#62 merged at 7991ba0, submitted to App Review on 2026-10-14. Android: zennotesandroid#114 merged at 196e6c3 (tag v1.1.40, the same tree as the uploaded bundle) and sent to Google Play review on 2026-10-14 for a full rollout; the GitHub release v1.1.40 carries Play's signed universal APK (31,887,821 bytes, SHA-256 69385f52…1f11, signer 9f1af3a4…), byte-identical when downloaded again.

Release validation

Every CI failure since 2.69.1 was read before this release: ci-sweep.py v2.69.1 found none, and hazard-scan.py --since v2.69.1, which runs every copy of the task-line pattern across the desktop, its MCP server, zn and the server on the same lines, is clean.

Release-time gates on 9e50b245, in a clean checkout of it with its own npm ci: typecheck 8/8 and test:run with no turbo cache (shared-domain 1,994, app-core 3,235, quicklook 15, desktop 1,148), the terminal tests (13), the web-dist lock, test:shared-packages, test:app-core-package and test:app-core-browser, and npm audit --omit=dev --audit-level=high clean. Pack: Developer ID signed, deep strict codesign OK, bundled zn v0.8.0 in a drwxr-xr-x Resources/zn-cli, the Quick Look extension; packaged launch check: page target and drawn app in 2.1 s, version 2.70.0. Smoke suites vim-editor (12), sidebar-vim (12) and editor-improvements (19) pass on the first run. What's New on the update from 2.69.1, on the packaged build: "What's new in ZenNotes 2.70.0" with the Cloud card and its four highlights.

A first pack, in the release worktree, failed the packaged launch check (no page target in 90 s; the main process stood at an error dialog). That worktree resolves packages from the main checkout, and electron-builder left every dependency hoisted there out of the app (chokidar, ws, electron-updater and five more), which a scan of the extracted archive confirmed. It was not a product bug: the same commit, packed in a clean checkout, launched in 2.1 s, and the release runbook now packs in a checkout with its own node_modules.

Release PR #945: all 10 checks green on 9e50b245, including the windows-11-arm package and launch check. CI on main for 9e50b245 (run 38621899138) passed all six jobs before the tag; the only red run at that commit was Dependabot's own refresh of its development-dependency PR (#926, an npm peer conflict in its dry-run install), not product CI. CI on main for the packaging commits passed too: 9408dab6 (Nix, run 38626951568, whose run superseded the AUR commit's) and 5ff943df (Homebrew, run 38629467604). Release run 38624159807: all six jobs green; verify-installers.py ALL GOOD on the five manifests; both DMGs hash to GitHub's digests and the cask, and the app in each is Notarized Developer ID with a valid stapled ticket. npm run verify:channels -- 2.70.0: every channel serves v2.70.0 (Homebrew, AUR, Nix and the website's eight download buttons).

ZenNotes/zennotes v2.70.0 ZenNotes v2.70.0 on GitHub

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