Notepad

What It Is

Code Overlord's Notepad is the desktop side panel for quick workspace notes. The app calls the active panel THY QUILL: a quill is just your scratchpad for tasks, reminders, links, and review context.

Notepad is workspace-aware. Each workspace has its own active notes, completed notes, attachments, document bindings, and cloud-sync state.

Use it for:

• A checklist you want visible while an agent runs.
• Small facts you do not want to lose while reviewing diffs.
• File or screenshot references that should travel with the note.
• Shared context that mobile devices or MCP-powered minions can read when sync is enabled.

Layout

The panel is compact and always meant to stay usable beside your main work.

• THY QUILL: active notes.
• Count badge: number of active notes.
• Search icon: filters visible active and completed notes.
• Copy: copies active notes to the clipboard.
• Input field: says Inscribe a note... (Enter to save).
• CONQUERED: completed notes. This is the app's themed word for done notes.

A note row with attached materials collapsed into a count chip.

Tip: The current source labels markdown bindings as documents. Some older screenshots use the themed word "tomes" for the same idea.

Create Notes

1. Click the Inscribe a note... field.
2. Type your note.
3. Press Enter to save it.

Use Shift+Enter to add a newline inside the note instead of saving.

Blank notes are ignored. Code Overlord trims leading and trailing whitespace before saving a note.

Paste An Image

When the Notepad input or an inline note editor has focus, press:

Platform	Shortcut
Windows/Linux	Ctrl+Alt+V
macOS	Cmd+Option+V

If the clipboard contains an image, Code Overlord creates or updates a note with that image as an attached scroll. If the input is empty, the placeholder note text is Pasted image.

Normal text paste still works through the regular text field behavior.

Edit Notes

1. Double-click a note row.
2. Edit the text inline.
3. Press Enter to save.

Use Shift+Enter for a newline while editing. Clicking away also finishes the edit, except while Scribe voice dictation is recording or transcribing into that note. In that case, the editor stays armed so the transcript has a valid destination.

If you clear an existing note and leave it blank, the old text stays unchanged. Blank placeholder notes created by the child-note flow are removed when saved blank.

Organize Notes

Complete A Note

Hover a row to reveal its row menu, then click the check icon. The note moves from THY QUILL to CONQUERED.

Add A Child Note

Hover a note and click the add icon in the row menu. Code Overlord inserts a blank child below the note and opens it for editing. Child notes are indented under their parent.

Indent And Outdent

You can indent up to three levels.

Action	How
Indent hovered row	Tab
Outdent hovered row	Shift+Tab
Indent while editing	right-arrow inline control or Tab
Outdent while editing	left-arrow inline control or Shift+Tab

Reorder Notes

Drag a note row to move it. The default drag behavior moves only the grabbed row, not its indented children.

Keyboard reorder is available while a row is hovered:

Action	Shortcut
Move up	Alt+Up
Move down	Alt+Down

Order changes are included in cloud sync. Code Overlord guards reorder syncs so a local reorder is not accidentally overwritten by an older remote order.

Delete Active Notes

Hover a note and click the delete icon. If the note has indented child rows beneath it, Code Overlord asks for confirmation before deleting the whole attached block.

Deleted active notes are archived locally and queued as cloud tombstones when sync is enabled.

Completed Notes

Completed notes appear under CONQUERED.

Hover a completed note to reveal:

Control	What it does
Restore	Moves the note back to active notes as a top-level item.
Delete	Removes and archives that completed note.

The CONQUERED header also has:

• Copy: copies completed notes.
• Archive: starts the clear-all flow.
• Purge?: the second click within the confirmation window that archives all completed notes.

After clearing, a short Cleared! status appears.

Search And Copy

Click the search icon to show Filter inscriptions.... Search filters both active and completed notes by note text. Press Escape while the search field is focused to close it and clear the filter.

Copy exports notes as an indented Markdown-friendly bullet list:

- Top-level note
  - Child note

The copy action copies note text only. Attached scrolls and bound documents remain attached in Notepad but are not embedded into the copied text.

Materials: Scrolls And Documents

Notepad materials are things attached to a note.

• Scrolls are attached files, such as screenshots, PDFs, logs, or text files.
• Documents are workspace-relative Markdown files (.md) bound to the note.

Rows with materials show a right-side count such as 2 scrolls, 2 documents. Hover or focus that chip to open the materials disclosure.

The materials disclosure shows attached scrolls and bound markdown documents with per-item actions.

Add Scrolls

You can attach a scroll in two places:

1. Hover a note row and click the paperclip action.
2. Double-click a note, then click Affix a scroll.

The desktop file picker opens with the title Select file to attach. Code Overlord copies the selected file into the workspace attachment folder and stores note metadata pointing to that copy.

Each note can hold up to 10 scrolls.

Scroll Actions

In the materials disclosure, each scroll has these actions:

Action	What it does
Open scroll	Opens the file in your operating system's default app.
Reveal in file browser	Opens the containing folder and selects or shows the file where the OS supports it.
Copy path	Copies the resolved local path.
Detach the scroll	Removes that scroll from the note.

Right-clicking the scroll name exposes the same actions.

Bind Documents

Double-click a note, then click Bind a document. The picker accepts Markdown files only.

Document bindings are workspace-relative. The file must live inside one of the workspace roots. A bound document is not copied into attachments; the repo file remains the source of truth.

Each note can hold up to 10 documents.

Document Actions

In the materials disclosure, each document has:

Action	What it does
Open document	Opens the live repo file in Peruse, Code Overlord's file viewer.
Pen it	Creates a missing Markdown file with a heading, then opens it.
Unbind the document	Removes the binding without deleting the repo file.

Document state labels tell you whether the desktop has reconciled the binding: linked, pending_desktop, missing, synced, stale, too_large, snapshot_error, or empty.

Voice Dictation

The floating Scribe mic can insert dictated text into Notepad.

Supported Notepad targets:

• New-note input: focus the input, dictate, then press Enter when the note is ready.
• Inline edit: double-click a note, place the cursor, then dictate.

Dictation inserts at the cursor. If no Notepad field is focused, the transcript is saved to recent dictations instead of being inserted into a random note.

See Voice Dictation for the mic states, shortcut, focus routing, and recent-dictations popup.

Cloud Sync

Notepad sync is controlled from Settings and Configuration -> Account & Sync.

When you sign in and turn on Sync notepad across devices, Code Overlord syncs:

• Active notes.
• Completed notes.
• Note order and indentation.
• Attached scroll metadata and uploaded scroll files.
• Bound document metadata and document snapshots.
• Delete tombstones for notes you archive or remove.

Desktop also downloads remote scrolls it does not already have into the local attachment cache.

If two devices edit the same cloud note, Code Overlord uses item timestamps and keeps superseded local versions available as restore affordances when it can.

Storage

Local note data is stored per workspace as JSON in Code Overlord's cache directory:

<cache_dir>/<workspace_id>_notepad.json

Deleted or cleared completed notes are archived in a local SQLite database:

<cache_dir>/<workspace_id>_notepad.db

Desktop scroll files are copied into the workspace:

<workspace_root>/.code-overlord/attachments/

Remote scrolls downloaded by cloud sync can be cached under:

<config_dir>/attachments/<workspace_id>/

Keyboard Shortcuts

A quick reference for the Notepad shortcuts described above.

Action	Shortcut	When
Save the new note	Enter	New-note input focused
Newline instead of save	Shift+Enter	New-note input or inline editor
Finish an edit	Enter	Editing a note inline
Paste clipboard image as a scroll	Ctrl+Alt+V (Win/Linux), Cmd+Option+V (macOS)	Notepad input or inline editor focused
Indent hovered row	Tab	Row hovered, no field focused
Outdent hovered row	Shift+Tab	Row hovered, no field focused
Indent / outdent while editing	Tab / Shift+Tab	Editing a note inline
Move row up	Alt+Up	Row hovered
Move row down	Alt+Down	Row hovered
Close and clear search	Escape	Search field focused

Troubleshooting

Problem	What to check
Dictation did not appear in a note	Make sure the Notepad input or inline editor had focus when recording started. Check recent dictations from the mic right-click menu.
A scroll opens from the wrong location	Use Copy path in the materials disclosure to see the resolved path. Desktop scrolls normally live under .code-overlord/attachments/.
A document will not bind	The selected file must be a workspace-relative .md file. Files outside the workspace are rejected.
A secret or screenshot should sync to mobile	Confirm you are signed in and Sync notepad across devices is on in Account & Sync; then use Sync now.
Search seems to hide notes	Press Escape in the search field or clear Filter inscriptions....