Universal Notes

Stop opening 5 note-taking apps to find one idea. One command writes to Apple Notes, Notion, Obsidian, or Bear with the right formatting for each platform.

The Problem

You capture a meeting insight in Apple Notes, a code reference in Obsidian, a project brief in Notion, and a quick thought in Bear. When you need that meeting insight a month later, you search 4 apps and find it in the third one you check. Your notes are fragmented across platforms because each app has different strengths — Apple Notes syncs fast via iCloud, Obsidian links ideas with wikilinks, Notion organizes with databases, Bear is beautiful for long-form writing — but none of them talk to each other.

What You Get

• 5-platform note creation — writes formatted notes to Apple Notes (HTML), Notion (block API), Obsidian (markdown + wikilinks), Bear (x-callback-url + tags), or a plain markdown file fallback
• Auto-detection engine — detects available platforms on the current system and picks the best renderer without user configuration: Apple Notes on macOS, Notion if API key is set, Obsidian if vault exists, Bear if installed, else markdown file
• Cross-platform formatting engine — converts Markdown source to the correct format for each target: HTML for Apple Notes, JSON blocks for Notion, wikilink markdown for Obsidian, tagged markdown for Bear
• Search across all platforms — unified search that queries Apple Notes (via memo CLI), Notion (REST API), Obsidian (filesystem grep), and Bear (x-callback-url search) in parallel
• Read and edit operations — reads notes back from any supported platform, searches by keyword, and edits by appending or replacing content in the correct platform-specific format
• Platform-specific pitfall guides — documents 8 known failure modes (AppleScript hangs without Automation permission, Markdown shown as raw # in Apple Notes, Notion API version mismatches) with exact fixes

Why This Beats Prompting It Yourself

When you ask an agent to "take a note," it defaults to writing a markdown file and ignores the 3 note-taking apps you actually use. This skill knows that Apple Notes requires HTML (not Markdown), that Notion uses heading_2 blocks (not #), and that Obsidian expects YAML frontmatter. Without the formatting engine, notes saved to Apple Notes show raw # characters, Notion pages have broken headers, and the agent wastes 15 minutes debugging the wrong format.

Example Session

You: Save today's standup notes to Obsidian with the project tag.

Agent: Detected Obsidian vault at ~/Documents/Obsidian Vault. Wrote to ~/Documents/Obsidian Vault/Meetings/2026-09-21 Standup.md:

---
created: 2026-09-21
tags: [meeting, standup, project]
---
# 2026-09-21 Standup

## Updates
- Payment retry PR merged, deploying to staging
- API latency investigation started — profiling N+1 queries

## Blockers
- CI flaky test blocking merge queue (#247)

Note created successfully. File path: ~/Documents/Obsidian Vault/Meetings/2026-09-21 Standup.md

Use Cases

• Capturing meeting notes that automatically sync to the app where related project context lives
• Saving code snippets to Obsidian with proper wikilinks to connected notes
• Creating Notion pages with structured blocks (headings, lists, code, tables) from agent output
• Searching across all note platforms simultaneously when looking for a specific reference
• Taking notes during a workflow without switching context to a specific app

Known Limitations

Apple Notes cannot update existing note bodies via AppleScript — edits require delete-and-recreate. Notion API rate limits (3 requests/second) may slow bulk operations. Bear is macOS-only and uses URL encoding limits that truncate very long notes.

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Tags: notes productivity apple-notes notion obsidian bear cross-platform

Version: 2.0.0