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Cogito Help

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Cogito is a calm, native, minimal Markdown app for your notes. It's built for humans and AI agents alike.

Add any folder, browse files easily, see polished previews, find related notes, and use integrated AI chat to quickly edit and review files.

Some quick tips to get started:

  1. Click Add Location or drag in a folder from Finder.
  2. Press ⌘P to jump to any note.
  3. Type [[ to link notes together.
  4. Press ⌘R to switch between Source and Preview.
  5. Open the Inspector with ⌥⌘I, or AI Chat with ⌘⇧J.

Cogito is still in beta. Keep backups of important notes and expect rough edges.

Bring your notes and files

Point Cogito at any folder:

  • Any local folder with notes and text files.
  • Obsidian vaults with your existing notes, links, and structure.
  • iCloud Drive folders that continue syncing through iCloud.
  • Project docs beside your code, without getting in the way of Git.

Cogito is optimized for Markdown, but Locations can also show other useful text files like scripts and project docs. You choose per Location whether to keep the sidebar focused on Markdown or show everything.

You can add multiple Locations, reorder them in the sidebar, drag files into folders, and reveal or open notes in Finder whenever you want the raw file. Cogito also shows context badges for cloud and Git-backed folders, so you can tell at a glance when a Location lives in iCloud, Dropbox, Syncthing, Git, or another sync/workspace context.

Write in Markdown

Source mode is keyboard-first, fast, and tuned for writing: syntax highlighting, smart list continuation, Markdown formatting shortcuts, and separate font settings for editor, code, and preview. Use ⌘B, ⌘I, ⌘K, ⌥⌘U, ⌥⌘O, and the full keyboard shortcut reference when you want to move faster.

Preview rich documents

Preview mode supports much more than basic Markdown: images, tables, Mermaid diagrams, LaTeX math, callouts, footnotes, task checkboxes, details blocks, code titles, emoji aliases, superscript and subscript shorthand, wiki heading fragments, and a safe subset of inline HTML for images and figures.

You can toggle Source and Preview with ⌘R, hide code block line numbers with ⌥⌘L, and export the rendered result when you need a polished copy outside Cogito.

Move quickly

  • Quick Open (⌘P) ranks notes by recency and relevance. Press Enter to open, or ⇧Enter for a new tab.
  • Tabs keep related notes together, with ⌃⇥ / ⌃⇧⇥ for cycling.
  • Sidebar actions cover moving, duplicating, renaming, copying paths, changing folder icons, and opening files elsewhere.
  • Finder Quick Look renders Markdown previews with Cogito styling when you press Space on a Markdown file.

Export and copy

Cogito is useful even when the final destination is somewhere else. Export a rendered note, copy formatted content from Preview for pasting into rich-text apps, or copy Markdown from Source when you want the raw text.

You can also copy the current note's relative path, absolute path, or Cogito link, which makes it easy to reference files from chats, issues, commits, or other tools.

Connect ideas

Type [[ to create wiki-links with autocomplete. Click a link to jump to that note, or link to a note that does not exist yet and Cogito can create it for you.

The Inspector adds a live outline, writing stats, task progress, and Related Notes. Related Notes can use both explicit links and on-device semantic search powered by qmd. See Related Notes for setup.

Work with AI

Open AI Chat with ⌘⇧J. You can chat about the current note, ask across a whole Location from an empty workspace screen, select text for context, @-mention other notes, and choose which AI providers appear in the picker.

Cogito keeps current-note and Location chats separate, including their context, transcripts, providers, and permissions. When you allow it, AI can suggest edits directly in your note.

Details worth knowing

  • Attachment folders can be Smart or Custom in Settings > General.
  • Open With in the note header sends the current file to another editor, Finder, or your terminal.

Send feedback

The best way to send bugs, questions, and feature feedback is Help > Send Feedback inside Cogito. It lets you add a message and screenshots, and it includes useful app details that make issues much easier to debug.

Email hello@cogito.md still works when you cannot open the app, but in-app feedback is preferred. See Send Feedback and Bug Reports for what gets included.

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