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Is Deelan for me?

Deelan is a local-first publishing layer for Markdown notes.

If your current workflow is "Word files in folders", Deelan is the same core habit with a stronger structure:

  • you still write content files
  • you still organize files in folders
  • but the content is plain text (.md) instead of binary document formats
  • and Deelan turns those files into a searchable, linked, browsable site

Tip

If you are not familiar with Markdown or git, there are a lot of introduction texts and videos that can be found online. Ask your favorite AI agent for a brief intro and recommendations to learn more.

The Core Idea

You keep a normal git repository with:

  • content/posts/*.md for long-form entries
  • content/snippets/*.md for short reusable notes

Deelan reads this repository and generates:

  • list/explorer pages
  • rendered detail pages (/view/<id>)
  • search indexes
  • tag analytics
  • exportable HTML/PDF outputs

Why This Helps

Compared with ad-hoc document folders:

  • content changes and history is traceable with git and can be sync'd between multiple devices
  • links between notes stay explicit and validated
  • metadata is structured (frontmatter)
  • outputs are static (simple hosting, private sharing, offline-friendly)

What Writing Looks Like

You write Markdown as usual. A small frontmatter header describes metadata such as:

  • title
  • tags
  • description
  • related item IDs

Deelan then handles rendering, navigation, linking, and filtering.

Typical Workflow

  1. Initialize a notebook project with deelan init.
  2. Add/edit notes in content/posts and content/snippets.
  3. Validate with deelan validate.
  4. Build with deelan build.
  5. Serve locally with deelan serve.
  6. Export individual items with deelan export.

What Deelan Is Not

Deelan is not a collaborative online editor by itself.

  • It does not replace Google Docs or Word online co-editing.
  • It does not manage user accounts/permissions internally.

Instead, it gives you a durable publishing and navigation layer on top of files you own.

Where It Fits Best

Deelan works best when you want:

  • private knowledge capture
  • long-term maintainability
  • clean version history
  • static publishing with minimal infrastructure

For teams, the common model is:

  • author in git
  • validate/build in CI
  • serve static output behind your preferred access controls