/foam

A personal knowledge management and sharing system for VSCode

Primary LanguageTypeScriptOtherNOASSERTION

Foam

πŸ‘€This is an early stage project under rapid development. For updates join the Foam community Discord! πŸ’¬

All Contributors

Visual Studio Marketplace Installs Discord Chat

Foam is a personal knowledge management and sharing system inspired by Roam Research, built on Visual Studio Code and GitHub.

You can use Foam for organising your research, keeping re-discoverable notes, writing long-form content and, optionally, publishing it to the web.

Foam is free, open source, and extremely extensible to suit your personal workflow. You own the information you create with Foam, and you're free to share it, and collaborate on it with anyone you want.

Features

Graph Visualization

See how your notes are connected via a graph with the Foam: Show Graph command.

Graph Visualization

Link Autocompletion

Foam helps you create the connections between your notes, and your placeholders as well.

Link Autocompletion

Sync links on file rename

Foam updates the links to renamed files, so your notes stay consistent.

Sync links on file rename

Unique identifiers across directories

Foam supports files with the same name in multiple directories. It will use the minimum identifier required, and even report and help you fix existing ambiguous wikilinks.

Unique identifier autocompletion

Wikilink diagnostic

Link Preview and Navigation

Link Preview and Navigation

Go to definition, Peek References

See where a note is being referenced in your knowledge base.

Go to Definition, Peek References

Navigation in Preview

Navigate your rendered notes in the VS Code preview panel.

Navigation in Preview

Note embed

Embed the content from other notes.

Note Embed

Support for sections

Foam supports autocompletion, navigation, embedding and diagnostics for note sections. Just use the standard wiki syntax of [[resource#Section Title]].

Link Alias

Foam supports link aliasing, so you can have a [[wikilink]], or a [[wikilink|alias]].

Templates

Use custom templates to have avoid repetitve work on your notes.

Templates

Backlinks Panel

Quickly check which notes are referencing the currently active note. See for each occurrence the context in which it lives, as well as a preview of the note.

Backlinks Panel

Tag Explorer Panel

Tag your notes and navigate them with the Tag Explorer. Foam also supports hierarchical tags.

Tag Explorer Panel

Orphans and Placeholder Panels

Orphans are notes that have no inbound nor outbound links. Placeholders are dangling links, or notes without content. Keep them under control, and your knowledge base in a better state, by using this panel.

Orphans and Placeholder Panels

Syntax highlight

Foam highlights wikilinks and placeholder differently, to help you visualize your knowledge base.

Syntax Highlight

Daily note

Create a journal with daily notes.

Daily Note

Generate references for your wikilinks

Create markdown references for [[wikilinks]], to use your notes in a non-Foam workspace. With references you can also make your notes navigable both in GitHub UI as well as GitHub Pages.

Generate references

Commands

  • Explore your knowledge base with the Foam: Open Random Note command
  • Access your daily note with the Foam: Open Daily Note command
  • Create a new note with the Foam: Create New Note command
    • This becomes very powerful when combined with note templates and the Foam: Create New Note from Template command
  • See your workspace as a connected graph with the Foam: Show Graph command

Recipes

People use Foam in different ways for different use cases, check out the recipes page for inspiration!

Getting started

Whether you want to build a Second Brain or a Zettelkasten, write a book, or just get better at long-term learning, Foam can help you organise your thoughts if you follow these simple rules:

  1. Create a single Foam workspace for all your knowledge and research following the [[Getting started]] guide.
  2. Write your thoughts in markdown documents (I like to call them Bubbles, but that might be more than a little twee). These documents should be atomic: Put things that belong together into a single document, and limit its content to that single topic. (source)
  3. Use Foam's shortcuts and autocompletions to link your thoughts together with [[wikilinks]], and navigate between them to explore your knowledge graph.
  4. Get an overview of your Foam workspace using the [[Graph Visualisation]], and discover relationships between your thoughts with the use of [Backlinking].

You can also use our Foam template:

  1. Log in on your GitHub account.
  2. Create a GitHub repository from foam-template. If you want to keep your thoughts to yourself, remember to set the repository private.
  3. Clone the repository and open it in VS Code.
  4. When prompted to install recommended extensions, click Install all (or Show Recommendations if you want to review and install them one by one).

This will also install Foam, but if you already have it installed, that's ok, just make sure you're up to date on the latest version.

Requirements

High tolerance for alpha-grade software. Foam is still a Work in Progress. Rest assured it will never lock you in, nor compromise your files, but sometimes some features might break ;)

Known Issues

See the issues on our GitHub repo ;)

Release Notes

See the CHANGELOG.

Learn more

Head over to the πŸ‘‰Published version of this Foam workspace to see Foam in action and read the rest of the documentation!

Quick links to next documentation sections

You can also browse the docs folder.

License

Foam is licensed under the MIT license.

Contributors ✨

Thanks goes to these wonderful people (emoji key):

Jani EvΓ€kallio
Jani EvΓ€kallio

πŸ’» πŸ“–
Joe Previte
Joe Previte

πŸ’» πŸ“–
Riccardo
Riccardo

πŸ’» πŸ“–
Janne Ojanaho
Janne Ojanaho

πŸ’» πŸ“–
Paul Shen
Paul Shen

πŸ“–
coffenbacher
coffenbacher

πŸ“–
Mathieu Dutour
Mathieu Dutour

πŸ“–
Michael Hansen
Michael Hansen

πŸ“–
David Nadlinger
David Nadlinger

πŸ“–
Fernando
Fernando

πŸ“–
Juan Gonzalez
Juan Gonzalez

πŸ“–
Louie Christie
Louie Christie

πŸ“–
Sandro
Sandro

πŸ“–
Simon Knott
Simon Knott

πŸ“–
Steven
Steven

πŸ“–
Tim
Tim

πŸ“–
Saurav Khdoolia
Saurav Khdoolia

πŸ“–
Ankit Tiwari
Ankit Tiwari

πŸ“– ⚠️ πŸ’»
Ayush Baweja
Ayush Baweja

πŸ“–
TaiChi-IO
TaiChi-IO

πŸ“–
Juan F Gonzalez
Juan F Gonzalez

πŸ“–
Sanket Dasgupta
Sanket Dasgupta

πŸ“– πŸ’»
Nicholas Stafie
Nicholas Stafie

πŸ“–
Francis Hamel
Francis Hamel

πŸ’»
digiguru
digiguru

πŸ’» πŸ“–
CHIRAG SINGHAL
CHIRAG SINGHAL

πŸ’»
Jonathan Carter
Jonathan Carter

πŸ“–
Julian Elve
Julian Elve

πŸ“–
Thomas Koppelaar
Thomas Koppelaar

πŸ’¬ πŸ’» πŸ““
Akshay
Akshay

πŸ’»
John Lindquist
John Lindquist

πŸ“–
Ashwin Ramaswami
Ashwin Ramaswami

πŸ“–
Claudio Canales
Claudio Canales

πŸ“–
vitaly-pevgonen
vitaly-pevgonen

πŸ“–
Dmitry Shemetov
Dmitry Shemetov

πŸ“–
hooncp
hooncp

πŸ“–
Martin Laws
Martin Laws

πŸ“–
Sean K Smith
Sean K Smith

πŸ’»
Kevin Neely
Kevin Neely

πŸ“–
Arief Rahmansyah
Arief Rahmansyah

πŸ“–
Vishesh Handa
Vishesh Handa

πŸ“–
Hitesh Kumar
Hitesh Kumar

πŸ“–
Spencer Woo
Spencer Woo

πŸ“–
ingalless
ingalless

πŸ’» πŸ“–
JosΓ© Duarte
JosΓ© Duarte

πŸ’» πŸ“–
Yenly
Yenly

πŸ“–
hikerpig
hikerpig

πŸ’»
Sigfried Gold
Sigfried Gold

πŸ“–
Tristan Sokol
Tristan Sokol

πŸ’»
Danil Rodin
Danil Rodin

πŸ“–
Scott Williams
Scott Williams

πŸ“–
jackiexiao
jackiexiao

πŸ“–
John B Nelson
John B Nelson

πŸ“–
Asif Mehedi
Asif Mehedi

πŸ“–
Tan Li
Tan Li

πŸ’»
Shauna Gordon
Shauna Gordon

πŸ“–
Mike Cluck
Mike Cluck

πŸ’»
Brandon Pugh
Brandon Pugh

πŸ’»
Max Davitt
Max Davitt

πŸ“–
Brian Anglin
Brian Anglin

πŸ“–
elswork
elswork

πŸ“–
lΓ©on h
lΓ©on h

πŸ’»
Nikhil Nygaard
Nikhil Nygaard

πŸ“–
Mark Dixon
Mark Dixon

πŸ’»
Joel James
Joel James

πŸ’»
Hashiguchi Ryo
Hashiguchi Ryo

πŸ“–
Michael Overmeyer
Michael Overmeyer

πŸ’»
Derrick Qin
Derrick Qin

πŸ“–
Omar LΓ³pez
Omar LΓ³pez

πŸ“–
Robin King
Robin King

πŸ’»
Dheepak
Dheepak

πŸ“–
Daniel VG
Daniel VG

πŸ“–
Barabas
Barabas

πŸ’»
Engincan VESKE
Engincan VESKE

πŸ“–
Paul de Raaij
Paul de Raaij

πŸ’»
Scott Bronson
Scott Bronson

πŸ“–
Rafael Riedel
Rafael Riedel

πŸ“–
Pearcekieser
Pearcekieser

πŸ“–
Owen Young
Owen Young

πŸ“– πŸ–‹
Prashanth Subrahmanyam
Prashanth Subrahmanyam

πŸ“–
Jonas SPRENGER
Jonas SPRENGER

πŸ’»
Paul
Paul

πŸ“–
Ikko Ashimine
Ikko Ashimine

πŸ“–
memeplex
memeplex

πŸ’»
AndreiD049
AndreiD049

πŸ’»
Yan
Yan

πŸ“–
Jim Tittsler
Jim Tittsler

πŸ“–
Malcolm Mielle
Malcolm Mielle

πŸ“–
Veesar
Veesar

πŸ“–
bentongxyz
bentongxyz

πŸ’»
Brian DeVries
Brian DeVries

πŸ’»
Clifford Fajardo
Clifford Fajardo

πŸ”§
Chris Usick
Chris Usick

πŸ’»
Joe DeCock
Joe DeCock

πŸ’»
Drew Tyler
Drew Tyler

πŸ“–
Lauviah0622
Lauviah0622

πŸ’»
Josh Dover
Josh Dover

πŸ’»
Phil Helm
Phil Helm

πŸ“–
Larry Li
Larry Li

πŸ’»
Joe Taber
Joe Taber

πŸ“–
Woosuk Park
Woosuk Park

πŸ“–
Daniel Murphy
Daniel Murphy

πŸ’»
Dominic D
Dominic D

πŸ’»
luca
luca

πŸ“–
Lloyd Jackman
Lloyd Jackman

πŸ“–
sn3akiwhizper
sn3akiwhizper

πŸ“–
jonathan berger
jonathan berger

πŸ“–
Daniel Wang
Daniel Wang

πŸ’»
Liu YongLiang
Liu YongLiang

πŸ“–
Scott Akerman
Scott Akerman

πŸ’»
Jim Graham
Jim Graham

πŸ’»
Zhizhen He
Zhizhen He

πŸ”§
Tony Cheneau
Tony Cheneau

πŸ“–
Nicholas Latham
Nicholas Latham

πŸ’»
Tomochika Hara
Tomochika Hara

πŸ“–
Daniel Carosone
Daniel Carosone

πŸ“–
Miguel Angel Bruni Montero
Miguel Angel Bruni Montero

πŸ’»

This project follows the all-contributors specification. Contributions of any kind welcome!