Knowledge Manager — Accion Labs

Install & run

Paste this into Terminal (Applications → Utilities → Terminal):

curl -fsSL https://accionlabs.github.io/knowledge-manager/install.sh | bash

On first run, it installs Node.js in your user profile (no admin needed), clones the repo into ~/knowledge-manager/, installs dependencies (~1 min), prompts for your Obsidian vault folder, and opens the site in your browser.
On subsequent runs it just starts the server. Stop with Ctrl+C.

Daily use

Open Terminal.
Run the same install command again (or bash ~/knowledge-manager/site/install.sh).
Browser opens automatically at http://localhost:8080 (or the next free port).
When you're done, go back to Terminal and press Ctrl+C.

Changing vault: Run rm ~/knowledge-manager/.vault-path, then re-run the install command. You'll be re-prompted.
Updating to latest: The install command runs git pull automatically on every run.
Where is everything?: ~/knowledge-manager/ — source, node_modules, logs. Everything is in your home folder; no hidden library paths.

Troubleshooting

"git: command not found"

Install Apple's Command Line Tools (one-time, ~5 min):

xcode-select --install

Port conflict

The script auto-picks a free port between 8080-8100 for HTTP and 3001-3100 for the WebSocket live-reload. The actual port is printed in Terminal (Running at http://localhost:XXXX).

Vault folder was moved or renamed

Reset and re-prompt:

rm ~/knowledge-manager/.vault-path

Then re-run the install command.

Start from scratch

Delete the install folder:

rm -rf ~/knowledge-manager

Then re-run the install command.

Optional: semantic search

The default sidebar search is fast and works offline (Quartz's built-in keyword index). If you want hybrid search — BM25 + vector embeddings + LLM rerank — over your notes, you can plug in tobi/qmd. Useful if you have a large vault and want natural-language queries like "what did we decide about authentication?".

One-time setup

# Install qmd globally
npm install -g @tobilu/qmd

# Index your vault (replace the path)
qmd collection add "/path/to/your/Obsidian/vault" --name content

# Generate embeddings (~5–10 min, downloads a GGUF model)
qmd embed

Per-session: start the bridge server

A tiny HTTP shim (in ~/knowledge-manager/qmd-search/) translates between the Quartz UI and qmd's CLI. Leave this running in its own Terminal tab:

cd ~/knowledge-manager/qmd-search
node server.mjs

Switch the sidebar to qmd

Edit ~/knowledge-manager/quartz.layout.ts — find both occurrences of Component.Search() and replace with:

Component.Search({
  backend: "qmd",
  qmdEndpoint: "http://localhost:9090",
}),

Restart Knowledge Manager. The sidebar search now queries qmd. If the bridge server isn't running, the panel shows a friendly "qmd unreachable" message — no crash. To revert to FlexSearch, just remove the argument.

You can also use the standalone qmd-search UI at http://localhost:9090 (served by the bridge server) without touching Quartz at all.

Experimental: macOS app bundle

An alternative one-click installer packaged as a Mac .app. Early builds had Gatekeeper friction and port-debugging issues, so the script above is the recommended path for now. The app is still available if you'd like to try it:

2019 & earlier models

Download x64 →

On first launch macOS may warn that the app is from an unidentified developer. Right-click the app → Open → Open.