Piping Output

    Kimun's CLI output is designed to work seamlessly with Unix pipes and other command-line tools. This guide covers common patterns for combining kimun with tools like less, bat, fzf, and more.

    Basic piping

    Pipe search results into kimun note show

    Find a note and display it directly:

    # Find a note and display it
kimun search "standup" | head -1 | kimun note show

# Or use the path directly
kimun note show journal/2024-01-15

    kimun note show accepts a path via stdin (one path per line) or as an argument.

    Viewing output

    Pipe into a pager

    Display search results or note content with pagination:

    kimun note show journal/2024-01-15 | less

    For syntax-highlighted viewing (requires bat to be installed):

    kimun note show journal/2024-01-15 | bat

    Combine JSON output with a pager:

    kimun search "project" --format json | jq '.' | less

    Interactive selection with fzf

    fzf is a command-line fuzzy finder that pairs perfectly with kimun for interactive note selection.

    Interactively pick a note and display it

    # Pick from all notes
kimun notes --format paths | fzf | kimun note show

# Pick from search results
kimun search "meeting" --format paths | fzf | kimun note show

    Preview note content while selecting

    Use fzf's --preview option to show note content:

    kimun notes --format paths | fzf --preview 'kimun note show {}' | kimun note show

    Shell aliases and functions

    Add these to your ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc for quick access:

    Quick note picker

    # Pick from all notes
alias kn='kimun notes --format paths | fzf | kimun note show'

    Search with preview

    # Search and preview results
ks() {
  kimun search "$1" --format paths | fzf --preview 'kimun note show {}' | kimun note show
}

# Usage: ks "query"

    Open most recently modified note

    # Show the most recently changed note
alias klast='kimun notes --format json | jq -r ".notes | sort_by(.modified) | last | .path" | kimun note show'

    Piping into the journal

    kimun journal accepts piped input when stdin is not a terminal, making it easy to log command output directly to your daily entry:

    # Timestamped log line
echo "$(date +%H:%M) — build succeeded" | kimun journal

# Capture command output
./run-tests.sh | tail -1 | kimun journal

# Pipe search results as a journal entry
kimun search "todo" --format paths | kimun journal

# Log to a specific date
echo "Late entry" | kimun journal --date 2024-01-15

    Combine with cron for automatic daily logs:

    @daily echo "$(hostname): $(uptime)" | kimun journal

    Tips

    • Pipes work with both plain text and JSON output
    • Use --format json with tools like jq for advanced filtering
    • Combine multiple pipes to build complex workflows
    • Test piped commands without committing them to aliases first