# nohmitaina

> A local-first macOS editor that uses AI and cognitive science to surface your most important concepts from your notes, acting as a second brain that knows when to forget.

nohmitaina (脳みたいな, "brain-like") is a macOS desktop editor built by simochan at Hikutas, Inc. in Tokyo. It combines a serious Markdown writing environment with an AI-powered background process that extracts concepts from your notes, generates a personal wiki, and scores ideas using cognitive science models — all stored locally as plain Markdown files. The tool is currently available as a free download for Apple Silicon Macs, with add-on features in preparation.

## What It Is

nohmitaina sits at the intersection of personal knowledge management and AI-assisted thinking. Unlike traditional note apps that let you search and re-read, nohmitaina runs a scheduled background process called "Dream" that extracts concepts from everything you've written, drafts wiki pages, draws links between them, and re-scores each concept's importance over time. The result is a living knowledge base that surfaces what matters and lets the rest quietly fade — mirroring how human memory actually works.

## The Science Behind the Scoring

The tool is explicitly built on three cognitive science pillars:

- **Two-strength memory model** (after Robert A. Bjork): retrieval strength (how easy it is to recall now) and storage strength (how deeply it has stuck) are tracked separately.
- **ACT-R base-level activation** (Anderson & Lebiere, 1998): every reference and revisit contributes to a concept's recall score, which decays with time using the formula B(t) = ln(Σ tᵢ⁻ᵈ) with d = 0.5.
- **Surprise as a signal**: new concepts are checked against everything already in the wiki; genuinely novel angles surface, familiar ones stay quiet.

The architecture also adds a fourth layer — "Core" — on top of Andrej Karpathy's described Raw/Wiki/Schema LLM-wiki model. Core is a compressed representation of the user's current thinking that is always in context for AI conversations.

## How the Four-Moment Workflow Operates

The daily loop has four distinct moments:

- **Morning (Write):** A full Markdown editor with tables, math, Mermaid diagrams, code blocks, and link cards. Voice input is transcribed via Whisper. A "MemoOnly" mode keeps private entries out of AI processing.
- **Night (Dream):** On a quiet schedule, the system extracts concepts, drafts wiki pages, draws links, and re-scores everything. Notes and wiki pages remain plain Markdown on disk, readable in any editor or IDE.
- **Anytime (Talk):** AI dialogue opens with Core concepts already in context. The model can search the broader wiki when needed. Every 10 turns, the dialogue itself is folded back into the wiki.
- **Sometimes (Look Back):** A concept map view shows themes, connections, and high-surprise findings laid out visually.

## Local-First Architecture and What Was Deliberately Left Out

All data lives on the user's disk as plain Markdown. The tool does not run a cloud service for notes. API calls send only the text the model needs; the maker states that Anthropic and OpenAI API policies do not train on API content. Users can run the tool through Claude Code or the Codex CLI without a billable API key, or bring their own provider key.

The maker explicitly chose not to build: an all-in-one workspace, a bidirectional linking tool requiring manual `[[brackets]]`, a daily-journal format, or a cloud storage layer.

## Update: Version 0.1.6 (May 2026)

The changelog on the homepage shows active development with three releases in May 2026:

- **0.1.6 (2026-05-20):** Editor document tabs with macOS titlebar integration; local Whisper model settings.
- **0.1.5 (2026-05-18):** Manual Recall from selected text; rectangular selection and macro record/replay; more resilient Dream processing.
- **0.1.4 (2026-05-11):** Multi-workspace activation; startup catch-up for missed Dream runs; scoring and Core refinements.

The tool launched on Product Hunt and is currently macOS-only (Apple Silicon), with Windows and Linux described as "technically possible" when demand warrants, and mobile read access planned as part of the forthcoming Sync add-on.

## Features
- Full Markdown editor with tables, math, Mermaid, code blocks, and link cards
- AI concept extraction and wiki generation via Dream cycle
- ACT-R-based concept scoring with time decay
- Surprise scoring to surface genuinely novel ideas
- Core view: compressed context always available to AI
- AI dialogue with Core concepts pre-loaded in context
- Voice journaling via Whisper transcription
- MemoOnly mode for private entries
- Local-first storage as plain Markdown on disk
- Concept map and index views
- Multi-workspace support
- Compatible with existing Obsidian vaults
- Supports Claude Code, Codex CLI, or bring-your-own API key

## Integrations
Claude Code, OpenAI Codex CLI, Anthropic Claude API, OpenAI API, Whisper (voice transcription), Obsidian vaults (Markdown import)

## Platforms
WINDOWS, MACOS, LINUX, API, CLI

## Pricing
Freemium — Free tier available with paid upgrades

## Version
0.1.6

## Links
- Website: https://nohmitaina.com
- EveryDev.ai: https://www.everydev.ai/tools/nohmitaina