Faro/README.md

Faro

A lighthouse for your knowledge. Local-first snippet and knowledge management for developers.

Faro is a desktop app for capturing, organizing, and retrieving developer snippets: code, CLI commands, and notes. The core philosophy is dump-first, organize-later: zero friction on capture, smart retrieval when you need it.

Built with Tauri v2 + Svelte 5.

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Philosophy

• Dump first, organize later. Capture friction kills the habit. Retrieval is the product.
• Local-first. Your snippets live on your machine. No accounts, no cloud, no sync.
• Intentional minimalism. Every feature cut is a feature that doesn't need maintaining.

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Features

Quick Note

Global hotkey (Ctrl+Shift+Space by default) opens a focused floating window — anywhere, anytime, even when Faro's main window isn't focused. Paste your snippet, add a title and tags, save. It auto-detects the content type and language on save. No mode-switching, no navigation, no friction.

Full-Text Search

FTS5-powered search across all snippet titles and content. Results update as you type.

Auto Content Detection

highlight.js inspects content on save and automatically classifies it as code, cli, text, or url, plus detects the specific language (Rust, Python, bash, SQL, etc.) and creates system tags. URL detection triggers on single-line http/https/ftp content. You can override the type manually.

Three-Panel Layout

Left panel — timeline navigation, content type filter (Code / CLI / Text / URL chips), tag browser with inline filter scoped to the active type, new snippet button, settings access.

Center panel — full-text search bar, snippet list with type icons, copy count badge, and 2-line previews; tag chips (user tags and auto-detected language tags are visually distinct). Snippets are ordered by most-copied first, then by recency.

Right panel — snippet content, directly editable in place. Explicit save keeps accidental edits from destroying data. A Copy button next to the content label copies to clipboard and increments the copy counter.

Tag System

Two tag sources coexist on each snippet:

• User tags: whatever you type in the tags field
• System tags: auto-detected language labels (e.g. rust, python, bash)

Both are browsable from the left panel. Clicking a tag filters the center panel to matching snippets.

Themes

Dark (default), Light, and Nord.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Main Window

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+F	Focus the search bar
Ctrl+N	New snippet
↑ / ↓	Navigate the snippet list

Quick Note Window

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+Enter	Save snippet
Esc	Discard and close

Global (system-wide)

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+Shift+Space	Open Quick Note (configurable)

Settings

Open via the gear icon in the bottom-left corner.

Setting	Description
Global hotkey	The system-wide shortcut that opens Quick Note. Default: Ctrl+Shift+Space.
Editor font size	Code area font size, 10–24px. Previews live.
Quick Note stay open	When enabled, Quick Note clears and stays open after saving instead of closing.
Theme	Dark / Light / Nord. Previews live before saving.

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Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Backend	Rust (Tauri v2)
Frontend	Svelte 5 + TypeScript
Database	SQLite via rusqlite + FTS5
Language detection	highlight.js
UI font	IBM Plex Sans
Editor font	JetBrains Mono

Platform targets: Windows (primary), Linux (secondary). No macOS.

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Building from Source

Prerequisites:

• Rust toolchain (stable)
• Node.js 18+
• pnpm (npm install -g pnpm)
• Tauri v2 system dependencies — see the Tauri prerequisites guide for your OS

Install dependencies:

pnpm install

Run in development:

pnpm tauri dev

Build a release binary:

pnpm tauri build

The installer/binary lands in src-tauri/target/release/bundle/.

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Name & Identity

Faro — Spanish/Portuguese for lighthouse. A reference tool that helps you find things. The purple accent aligns with dusk and lighthouse imagery, which is either a happy accident or destiny, depending on how dramatic you're feeling.

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License

MIT