Your first note
Notes in Altretta are plain Markdown. If you already know Markdown, you know Altretta — and if you don't, you'll pick it up in minutes.
Create a note
Make a new note
Use the command palette (New note) or the + in the file tree. Give it a title — the title becomes the filename, so Project Ideas is saved as Project Ideas.md.
Write in Markdown
Type normally. Use # for headings, - for lists, **bold**, *italic*, `code`, and > for quotes. Altretta's live preview formats as you type, so you see the result without a separate reading mode — though a full reading mode is one shortcut away.
Save happens automatically
There's no save button — Altretta writes to the .md file on disk a moment after you stop typing, and the change is recorded in your vault's signed history.
Link your ideas together
The moment your notes start linking to each other, a vault becomes a second brain.
- Wikilinks — type
[[and start typing a note's name. Altretta suggests matches; pick one to create a link. If the note doesn't exist yet, the link creates it when you click through. - Backlinks — open any note and its backlinks panel shows every other note that links to it, plus unlinked mentions (places your note's name appears without a link yet). This is how ideas resurface.
- Embeds — write
![[Another note]]to transclude another note (or a section of it) directly inline.
Don't organize up front. Just write and link. Altretta's graph, backlinks, and search surface the structure that emerges — you don't have to design it.
Add structure when you want it
- Tags — add
#topicanywhere to group notes across folders. - Properties — add typed frontmatter (a title, tags, a date, a status) at the top of a note, and edit it in the Properties panel.
- Callouts, math, tables, and diagrams — Altretta renders callouts (
> [!note]), KaTeX math, Markdown tables, and Mermaid diagrams inline. - Slash commands — type
/to insert headings, callouts, a query, or an AI prompt without leaving the keyboard.
See it come together
As you write and link, open the graph from the sidebar to watch your vault take shape, and try search to find anything instantly. Every note you create is indexed, linked, and — quietly, in the background — recorded in a signed history.
Next steps
- Bringing notes from another app? → Import your notes
- Ready to make your AI answer from these notes, with citations? That's the AI you can trust section.