SMF·BEAR-PRO
Can a prompt replace Bear Pro?
Notes & knowledge management — notes, wikis and personal knowledge bases
Exhibit tracking slip
Verdict
A minimal Markdown note editor organized purely by nested hashtags, with no folders, and export to several formats, is a genuine one-sitting build. What doesn't survive: Bear's specific typography and theme polish, and its cross-device iCloud sync.
Exhibit A — The prompt
Received on31.07.2026Build a minimal Markdown note app organized purely by nested hashtags, with no folder system — Bear's actual organizing idea. Use Tauri with SQLite for local storage. Parse hashtags directly from note text (e.g. a tag like #work/projects/website creates a nested tag hierarchy) rather than requiring separate tag management — the tags are the organization system, browsable as a nested sidebar tree built from parsed tags across all notes. Build a clean, distraction-light Markdown editor with a live preview toggle, and a simple typography theme, one good font pairing with adjustable size, rather than a large theme library. Support full-text search across all notes and tags. Implement export to plain Markdown, HTML, and PDF, using a headless browser like Playwright to render Markdown-to-HTML-to-PDF cleanly — get the PDF export looking genuinely presentable, since that's a real point of friction in a from-scratch build. Do not build cross-device sync, pair the local SQLite file with an existing sync tool like iCloud Drive or Syncthing if needed, or a large theme library — those are out of scope. No account or API key needed.Opening prefills the prompt — press enter to run it.
Exhibit B — What you lose
- B.1 Bear's specific typography and theme polish
- B.2 cross-device iCloud sync
- B.3 years of export-format edge-case fixes
- B.4 a dedicated iOS and iPadOS app
Prior art
Exhibit C — Why people still pay: sync, collaboration, and capture polish
A tag parser and a Markdown editor are simple; making export formats look genuinely good across PDF, HTML, and beyond, on every device, is real ongoing design and engineering work.
Questions
How does organization work without folders?
Through nested hashtags parsed directly from note text — the same tag becomes a browsable node in a sidebar tree, which is exactly Bear's own organizing idea, not a separate tagging system bolted on.
Will exports look as polished as Bear's?
The prompt specifically calls for getting PDF export looking genuinely presentable, since that's real design work — but matching Bear's specific typography choices exactly isn't the goal, just a clean, readable baseline.
Does it sync between my devices?
Not built in — pair the local SQLite file with an existing sync tool like iCloud Drive or Syncthing if you need that across devices.
What does it cost to run?
Nothing — it's a local app with no backend, so there's no hosting cost or subscription.
Related tools
Receipt