cli-anything-joplin

Use this skill to automate Joplin notebook, note, to-do, tag, attachment, search, sync, and import/export workflows through a stateful harness backed by the real joplin terminal binary.

Requirements

Python 3.10+
Joplin terminal binary available as joplin
Optional: pass --profile to target a specific Joplin profile

Install

cd joplin/agent-harness
pip install -e .

Usage

# REPL mode (default)
cli-anything-joplin

# Machine-readable one-shot command
cli-anything-joplin --json notebooks list

# Stateful project
cli-anything-joplin project new --name demo -o ./demo.joplin-harness.json
cli-anything-joplin --project ./demo.joplin-harness.json notes create "Meeting note"

# Dry-run (no auto-save)
cli-anything-joplin --json --dry-run --project ./demo.joplin-harness.json notes create temp

JSON output contract

When --json is enabled, commands return:

ok: boolean
command: stable command identifier such as notes.list, todos.toggle
data: command payload
error: null on success, or { type, message } on failure

Command groups

project: new, open, save, info, json, status
notebooks: list, create, use, remove
notes: list, create, set, get, remove, copy, move, rename
todos: list, create, toggle, clear, done, undone
tags: list, add, remove, notetags, tagnotes
search: run
sync: run (--target, --upgrade, --use-lock)
interop: import, export
config: get, set, list, export, import-file
attach: add
status: show, restore
backend: version, dump, keymap, geoloc, export-sync-status
server: status, start, stop
e2ee: status, target-status, decrypt, decrypt-file
session: status, undo, redo, history

Agent guidance

Prefer --json for parseable output.
Use --project when running multi-step workflows so history is persisted.
One-shot mutating commands auto-save the project unless --dry-run is set.
REPL mode does not auto-save; run project save explicitly.
Some Joplin CLI builds gate search behind GUI mode; if you see "only available in GUI mode", treat search as best-effort.
Joplin 3.6.x can have a broken version command in npm global layouts; the harness falls back to installed package metadata for backend version, probing the symlink-resolved binary directory, the Windows-style sibling node_modules/joplin, the Unix-style parent lib/node_modules/joplin, and finally npm root -g.
Backend stdout/stderr in command results are verbatim; do not assume warnings were stripped from note bodies or exports.
On failure, parse error using the same command field as success (config.import_file, e2ee.decrypt_file). Multi-word subcommands use a single dot between group and subcommand.

Test workflow

# Quick feedback loop
python -m pytest -q cli_anything/joplin/tests/test_core.py
python -m pytest -q cli_anything/joplin/tests/test_full_e2e.py::TestCLISubprocess

# Real backend (joplin must be in PATH)
python -m pytest -v cli_anything/joplin/tests/test_full_e2e.py::TestBackendCommands
python -m pytest -v cli_anything/joplin/tests/test_full_e2e.py::TestBackendWorkflows
python -m pytest -v cli_anything/joplin/tests/test_full_e2e.py::TestBackendIntegration

# Full suite
python -m pytest -v --tb=no cli_anything/joplin/tests

# Verify the installed console script entry point
CLI_ANYTHING_FORCE_INSTALLED=1 python -m pytest -v -s cli_anything/joplin/tests/test_full_e2e.py

Current validation baseline (Windows + Joplin CLI 3.6.2):

python -m pytest -q cli_anything/joplin/tests/test_core.py -> 107 passed
python -m pytest -q cli_anything/joplin/tests -> 134 passed, 1 skipped