CLI reference

The notewell binary exposes four commands. Run notewell <command> --help for the full flag list.

notewell init

Scaffold a new project in the given directory.

notewell init [DIR] [--force]

Flag	Description
`--force`	Write into a non-empty directory instead of refusing.

Render the site in memory and serve it. The default mode for local writing and for running behind a proxy.

notewell serve [DIR] [--addr ADDR] [--watch] [--no-cache]

Flag	Default	Description
`--addr`	`127.0.0.1:8080`	Bind address.
`--watch`	`false`	Watch the content folder and live-reload on change.
`--no-cache`	`false`	Disable response caching; useful while writing.

Render the site to static files and exit.

notewell build [DIR] [--out DIR] [--minify]

Flag	Default	Description
`--out`	`public`	Output directory.
`--minify`	`false`	Minify HTML and CSS.

Print the version and build information, then exit.

notewell version
# notewell 1.4.2 (linux/amd64, built 2026-05-30)

Code	Meaning
`0`	Success.
`1`	Generic failure (parse error, render error).
`2`	Invalid usage or unknown flag.
`3`	Address already in use.