Your agent in the terminal

Your notes are plain Markdown files in a folder, so any agent can work on them, right in Terminal. You don't need Niv's chat for that.

Open Terminal in your folder

Right-click an empty spot in the sidebar, or a folder, and choose Open in Terminal. A Terminal window opens in that folder.

Then start your agent there as you usually do, for example claude or codex.

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What the agent finds

• Your notes, as Markdown files, in your folders.

• Its instructions, in AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md at the top of the folder, if you created them. Most agents read these on their own. See Set up your agent.

• Links between notes, written as plain note names in double brackets. An agent that has never heard of Niv can follow them and write new ones, and they show up in Niv's links and graph.

Keep Niv open

If the folder syncs with a Space, keep Niv open while the agent works. Niv picks up the files the agent writes and syncs them to your Space as usual.

If a file changes while Niv is closed, Niv catches up the next time it opens, and asks you when it can't tell what happened. See When sync asks you something.

Chat or terminal?

Both work on the same files.

• Niv's chat shows each action as it happens, asks before what you haven't allowed, and, in a Space, records moves, renames and deletes as changes you can undo in Settings › History. See AI chat.

• The terminal is the agent exactly as you know it, with its own commands and settings.