Your knowledge as plain files.
A SilverBullet space is a folder of markdown files, next to your images, PDFs and anything else you keep. Open them in any editor, put them in git, back them up however you like.
When your notes live inside an app’s database, the app decides what happens to them. Exports are lossy, migrations are painful, and if the app goes away, so does your way into your own knowledge.
Files on disk.
Every page is a .md file with a readable name, in an ordinary folder next to your images and PDFs. What you see in SilverBullet is what’s in the file.
- JournalFolder
- LibraryFolder
- Bird Log.mdMarkdown
- Herons by the old bridge.jpgJPEG image
- Ideas.mdMarkdown
- Jo Lindqvist.mdMarkdown
- Moving House.mdMarkdown
- Photo Walks.mdMarkdown
- Reading List.mdMarkdown
- Shopping List.mdMarkdown
- Train tickets.pdfPDF document
- index.mdMarkdown
The cherries on top.
SilverBullet adds a few conventions on top of plain markdown: [[wiki links]], #tags, [key: value] attributes, and ${...} for live queries. They’re plain text, so other editors show them as-is and nothing is lost; they just don’t come alive outside SilverBullet.
![A Bird Log page with its markup visible: a [[wiki link]], [key: value] attributes and #bird tags, above a live query rendering a table of early-light sightings](/media/stills/open-formats-extensions.webp)
History with git.
Put your space in a git repository and every change is versioned. SilverBullet can do the committing on your behalf, or leave it to you.
Works alongside other tools.
Edit the same files with another editor, a script or a coding agent. SilverBullet notices the changes and merges them in.
The truth is in the markdown.
If SilverBullet disappeared tomorrow, your knowledge would still be there, in files you can read.