Project Brief: Trailhead — Offline-first Field Notes CLI

One-liner

A terminal-native, offline-capable field notes app that syncs when you get back to signal.

Problem

Field researchers, surveyors, and hikers lose notes when their device dies or drops signal. Cloud-only note tools fail at the moment they’re most needed.

Audience

Field biologists and ecologists
Backcountry surveyors
Disaster-response volunteers
Remote journalists

Solution

A CLI tool that stores notes locally in plain-text markdown, queues them for sync, and flushes when connectivity returns. No Electron, no accounts, no phone home.

Core features

Capture: trailhead note "species sighting: red wolf"
Tag and geolocate: trailhead tag wolf --loc 35.5,-82.3
Sync queue: trailhead sync (manual or auto-on-connect)
Export: markdown, JSON, GPX

Non-goals

Web UI
Real-time collaboration
Multimedia attachments beyond referenced file paths

Milestones

M1: local capture + search (1 week)
M2: geo-tagging + GPX export (1 week)
M3: sync protocol + conflict resolution (2 weeks)
M4: packaging (brew, apt, cargo)

Risks

Sync conflict resolution complexity
Battery drain from GPS polling
Cross-platform terminal quirks

Success metrics

Capture-to-note latency < 1s on a 2015 laptop
Sync completes within 30s of reconnect
Zero data loss on forced poweroff during capture

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