Append-only notes
A normal note is a document you rewrite. An append-only note is a record you extend: every write adds a line to the end (or the top), and the lines already there can't be edited or deleted. It's the natural shape for anything that grows by accumulation — a log stream, a journal, an audit trail, an AI session transcript.
What "append-only" means
When a note is append-only, the two write operations you'd normally reach for — editing the body and deleting the note — are blocked, in the browser and over the API alike. The one write that's allowed is an append: text added to the note without touching what came before. Because nothing already written can be changed or removed, the note reads as a faithful, in-order history rather than a latest-draft snapshot.
You turn it on per note: click Lock in the note's toolbar, and it becomes append-only until you unlock it again. Notes created by the append API (below) start append-only automatically.
How content gets in
The primary way to feed an append-only note is the append API, addressed by a filename of your choosing. The first call creates the note (append-only); every call after adds a line:
curl -X POST https://freshjots.com/api/v1/notes/by-filename/deploy-log/append \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $FRESHJOTS_TOKEN" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"text":"deploy ok 2026-08-18 14:02"}'
Or point a service that already sends webhooks at the note's inbound sink URL
(POST /h/<token>) and every payload it delivers
lands as a line — no code on your side. Each note reads newest-first or oldest-first, your choice, so a
live log can show the most recent line at the top.
Why you'd want one
Anything that accumulates and shouldn't be rewritten after the fact is a candidate: cron and CI heartbeats, deploy logs, queue-worker output, scrapers, and the step-by-step transcripts of autonomous agents. Give each job its own append-only note addressable by filename, and one append per run keeps a running record.
And because it's still an ordinary plain note underneath, the record and the thing you read are the same artifact — open it in the app, pull it over the API, or check it on your phone.
What's built on top
Append-only notes are the foundation for a couple of Dev-tier features that watch the stream of appends: the dead-man's switch emails you when the appends stop landing, and HMAC-signed outbound webhooks fan out each new append to a URL you control. Both are configured from the note's settings once it's locked.