I’m pleased to announce the release of SilverBullet v2, your next open source, self hosted, and programmable notes application.
This release has fewer features than ever. Yes, you read that right. SilverBullet had accumulated a wide, but somewhat incoherent set of features over the years. V2 does away with a lot of them. These include online mode, the special query language and template languages, command links, anchors, space script, space config, attribute extractors, object decorators, live embeds, federation and probably more.
A lot of these previously “baked in” features have now been reimagined on the unifying foundation of Space Lua, SilverBullet’s Lua dialect.
What is SilverBullet
If you’re new to SilverBullet, let’s back up a bit.
SilverBullet is a tool to develop, organize, and structure your personal knowledge and to make it universally accessible across all your devices.
In SilverBullet you keep your content as a collection of markdown Pages (called a Space). You navigate your space using the Page Picker like a traditional notes app, or through Links like a wiki (except links are bi-directional).
If you are the writer type, you’ll appreciate SilverBullet as a clean markdown editor with Live Preview. If you have more of an outliner personality, SilverBullet has Outlining tools for you. Productivity freak? Have a look at Tasks.
More of a database person? You will appreciate Objects and Queries.
And if you are comfortable (learning to) program, you will love dynamically generating content with Space Lua (SilverBullet’s Lua dialect), and use it to create custom commands and widgets.
SilverBullet is a self-hosted web application. You need to install it on a server. Perhaps you do this on a Raspberry Pi you didn’t have a use for, or a VPS somewhere in the cloud. SilverBullet is distributed as a single self-contained server binary or Docker container. While this is a bit more complicated to set up than simply downloading a desktop or mobile app, since your space is centrally stored on a server under your control, you can now access it from anywhere you can access your server.
Here is a video introduction that shows you some of SilverBullet v2’s features:
What’s new
The biggest new feature in v2 is what was removed. The removal of features put extra pressure on coming up with new ways to rebuild old functionality, which in effect meant we really doubled down on Space Lua and greatly expanded its APIs.
Features previously built as Plugs (in TypeScript) are now slowly being rebuilt as SilverBullet Lua Libraries, and collected in silverbullet-libaries and community forums.
What was previously known as “sync mode” is now the default and only mode in SilverBullet v2. This means that all your content is continuously kept in sync between your clients via your server, and all processing happens locally. No internet connection? No problem, you will have access to all your notes, can edit them and everything works the same as when online.
In addition, tons of minor fixes, refinements and tweaks were made.
Installation
Upgrading
If you’re a 0.x (“v1”) user, upgrading to v2 will be a breaking change due to removed features. See the dedicated page on this topic: Migrate from v1.
Therefore, be sure to backup before upgrading. Upgrading is as simple as following the regular installation instructions and pointing at your existing space folder.
Support SilverBullet development 
If you use SilverBullet, I highly encourage you to become a Github SilverBullet sponsor. The more financial support I receive, the more time I can spend on core SilverBullet development — see Sustainable SilverBullet.