i-am-fran/bear-lint

Bear is a note-taking app on macOS, and over time notes can accumulate small formatting inconsistencies: bullet points using different markers, headings that skip levels, extra blank lines, or tag syntax that does not match Bear's preferred format. Bear-lint is a command-line tool that checks notes for these issues and fixes most of them automatically. The tool connects to Bear through a helper called bearcli, which lets it read and write notes without any extra dependencies beyond Python. You can point it at a single note by its ID, or run it across all notes in your library at once, optionally filtered by a Bear search query. Most rules apply fixes automatically, such as standardizing bullet markers to hyphens, normalizing checklist syntax, collapsing multiple blank lines into one, and converting curly quotes to straight quotes. A smaller set of issues, like duplicate headings or a missing top-level heading, are flagged for manual review because fixing them automatically could change the meaning of a note. A dry-run mode lets you preview what would change without writing anything back to Bear. If you want a record of what was found, the optional report mode creates a new note inside Bear with wiki links back to each linted note and callouts for anything needing attention. The tool skips locked and encrypted notes automatically. The README recommends exporting your Bear library before the first run. The tool uses a bearcli flag that prevents fixed notes from getting a new modification date, which keeps your note list order intact after a linting pass. Installation is manual: clone the repository and either create a shell alias or add a symlink so the script runs as a plain command. No package manager or external libraries are needed. A built-in self-test runs all rules against a bundled sample note so you can see the behavior without touching your own data first.