The hard part is not exporting notes once. The hard part is trusting the workflow later.
Apple Notes Snapshot exists for the six-weeks-later moment, when you want to know whether the scheduler still points to the right checkout, the last run is still fresh, and the logs are still boring.
The real problem
A one-time export is easy to demo. A repeatable local workflow is harder because it needs locks, state, logs, verification, and calm failure handling.
The design choice
The project keeps the upstream exporter as the engine. The wrapper layer is intentionally boring: it adds the dashboard instruments and safety rails instead of pretending to be a new cloud platform.
- AI Diagnose for calmer operator explanations
- Local Web API for token-gated same-machine browser/API reads
- MCP Provider for read-only agent access
The intended feeling
When you come back later, you should be able to answer four questions quickly: Did it run? When did it last succeed? Why would it fail? How do I recover without guessing?