Building a keyboard-first note app (Rails + real keyboard flow testing)

What happened this week

Posted on IndieHackers. Got some traction. Two people joined the waitlist 🎉. Feels good to know someone’s actually interested. Article here, with some interesting comments.

Went deep on keyboard workflows. I’m building this for myself first - I’m a product person at a multinational who runs from meeting to meeting, needs to capture thoughts fast, find them instantly. I’ve been using Vist daily since the first prototype.

This week I obsessed over the keyboard flow because I kept reaching for the mouse and getting annoyed myself.

So what do you do as a builder? Well, you write Cucumber tests for the actual workflows I do 50 times a day:

Scenario: Complete a task without touching the mouse
  Given I’m typing in a note
  When I press Esc to leave editing mode
  And I press Cmd+1 to switch to Today’s tasks
  And I press Down Down to navigate to a task two entries down
  And I press Cmd+Enter to complete it
  And I press Cmd+2 to return to the folder I was in
  And I press Enter
  Then I should be back where I was typing
  And the task should be marked complete

Sounds simple. Took three days to get the DOM timing, event listeners, and Stimulus controllers to stop fighting each other. But now? It flows. No context switching. No mouse.

Added syntax highlighting. Supports 15 languages now (ruby, javascript, python, etc.). Because I write code snippets in my notes and grey monospace blocks look like crap. I went with the Tokyo Night theme, but choosing is hard. It turns out that reading code is something with a very particular esthetic impact. May change theme in the future.

Why I’m building this

In case you missed my intro post - I’ve used every note app. Evernote, Notion, Obsidian, Bear, even OneNote (yes, yes, I know). I switch every six months because the friction gets too high.

The problems:

• Notion: Where do I save this note? Is it in a database? Why is there a spinner?

• Obsidian: Too much setup. I just want to write.

• Everything else: Notes and tasks are separate. I need them linked.

I wanted: Fast. Markdown-native (this one is important). Tasks extracted from checkboxes. Keyboard-first. That’s it.

And - this matters to me as a Belgian - EU-hosted. Our digital lives are 100% dependent on US companies. That’s a geopolitical risk I’m tired of accepting.

The tech

• Rails 8 (first time using Rails - learned it three weeks ago)

• PostgreSQL with ActsAsTenant for multi-tenancy

• Stimulus + Tailwind (keeping it snappy, no SPA bloat)

• Kamal 2 on Hetzner (EU servers, cheap plans for startups)

• TDD with RSpec/Cucumber (writing acceptance tests first keeps me honest and makes Claude focus)

The differentiator: MCP from day one

I’m shipping with a full MCP server. That means Claude (or any MCP client) can:

• Search my notes

• Create/complete tasks

• Remember my preferences across sessions

• Clean up stale tasks automatically

Why? Because I need this. I use Claude daily. I want it to actually remember that I prefer TypeScript and 2-space indentation without telling it every damn time.

What I’m learning

Keyboard UX in web apps is hard. Event bubbling, focus management, preventing browser shortcuts - it’s a minefield. But when it works? Chef’s kiss.

TDD as a product person is perfect. I write Gherkin acceptance criteria. Those become Cucumber tests. Code is written to pass the tests, nothing more. No bloat. And when I wonder what the code does - what exactly did I implement in those late-night hours in week 1 for that feature I didn’t touch since? Well, I run the tests and read the specs.

AI coding agents are like offshore dev teams. Misunderstandings happen. You iterate. But great user stories get great results.

Launching in 1-2 weeks

First 100 people get founder pricing (€3/month, locked forever). After that it goes to €5-8/month.

Looking for product people, developers, anyone who types faster than they click and wants their AI to have actual memory.

Sign up for the waitlist now - usevist.dev

Questions for you

1. For keyboard-driven app builders: What’s your approach to testing keyboard shortcuts? I’m using Cucumber but it feels fragile.

2. For AI/MCP users: If your AI assistant could access your personal task list, what’s the one thing you’d want it to do automatically?

3. For EU folks: Does data residency actually matter to you or is it just me being paranoid?

Let me know what you think. What am I missing?