qmd - Quick Markdown Search

Local search engine for Markdown notes, docs, and knowledge bases.

Install

bun install -g qmd

Binary installs to ~/.bun/bin/qmd. Prepend PATH if needed:

export PATH="$HOME/.bun/bin:$PATH" && qmd <command>

When to use

• Searching across multiple markdown files at once
• Finding documents by topic or keyword
• Semantic search when keywords aren't enough
• Any question that spans multiple files in a collection

Setup — Index a collection

Create a collection from a folder of markdown files:

qmd init my-notes ~/notes
qmd update -c my-notes
qmd embed -c my-notes   # optional: enables semantic search

Search modes

Use qmd search by default — it's instant (BM25 keyword match).

# Keyword search (fast, default)
qmd search "project ideas" -c my-notes

# Semantic search (slower, use when keywords aren't enough)
qmd vsearch "what should I work on next" -c my-notes

Avoid qmd query (hybrid + reranking) — it's slow and usually overkill.

Common commands

# Search a collection
qmd search "meeting notes" -c my-notes
qmd search "birthday" -c contacts -n 10

# JSON output (for programmatic use)
qmd search "project" -c my-notes --json

# Semantic search (when keywords fail)
qmd vsearch "things I need to follow up on" -c my-notes

# Retrieve a specific file
qmd get "notes/2026-01-15.md"
qmd multi-get "notes/2026-01-*.md"  # All January notes

Keeping the index fresh

Run after new files are added:

qmd update -c my-notes && qmd embed -c my-notes

When NOT to use qmd

• Looking up a specific file you know the path to → just read it directly
• qmd is for searching ACROSS files when you don't know which one has the answer