You shouldn't have to leave your editor to talk to an AI, run git, or open a shell. NotepadAI is a Notepad++-style code editor that has those things built in, not bolted on the side. It's a fork of Notepad Next (itself a Notepad++ reimplementation in Qt/C++), and it stays light and fast while doing a lot more.
NotepadAI speaks the Agent Client Protocol (ACP) over stdio. Claude Code is the built-in default. Add any other ACP-compatible agent — Gemini, Auggie, or your own command — from Settings. Agents read and write files, run terminal commands, and see your workspace context, so they work on the same code you do.
There's also a separate Goal Agent built in. It isn't ACP: you describe an intent and it plans and executes the steps itself. And when you commit, AI can write the commit message from your staged diff. The protocol details and how to wire up a custom agent are in doc/AcpAgents.md.
Inline blame, gutter diff markers, commit history, staging and unstaging, a branch picker, and git status decorations in the file tree. Merge and rebase flows are here too, including an interactive-rebase editor and a 3-way conflict viewer. Most operations never shell out to git — it diffs with xdiff and parses status, log, and blame itself. You don't need a separate Git GUI.
A full PTY terminal built on libvterm and libptyqt, with mouse reporting and a scrollback buffer. It reads your project files — Justfile, Makefile, package.json, deno.json — figures out which tasks you can run, and draws clickable run icons in the editor margin. Open a terminal rooted at the active workspace or at the current file's folder.
It's still Notepad++ at heart: a tabbed, splittable interface (Qt Advanced Docking System) with syntax highlighting for 80+ languages through vendored Scintilla and Lexilla. Macro recording and playback, session management, and an embedded Lua scripting layer are all here. If you're coming from Notepad++, it imports your config and sessions. There's also an editor minimap and live preview for Markdown and HTML.
You can define mini-apps — small HTML/JS tools that run in a native WebView inside the editor. Scheduled tasks fire AI agent sessions on a cron schedule. And you can keep several folder-as-workspace roots open at the same time.
Grab a binary from the Releases page.
| Platform | Format |
|---|---|
| Windows | Installer (.exe) or portable zip |
| Linux | AppImage |
| macOS | Disk image (.dmg) |
You need CMake 3.21+, Qt 6.5+, Ninja, and a C++20 compiler (MSVC, clang-cl, GCC, or Clang).
cmake -S . -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build --parallelFor platform-specific details and packaging on Windows, macOS, and Linux, see doc/Building.md.
All app data lives under <data-dir>/NotepadAI/ — the settings INI, session backups, and ACP chat history. You can point that somewhere else. Highest priority first:
- CLI flag:
NotepadAI.exe --data-dir=D:/profiles/work - Environment variable:
NOTEPADAI_DATA_DIR=D:/profiles/work - Portable marker: an empty file named
portablenext to the exe - Preferences UI: Settings > Data Directory > Browse
Relative paths resolve against the executable's directory. Two instances with different data dirs are fully independent — separate settings, sessions, window state, and SingleApplication identity. Two instances pointed at the same data dir act as one: the second forwards its files to the first and exits. The portable marker keeps everything next to the exe and writes nothing to %APPDATA% or any system directory, which is what you want on a USB drive.
GNU General Public License v3. See the LICENSE file.
Based on Notepad Next by Justin Dailey. AI and Git extensions by nullmastermind.