Tana

This gem is a monadic API client for the Tana Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) system. This allows you to build more sophisticated workflows atop the Input API using a design which leverages Function Composition for a powerful, fault tolerant, workflow.

With this gem, you have a convenient building block to automate your workflows or even use this gem to transfer data from other PKM systems into Tana. 🎉

Table of Contents

Features
Requirements
Setup
Usage
- Initialization
- Environment
- Identification
- Endpoints
  - Add
Development
Tests
License
Security
Code of Conduct
Contributions
Versions
Community
Credits

Features

Provides an API client which implements Tana’s limited, early access Input API.
Provides HTTP request and response verification using Dry Schema and Dry Validation.
Uses Function Composition — coupled with Pipeable — to process each HTTP request and response.

Requirements

Ruby.
Tana.

Setup

To install with security, run:

# 💡 Skip this line if you already have the public certificate installed.
gem cert --add <(curl --compressed --location https://alchemists.io/projects/tana/gems.pem)
gem install tana --trust-policy HighSecurity

To install without security, run:

gem install tana

You can also add the gem directly to your project:

bundle add tana

Once the gem is installed, you only need to require it:

require "tana"

Usage

All interaction is via a Tana instance.

Initialization

You can initialize the API client — using the defaults as described in the Environment section below — as follows:

client = Tana.new

Further customization can be done via a block:

client = Tana.new do |config|
  config.accept = "application/json"   # Use custom HTTP header.
  config.token = "abc123"              # Use custom/personal API key.
  config.url = "https://api.tana.inc"  # Use custom API root.
end

Environment

Environment variable support can be managed using direnv. These are the defaults:

TANA_API_ACCEPT=application/json
TANA_API_TOKEN=
TANA_API_URL=https://europe-west1-tagr-prod.cloudfunctions.net

You must provide a TANA_API_TOKEN value to make authenticated API requests. This can be done by creating an API token via the API tokens UI:

Here are the steps to view and make use of the UI shown above:

Click on Settings within your Tana client.
Click on API tokens.
Click Create if you haven’t already.
Copy and paste your API token as value for TANA_API_TOKEN key.
Refresh your environment accordingly.

Identification

When making API requests, you’ll often need to acquire the IDs of the nodes you wish to add. This can be done two ways. The first is by selecting the node you are interested in, using CONTROL + K to launch the command prompt, and fuzzy type for Copy link. Example:

Once copied the URL might look like https://app.tana.inc?nodeid=z-p8LdQk6I76 but you’ll only need the ID (i.e. z-p8LdQk6I76) for API requests.

For supertags/fields, you can select the node you are interested in using CONTROL + K to launch the command prompt and fuzzy type for Show API schema. Example:

Endpoints

At the moment, Tana only provides the Input API which is a single endpoint for adding nodes only. This API has the following limitations:

Rate Limiting
- One call per second per token.
- Max 100 nodes created per call.
- Max 5,000 characters in one request.
Additional Limitations
- Can’t target a relative Today node.
- Must know the IDs of the supertag.
- Each payload is capped at five kilobytes.
- Can’t add a checkbox child to a normal node.
- No support for child templates.
- No support for in-application links (i.e. anything that is not a http/https scheme).

Add

To add nodes (i.e. Input API), you only need to send the #add message. Here’s a quick example of adding a simple node to your Tana Inbox.

client = Tana.new

result = client.add(
  {
    targetNodeId: "INBOX",
    nodes: [
      {
        name: "With plain node",
        description: "A demonstration."
      }
    ]
  }
)

result
# Success(#<data Tana::Models::Root children=[#<data Tana::Models::Node id="agite1C3Tben", name="With plain node", description="A demonstration.", type="node", children=[]>]>)

The above will yield the following in your Tana Inbox:

You’ll also notice, the result is a monad (i.e. Dry Monads) which means you’ll only get a Success or Failure which you can pipe with additional functionality or use Pattern Matching.

For successes, you’ll be given a Data object with a simple Object API for accessing the children of the response. At the root, you’ll have a Tana::Models::Root instance which can be one or more Tana::Models::Node children. When you unpack the Success — and to illustrate further — you’ll end up with the following:

Tana::Models::Root[
  children: [
    Tana::Models::Node[
      id: "agite1C3Tben",
      name: "With plain node",
      description: "A demonstration.",
      type: "node",
      children: []
    ]
  ]
]

This simplifies and reduces the amount of work you have to do in your own program when processing the API result. For a Failure, you either get a HTTP::Response or a structured response that is a plain Hash. Example:

{
  "formErrors" => ["Invalid input"],
  "fieldErrors" => {}
}

Usually, errors are due to invalid authentication credentials or wrong data format. To experiment further, you can use this Bundler Inline script:

#! /usr/bin/env ruby
# frozen_string_literal: true

# Save as `demo`, then `chmod 755 demo`, and run as `./demo`.

require "bundler/inline"

gemfile true do
  source "https://rubygems.org"

  gem "amazing_print"
  gem "debug"
  gem "tana"
end

require "base64"

include Dry::Monads[:result]

render = lambda do |result|
  case result
    in Success(record) then puts record
    in Failure(HTTP::Response => error) then puts error.body
    in Failure(error) then ap error.errors
    else abort "Unable to process result."
  end
end

client = Tana.new

When you save the above and run it locally, you have a quick way to experiment with the API print out the results by using the render function which uses Pattern Matching that I hinted at earlier. The following are additional examples you can experiment with by adding to the above script:

With Nesting

The following will allow you to create a deeply nested set of nodes. At the moment, your are limited to ten levels deep due to recursion limitations with the Dry Schema and Dry Validation gems.

render.call client.add(
  {
    targetNodeId: "INBOX",
    nodes: [
      {
        name: "One",
        children: [
          {
            name: "Two",
            children: [
              {
                name: "Three",
                children: [
                  {
                    name: "Four",
                    children: [
                      {
                        name: "Five",
                        children: [
                          {
                            name: "Six",
                            children: [
                              {
                                name: "Seven",
                                children: [
                                  {
                                    name: "Eight",
                                    children: [
                                      name: "Nine",
                                      children: [
                                        {name: "Ten"}
                                      ]
                                    ]
                                  }
                                ]
                              }
                            ]
                          }
                        ]
                      }
                    ]
                  }
                ]
              }
            ]
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
)

With Field

The following allows you to create a node with a field (you’ll want to replace the attribute ID with your ID).

render.call client.add(
  {
    targetNodeId: "INBOX",
    nodes: [
      {
        name: "With field",
        description: "A demonstration.",
        children: [
          {
            attributeId: "zM582yzfcs-q",
            type: "field",
            children: [
              {name: "💡 Idea"}
            ]
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
)

With Supertags

The following allows you to create a node with supertags (you’ll want to replace the IDs with your own IDs).

render.call client.add(
  {
    targetNodeId: "INBOX",
    nodes: [
      {
        name: "With supertags",
        description: "A demonstration.",
        supertags: [
          {id: "S9aMn7puHzUT"},
          {id: "iWKs80kHI0SK"}
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
)

With Reference

The following will allow you to create a node with a reference to another node (you’ll want to replace with your own ID):

render.call client.add(
  {
    targetNodeId: "INBOX",
    nodes: [
      {
        dataType: "reference",
        id: "H-vAUdPi8taR"
      }
    ]
  }
)

With Date

The following will allow you to create a node with a date:

render.call client.add(
  {
    targetNodeId: "INBOX",
    nodes: [
      {
        dataType: "date",
        name: "2024-01-01T00:00:00Z"
      }
    ]
  }
)

With URL

The following will allow you to create a node with a URL field (you’ll want to replace with your own ID):

render.call client.add(
  {
    targetNodeId: "INBOX",
    nodes: [
      {
        type: "field",
        attributeId: "OceDtN8c0CbR",
        children: [
          {
            dataType: "url",
            name: "https://alchemists.io"
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
)

With Checkbox

The following will allow you to create a node with a checkbox:

render.call client.add(
  {
    targetNodeId: "INBOX",
    nodes: [
      {
        name: "With checkbox",
        dataType: "boolean",
        value: true
      }
    ]
  }
)

With Attachment

The following will allow you to create a node with an attachment. This requires the Base64 gem as shown required in the script above because you need to encode your attachment before making the API request.

render.call client.add(
  {
    targetNodeId: "INBOX",
    nodes: [
      {
        dataType: "file",
        file: Base64.strict_encode64(Pathname("sunglasses.jpeg").read),
        filename: "sunglasses.jpeg",
        contentType: "image/jpeg"
      }
    ]
  }
)

With Schema Field

The following will allow you to create a Schema field:

render.call client.add(
  {
    targetNodeId: "SCHEMA",
    nodes: [
      {
        name: "demo",
        description: "With Schema field.",
        supertags: [{id: "SYS_T02"}]
      }
    ]
  }
)

With Schema Supertag

The following will allow you to create a Schema supertag:

render.call client.add(
  {
    targetNodeId: "SCHEMA",
    nodes: [
      {
        name: "demo",
        description: "With Schema supertag.",
        supertags: [{id: "SYS_T01"}]
      }
    ]
  }
)

Development

To contribute, run:

git clone https://github.com/bkuhlmann/tana
cd tana
bin/setup

You can also use the IRB console for direct access to all objects:

bin/console

Tests

To test, run:

bin/rake

Credits

Built with Gemsmith.
Engineered by Brooke Kuhlmann.

tana

Runtime

Tana

Features

Requirements

Setup

Usage

Initialization

Environment

Identification

Endpoints

Add

Development

Tests

License

Security

Code of Conduct

Contributions

Versions

Community

Credits