Discover the powerful features that make Harvous the perfect companion for your Bible study journey. Harvous is a modern Bible study notes application with a solid foundation and React Islands architecture. v1 is complete with production-ready core functionality; ongoing focus is performance and quality-of-life improvements.
- Spaces → Threads → Notes
- Organize your study materials in a way that makes sense to you
- Mix individual notes and thread collections within the same space
- Easy Space Creation: Dedicated space creation page with color selection and private/shared types
- Customizable Spaces: Choose from 8 beautiful colors and set privacy levels
📁 Bible Study Space (Private, Blue)
├── 📚 Gospel of John Thread (5 notes)
├── 📖 Romans Study Thread (12 notes)
└── 📝 Individual Reflection Note
📁 Church Group Study (Shared, Gold)
├── 🙏 Romans Discussion Thread (8 notes)
├── ❤️ Prayer Requests Thread (12 notes)
└── 📋 Group Notes
📁 Prayer Journal Space (Private, Mint)
├── 🙏 Daily Prayers Thread (30 notes)
├── ❤️ Intercession List Thread (8 notes)
└── 📋 Prayer Request Note
- Spaces and threads get unique colors for instant recognition
- 8 beautiful colors to choose from: Paper, Blessed Blue, Mindful Mint, Graceful Gold, Pleasant Peach, Caring Coral, Peaceful Pink, Lovely Lavender
- Colors appear in navigation and headers
- Easy to spot your favorite study topics at a glance
- Space counts: Total items (threads + notes) in each space
- Thread counts: Number of notes in each thread
- Quick overview of your study progress
- Recently Accessed: Your most recent spaces and threads appear in the navigation
- Active State: Currently viewed items show with proper styling and shadows
- Easy Access: Quick navigation to your frequently used content
- Space Protection: Confirmation dialog when closing spaces (since they can't be recovered)
- Clean Interface: No duplicate entries - each item appears only once
- localStorage Integration: Simple localStorage-based system for tracking recently accessed items
- Color-coded Navigation: Spaces and threads display with their respective colors
- Item Counts: Spaces show total item count, threads show note count
🔵 Bible Study Space (8) ← Blue space with 8 total items
└── 🟣 Gospel of John (5) ← Purple thread with 5 notes
🟡 Church Group Study (15) ← Gold shared space with 15 items
└── 🟠 Romans Discussion (8) ← Orange thread with 8 notes
🟢 Prayer Journal (23) ← Green space with 23 items
- Sequential numbering: N001, N002, N003, N004...
- Never reused: Deleted note IDs are never reused (N003 deleted → next is N004)
- Easy reference: "Check out my insight in N015"
- Persistent: IDs never change, even when reorganizing
- Bold, italic, underline formatting for emphasis and structure
- Ordered and unordered lists for organized thoughts and outlines
- Clean, distraction-free interface that matches the app's design
- Consistent font styling using the app's Reddit Sans font family
- Real-time content updates with seamless form integration
- Inline editing - click any note to edit directly without separate edit pages
- HTML content processing - clean text previews without formatting artifacts
- Mobile-optimized toolbar with proper viewport handling
- React Islands integration for seamless desktop and mobile experience
N001: John 3:16 - God's Love
N002: Romans 8:28 - All Things Work Together
N003: Psalm 23 - The Lord is My Shepherd
N004: Prayer Request - Healing for Sarah
- Personal study spaces for focused individual work
- Keep your thoughts organized by major themes or study projects
- Perfect for personal Bible reading, prayer journaling, and individual reflection
- Only visible to you - your private spiritual journey
- Collaborative environments where multiple people can contribute
- Perfect for church small groups, Bible study groups, book clubs, and family devotions
- All members can create threads and notes within the shared space
- Invitations: Shareable invite link (link-based joining); owner copies link from Space details; join page and accept flow
- Member management: Owner can invite (via link), remove members; members can leave; tier limits (free: 3 shared spaces; paid: unlimited)
- Visibility: Join page, member view (same route as owner), shared space indicator; locked notes never shown in shared contexts
📁 Personal Study (Private, Blue)
├── Daily Bible Reading
├── Prayer Journal
└── Personal Reflections
📁 Church Small Group (Shared, Gold)
├── Romans Study Discussion
├── Group Prayer Requests
└── Meeting Notes
📁 Family Devotions (Shared, Mint)
├── Weekly Family Study
├── Children's Questions
└── Family Prayer List
- Capture zone for quick note-taking
- My Pile / unfiled content that needs sorting
- Threads without spaces waiting for organization
- Perfect for rapid idea capture during study
- Complete overview of all organized content
- Space-based organization with counts
- Thread hierarchies within each space
- Great for finding and reviewing past studies
- Notes between threads: Reorganize as your understanding grows
- Threads between spaces: Restructure your organization
- Individual notes: Can exist outside of threads when needed
- NoteDetailsPanel: Complete many-to-many thread management system
- Notes in multiple threads: A note about "Faith" can belong to both "Romans Study" and "Personal Growth"
- Cross-referencing: Link related concepts across different study areas
- Flexible organization: Content isn't locked into rigid categories
- Thread Management: Add/remove notes from multiple threads with enhanced UX
- Notes are never deleted - they're always preserved
- Thread deletion: Notes move to "My Pile" instead of being lost
- Accident protection: No fear of losing important insights
- Complete history: Every note you've ever created is saved
- Sequential Note IDs: User-friendly IDs (N001, N002, N003) that never reuse deleted numbers
- Database Integrity: Robust database schema with proper relationships and constraints
- Private notes: Only you can see your content
- Secure authentication: Protected by Clerk authentication
- Personal organization: Your spaces, threads, and notes are yours alone
- User-specific data: All content is isolated by user ID in the database
- Real-time saving: Changes are saved immediately
- No manual save: Focus on your thoughts, not file management
- Cross-device sync: Access your notes from anywhere
- Persistent sessions: Pick up where you left off
- Fast redirects: 100ms redirects to newly created content
- Toast notifications: Success/error feedback for all actions
- View Transitions: Seamless page changes without full reloads
- Quick access: Recent items in navigation for fast switching
- Breadcrumb navigation: Always know where you are
- Search functionality: Find any note or thread quickly with enhanced relevance scoring
- React Islands: Seamless desktop and mobile experience with unified components
- Bottom sheet (Vaul): Mobile panels use Vaul (Emil Kowalski) with Harvous overlay and layout CSS; smooth slide-up / drag behavior from the library
- Toasts (Sonner): Notifications use Sonner (same author)
- Unified Components: Same React components for desktop and mobile (SPA + shared
src/components/react/) - Fast Interactions: 100ms redirects, immediate feedback with toast notifications
- Professional UX: Smooth animations, proper easing, and overlay dismiss functionality
- Mobile-Only Rendering: Bottom sheet only shows on mobile (< 1160px), desktop uses additional column
- Desktop: Full-featured experience with all tools and additional column layout
- Tablet: Touch-friendly interface for note-taking with bottom sheet system
- Mobile: Optimized for quick capture and review with modern bottom sheet UX
- Progressive Web App: Install as a native app
- Automatic XP Awarding: XP is automatically awarded when users create threads (10 XP) and notes (10 XP)
- Daily Bonuses: First note of each day earns +5 XP bonus
- Smart Daily Caps: Note opening XP capped at 50 per day to prevent gaming
- Real-time Tracking: See your XP grow as you create and engage with content
- Dynamic Profile Display: Profile page shows real-time XP instead of hardcoded value
- Backfill System: Can retroactively calculate XP for existing users and content
- Database Integration: UserXP table tracks all XP activities and amounts
- Creating a new thread: 10 XP
- Creating a full note: 10 XP
- Opening notes/threads: 1 XP (50 XP daily cap)
- First note of the day: +5 XP bonus
- Levels and badges based on total XP
- Achievement system for specific behaviors
- Leaderboards and social features
- More activity types (sharing, commenting, etc.)
- Edit Name & Color Panel: Customize your first name, last name, and avatar color
- Dynamic Avatar Colors: Choose from 8 beautiful colors for your avatar
- Real-time Updates: Changes apply immediately across desktop and mobile
- Persistent Preferences: Your color choice is saved and remembered across sessions
- Name Display: Profile shows "First Name + Last Initial" format (e.g., "John D")
- Avatar Initials: Avatar displays "First Initial + Last Initial" format (e.g., "JD")
- XP Display: Profile shows real-time XP with Font Awesome bolt icon
- Database Integration: All profile data is securely stored and retrieved
- Paper (default), Blessed Blue, Mindful Mint, Graceful Gold
- Pleasant Peach, Caring Coral, Peaceful Pink, Lovely Lavender
- Colors match the same palette used for spaces and threads
- Your avatar color preference is stored in your user profile
- Panel System: Organized profile editing with dedicated panels for different settings
- Toast Notifications: Success feedback when profile is updated
- Cross-Device Sync: Profile changes sync across all devices
- Database Persistence: All profile data is securely stored and retrieved
- 500 free notes: Everyone gets 500 notes to start
- Upgrade to Unlimited: Manage Billing panel shows usage and links to upgrade
- Dynamic limit display: Note limit (500 + referral bonus) shown in Manage Billing and Referral panels
- Refer My Friends: Profile option opens Referral panel with copyable referral link
- 100 extra notes per referral: When friends sign up with your link, you get 100 additional notes on top of your 500 free notes
- Autogenerated referral codes: Short codes (e.g. JOHN-X7K2) for shareable links
- Bonus stats: Panel shows how many bonus notes you've earned from successful referrals
- Subscription integration: Effective limit (500 + referral bonus) used for note creation and displayed in billing UI
- ReferralPanel: Copy link, see bonus stats, dynamic "before you need unlimited" total
- ManageBillingPanel: Usage (e.g. "3 out of 500 note limit"), upgrade flow
- API:
/api/referral/status,/api/referral/credit, subscription status includes limit and referral bonus
Locked notes use client-side encryption so only you (and God) can read the content. The server and database only ever see ciphertext.
Encryption (specific algorithms):
- Cipher: AES-GCM (256-bit key). Authenticated encryption; tampering is detected.
- Key derivation: PBKDF2-SHA256 with 310,000 iterations (OWASP 2025 recommendation). Your 4-digit PIN is set once per account (Profile → Lock PIN); a key is derived from it and a per-note salt. PIN is never stored in plaintext; a verifier is stored for verification when locking.
- Salt: 16 bytes, cryptographically random, generated per encryption (stored with the ciphertext).
- IV (nonce): 12 bytes for AES-GCM, cryptographically random per encryption.
- API: Web Crypto API (SubtleCrypto). No keys or PINs are sent to or stored on the server.
Stored format: Per locked note, the content column holds a base64 blob: salt (16 bytes) || IV (12 bytes) || ciphertext. The contentEncrypted flag tells the server to treat it as opaque.
Trust: We do not have access to your locked note plaintext. If you forget your PIN, locked content cannot be recovered.
- Account-level 4-digit PIN: Set and change in Profile → Lock PIN; one PIN locks/unlocks any note. PIN is never stored or transmitted; a verifier is used only to confirm before locking.
- Lock / Unlock UI: Lock note button, PIN entry panel (set PIN from note or enter PIN to lock), inline unlock when viewing
- List placeholders: Locked notes show "Locked" in cards and lists; no plaintext preview
- Search & features: Locked notes are excluded from full-text search; scripture detection, auto-tags, and sharing respect the lock
- Study workflows: Built for how you actually study the Bible
- Reflection tools: Space for insights, questions, and applications
- Prayer integration: Combine study notes with prayer requests
- Sermon notes: Organize church service insights
- Daily Bible reading with reflection notes
- Sermon series with weekly notes
- Bible study groups with shared insights
- Personal devotions with prayer journaling
- Scripture memorization with practice notes
- Full-text Search: Search across all notes and threads with enhanced matching
- Multiple Search Patterns: Exact case match, lowercase match, and word boundary matching
- Tag Support: Search includes tag matching for comprehensive results
- Relevance Scoring: Smart relevance scoring based on title matches, content matches, and tag matches
- Recent Content Boost: Recent content gets slight boost in search results
- Deduplication: Automatic deduplication of search results
- Title Priority: Title matches get highest relevance score (100+ points)
- Content Matching: Content matches get medium score (50+ points)
- Tag Integration: Tag matches get high score (75+ points)
- Multiple Occurrences: Bonus points for multiple occurrences in content
- Date Sorting: Results sorted by update date and creation date
- Related notes: See notes in the same thread or space
- Cross-references: Find notes that reference each other
- Study patterns: See which topics you study most
- Growth tracking: Watch your understanding develop over time
- Select Text → Create Note: Select meaningful text in TiptapEditor and instantly create a new note
- Floating Action Button: Small, unobtrusive button appears above selected text
- Seamless Workflow: Natural extension of reading experience for capturing insights
- Pre-populated Content: Selected text automatically populates the new note content
- Mobile & Desktop Support: Works seamlessly across all devices
- Context Preservation: Maintains original context while creating new notes
- Default Notes: Standard notes with rich text content for general note-taking
- Scripture Notes: Specialized notes for Bible verses and scripture references
- Resource Notes: Notes for external resources, articles, and media
- Automatic Detection: Smart detection of scripture and resource content
- Enhanced Organization: Better categorization and search capabilities
- Rich Metadata: Additional context and information for each note type
- Your spaces: Create organizational structure that fits your study style
- Your threads: Group related content however makes sense to you
- Your notes: Write in your own voice and style
- Your workflow: Use the tools in ways that enhance your study
- Top-down organizers: Start with spaces, then threads, then notes
- Bottom-up capturers: Start with notes, then organize into threads and spaces
- Hybrid approach: Mix both methods as needed
- Evolution: Let your organization grow and change with your study
- Bible study focused: Built specifically for spiritual study, not generic note-taking
- Sequential IDs: Never lose track of your notes with persistent numbering
- Visual organization: Colors and counts make content easy to find
- Flexible structure: Adapts to your study style, not the other way around
- Data preservation: Never lose important insights due to accidental deletion
- Individual study: Personal Bible reading and reflection
- Group study: Organize insights from Bible study groups
- Sermon notes: Capture and organize church service insights
- Prayer journaling: Combine study with prayer requests
- Scripture study: Deep dive into specific books or topics
- Devotional time: Daily reflection and spiritual growth
Ready to transform your Bible study? Here's how to begin:
- Sign in to your Harvous account with Clerk authentication
- Create your first space with a custom color and privacy setting (e.g., "Daily Study" - Private, Blue)
- Add a thread with its own color (e.g., "Current Book Study" - Purple)
- Start taking notes with the rich text editor and watch your XP grow!
- Use the search to find your insights quickly with enhanced relevance scoring
- Create shared spaces for group study and collaboration (invite via email or link, member management, tier limits)
- Select text to create notes instantly and use specialized note types
- ✅ Core Features: Content creation, viewing, and management
- ✅ Mobile Experience: Modern bottom sheet system with React Islands
- ✅ XP System: Gamification with automatic XP awarding
- ✅ Search: Enhanced search with relevance scoring and tag support
- ✅ Billing & Referrals: Free tier (500 notes), upgrade to unlimited, referral bonus (100 notes per friend)
- ✅ Locked Notes: Client-side encryption (AES-GCM 256-bit, PBKDF2-SHA256 310k iterations); 4-digit PIN, no recovery
- ✅ Shared Spaces: Invitations (email + link), member management, join/leave, tier limits; v1 complete. Next: performance and QoL.
Your journey of organized, meaningful Bible study starts now. 📖✨