til/logseq/access-daily-journal-from-cli-with-http-server.md

Access Daily Journal From CLI With HTTP Server

I use logseq as the daily driver for my notes both inside and outside of work. I like the organization provided by the outliner notetaking style.

I now want to set up some automations that interact with my notes. I originally figured this would involve reading directly from markdown files on disk. However, they recently migrated to a SQLite storage format and I learned that there is an HTTP server you can run for more reliable interactions.

The HTTP server needs to be enabled. To do this, I did the following (though I'm not sure if Developer Mode is required):

1. Find the ... icon to access the app's main menu
2. Open Settings
3. Enable Developer Mode under Advanced
4. Enable HTTP API Server under Features
5. Restart the logseq app
6. Click the disabled API icon that is in the upper-right next to the navigational arrows
7. Create a new Authorization Token and copy the value
8. Click Start Server and it will run at http://127.0.0.1:12315

With all that in place, the server is running and ready to accept my first query. I want to get a look at my notes so far today, so I'll run a curl request against the /api path with the auth token I copied.

❯ curl -s -X POST http://127.0.0.1:12315/api \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $LOGSEQ_API_TOKEN" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -d '{"method":"logseq.Editor.getPageBlocksTree","args":["Oct 31st, 2026"]}'
[{"updatedAt":1793456696397,"createdAt":1793456670024,"parent":{"id":5943},"children":[],"id":5947,"level":1,"uuid":"6ae5fa1e-afa2-46c9-abbc-abf58b434e3e","fullTitle":"Working on setting up the HTTP server for logseq to see if I can interact with it via the CLI.","content":"Working on setting up the HTTP server for logseq to see if I can interact with it via the CLI.","order":"a0","title":"Working on setting up the HTTP server for logseq to see if I can interact with it via the CLI.","page":{"id":5943}},{"updatedAt":1793456702190,"createdAt":1793456697156,"parent":{"id":5943},"children":[{"updatedAt":1793456702212,"createdAt":1793456702212,"parent":{"id":5948},"children":[],"id":5949,"level":2,"uuid":"6ae5fa3e-0865-4713-9690-c456fb1a37ad","fullTitle":"","content":"","order":"a0","title":"","page":{"id":5943}}],"id":5948,"level":1,"uuid":"6ae5fa39-96bc-4f26-9d5f-2b3b3a366070","fullTitle":"[[6aa01dba-1b28-4540-b205-5254ee37d825]]","content":"[[6aa01dba-1b28-4540-b205-5254ee37d825]]","order":"a1","title":"[[6aa01dba-1b28-4540-b205-5254ee37d825]]","page":{"id":5943},"refs":[{"id":642}]}]%

The data we pass as the request body includes the method we are running which is "get all the blocks for the specified page" (getPageBlocksTree). The args then specify what page we are referring to. In this case, today's daily journal -- "Oct 31st, 2026" (👻). The result is that pile of JSON.

Whenever I get a long line of JSON like that, I like to use jq at the very least to pretty-print it or even to dig in a bit.

❯ curl -s -X POST http://127.0.0.1:12315/api \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $LOGSEQ_API_TOKEN" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -d '{"method":"logseq.Editor.getPageBlocksTree","args":["Oct 31st, 2026"]}' | jq
[
  {
    "updatedAt": 1793456696397,
    "createdAt": 1793456670024,
    "parent": {
      "id": 5943
    },
    "children": [],
    "id": 5947,
    "level": 1,
    "uuid": "6ae5fa1e-afa2-46c9-abbc-abf58b434e3e",
    "fullTitle": "Working on setting up the HTTP server for logseq to see if I can interact with it via the CLI.",
    "content": "Working on setting up the HTTP server for logseq to see if I can interact with it via the CLI.",
    "order": "a0",
    "title": "Working on setting up the HTTP server for logseq to see if I can interact with it via the CLI.",
    "page": {
      "id": 5943
    }
  },
  ...
]