SACRED

A personal Bible study app with rich text notes, commentary, and sermon management.

Features

• Bible Reader — Navigate books and chapters with clean, readable typography
• Rich Text Notes — Attach notes to verse ranges using a full-featured editor
• Note Types — Organize as notes, commentary, or sermons
• Hierarchical Topics — Organize notes with parent-child topic categories
• Inline Tagging — Highlight text and tag as Illustration, Application, Key Point, Quote, or Cross-Reference
• Browse by Tag — View all tagged content across notes from the sidebar
• Dark/Light Theme — Respects system preference with highlight visibility toggle
• Mac App — Native desktop app with local database
• Web Hosting — Deploy with Docker to Railway, Render, or self-host
• Export/Import — Backup and restore notes, topics, and tag types as JSON
• Self-Hosted — Your data stays on your machine
• Claude Integration — MCP server for AI-assisted Bible study
• Pulpit Coverage Dashboard — Heatmap of every book/chapter you've taught, doctrine coverage, illustration reuse
• Command Palette — Cmd+K to jump to any passage, note, doctrine, or action
• AI Study Assistant — In-app Claude chat grounded in your notes, sermons, and theology library (Cmd+J, requires ANTHROPIC_API_KEY)
• MCP Connectors — Plug in your own MCP servers as in-app tools; see docs/CONNECTORS.md
• Auto-Enrichment — Saved sermons get suggested doctrine links, topics, and untagged illustrations

Quick Start

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Development (run in two terminals)
npm run dev          # Frontend at http://localhost:3000
npm run dev:server   # Backend at http://localhost:3001

Mac App

Build a native Mac app (.dmg):

npm run electron:build

The app will be created at release/SACRED-*.dmg. Database is stored at:

~/Library/Application Support/sacred/sacred.db

Web Hosting (Docker)

Deploy SACRED as a web app on Railway, Render, or any Docker host.

Quick Deploy to Railway

1. Fork this repo (or use a private copy with your data)
2. Connect Railway to your GitHub repo
3. Add environment variables:
   • AUTH_PASSWORD — Required, your login password
   • ESV_API_KEY — Optional, for ESV translation
4. Add a volume mounted at /app/data
5. Railway auto-deploys on push

Local Docker

# Build image
npm run docker:build

# Run container
docker run -p 3000:3000 \
  -e AUTH_PASSWORD=your-password \
  -v sacred-data:/app/data \
  sacred

Visit http://localhost:3000 and log in with your password.

Environment Variables

Variable	Required	Description
AUTH_PASSWORD	Yes	Password for web access
ESV_API_KEY	No	ESV Bible API key (get one)
PORT	No	Server port (default: 3000)
DB_PATH	No	Database path (default: /app/data/sacred.db)

Claude Integration (MCP)

SACRED includes an MCP server that lets Claude read and write your Bible notes directly.

Setup for Claude Desktop

Add to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "sacred-bible-notes": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/path/to/Sacred/mcp/build/index.js"],
      "env": {
        "DB_PATH": "/path/to/Library/Application Support/sacred/sacred.db"
      }
    }
  }
}

Setup for Claude Code

Create .mcp.json in the Sacred project directory (this file is gitignored):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "sacred-bible-notes": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/path/to/Sacred/mcp/build/index.js"],
      "env": {
        "DB_PATH": "/path/to/Library/Application Support/sacred/sacred.db"
      }
    }
  }
}

See mcp/README.md for detailed setup, available tools, and example prompts.

Database Path

• Mac App: ~/Library/Application Support/sacred/sacred.db
• Docker: /app/data/sacred.db (mount a volume here)
• Development: ./data/sacred.db

Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Frontend	React 18, Vite, CSS Modules
Editor	Tiptap
Backend	Express 5
Database	SQLite (better-sqlite3)
Desktop	Electron
AI	MCP Server

Project Structure

SACRED/
├── src/           # React frontend
├── server/        # Express backend
├── electron/      # Electron main process
├── mcp/           # MCP server for Claude
├── build/         # App icons and entitlements
├── data/          # SQLite database (dev)
└── docs/          # Documentation

Documentation

• Roadmap — Planned features
• Testing — Test workflows
• Changelog — Version history

License

MIT