Welcome to GSoC 2026 with Joplin!

GSoC
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Welcome to Google Summer of Code 2026 with Joplin

Welcome everyone, and thank you for your interest in participating in Google Summer of Code with Joplin!

This post will be regularly updated with important GSoC news and announcements, so make sure to watch this topic to stay informed.

Getting started

First, join the forum if you haven’t already. Once you’ve done that, reply to this post to introduce yourself — tell us a bit about who you are, your background, and what interests you about Joplin. Please provide a link to your GitHub account.

Next, make sure to carefully read the following documents. Many students skip them, so simply reading and following them already puts you ahead of a lot of applicants:

Next deadline

Proposal submission deadline: 31 March 2026

Updates

5 March 2026

GSoC has started two weeks ago, and there is still time to get familiar with the project, get involved in the community, and start contributing.

A good way to stand out is to create a few pull requests and show how you approach problems. Focus on understanding the project and the codebase, avoid relying too heavily on AI tools, and demonstrate your ability to work independently.

Good luck to everyone!

8 March 2026

Remember to read the guidelines before creating your pull requests! If I look at the last 10 pull requests, it seems that not a single one of you read them. It's not that hard, it doesn't take long, and not doing it will play against you when it's time to pick candidates.

13 March 2026

Thanks everyone for the pull requests submitted so far - we appreciate the effort. We currently have quite a large backlog to review, so it may take us a bit of time to go through everything. Thanks for your patience while we work through them.

If you've recently joined, remember that the proposal submission deadline is 31 March 2026. Make sure to submit a few pull requests before then, as we need this to evaluate you as a candidate during the selection process.

14 March 2026

Thanks everyone for the contributions and discussions so far.

To make things clearer for everyone, we’ve created a short guide explaining how to submit and update your proposal drafts on the forum:

https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/gsoc-2026-how-to-submit-your-proposal-draft/49137

If you plan to submit a proposal, please follow these instructions when creating your draft thread.

16 March 2026

A quick clarification regarding the idea list.

It’s a good idea to read through it to understand the kinds of projects we are interested in, and you are absolutely welcome to base your proposal on one of these ideas. Most proposals will likely come from this list.

However, it is not strictly required. If you have another idea that could make a good GSoC project for Joplin, feel free to propose it!

If you're unsure whether your idea would be a good fit, you can first start a short discussion on the forum before investing time in writing a full proposal.

19 March 2026

Hi everyone, I thought I'd leave a quick message regarding how we are going to evaluate proposals.

Compared to previous years, with the current AI tooling, coding is no longer the main challenge. What we care about most is:

  • your understanding of the problem

  • your ability to explain and justify your approach

  • your engagement with the community and mentors

Your proposal draft and discussions on the forum are the best way to demonstrate this. Ask questions, engage in discussions and iterate on your draft to put together a quality proposal.

Pull requests remain important though, so if you haven't submitted any yet, please do that next, as we will still need them to evaluate your application.

23 March

Hi everyone,

Given the high number of proposals this year, we may not be able to provide detailed feedback on each one. However in many cases similar ideas are already being discussed in the forum - in particular we recommend checking the GSoC Proposal Drafts category. You can review related discussions there and use the existing feedback to refine your proposal.

A reminder as well: every year we receive strong proposals from contributors who haven’t submitted any pull requests, and unfortunately we can’t accept those. So make sure you contribute some code. You can look for issues tagged “High”, “Medium”, or “Enhancement” to get started.

Only one week left before the proposal submission deadline on 31 March!

24 March

Just highlighting this in case it was missed among other posts: there is an ongoing discussion about a possible future setup to integrate an MCP server and other AI-related APIs into Joplin, with support for plugins (which some of you may end up developing).

As mentioned there, implementing this architecture could itself be a solid GSoC project. If this topic interests you, feel free to submit a proposal around it!

Forum thread: GSoC 2026: Opportunities for the AI projects - #22 by laurent

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Hello my fellow GSoC mates and mentors. Myself Diptesh Roy, a 2nd year Communication and Computer Engineering Student from India. Its my pleasure to be here, among some fierce competition. I am looking forward to explore AI thats why I have chosen Joplin as my mentoring organisation. I have experience in Blockchain, with good command in Typescript, Javascript and in frameworks I know Node, Express and React. Therefore, looking forward to contribute to the ideas mentioned. Hopefully my contribution stays meaningful.

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Hello everyone,

My name is Harshal Sewatkar. I am happy to join the Joplin community. I am a Computer Science undergraduate student and I am new to open source. Currently, I am looking for open-source projects where I can start contributing.

In the ideas list, I found the idea “Chat with your note collection using AI.” This idea interested me a lot, so I started exploring the project to understand it better and hopefully make some contributions.

Github

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Hello world,
My name is Saugat. I am from Nepal. I love building mobile apps. I have been doing so for the last 4 years, primarily with React Native, Flutter, and SwiftUI.
Looking forward to working on new ideas in Joplin. This year, I am actively looking to contribute to open-source software. Joplin is my first pick. Excited for GSOC this year.

Github: > @iamsaugat07

6

Hello everyone,

My name is Himanshu Mishra, and I’m excited to join the Joplin community. I’m a Computer Science undergraduate who has been exploring software development and open source for the past three years on GitHub. I enjoy studying different codebases and understanding how projects are structured and maintained.

I’ve participated in several national and international level hackathons and had the opportunity to lead my team to wins in two of them, which helped me grow both technically and as a collaborator. In open source, I’ve contributed some minor fixes and have raised and discussed issues in repositories such as Brave, Supabase, and React Bits. I’m still learning the contribution process and hoping to start submitting more meaningful pull requests as I get more familiar with different projects.

I recently started exploring Joplin and was really impressed by its strong focus on privacy and user data ownership. I’ve been going through the repository and the GSoC ideas, and I’m currently working on a few proposal ideas while trying to understand the codebase better.

Looking forward to learning from the community and hopefully contributing in meaningful ways.

GitHub: himanshumishra1309

Best Regards,
Himanshu Mishra

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Hey everyone, I'm Keshav! a third-year Mathematics & Computing undergrad at NIT Kurukshetra, India.

I've spent a lot of my open-source time contributing to RoboSats (a P2P exchange). The thing i'm most proud of there is building encrypted image sharing for trade chat - users needed a way to securely share payment screenshots (You can check out my work on that here: https://github.com/RoboSats/robosats/pull/2382 ). That project dragged me deep into the client-side encryption rabbit hole.

When I saw Idea #7 (support for encrypted notes) on the ideas list, it felt like a perfect fit given what I've been building lately. I've been digging into the Joplin codebase this past week and have started picking up some issues to get my hands dirty.

GitHub: keshav0479

Love that Joplin takes encryption seriously - excited to help make that even better!!

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Thank you so much keshav! I can’t code that stuff at all. We need people like you in joplin and I’m grateful for your work.

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Hello everyone :waving_hand:

My name is Mayank, and I’m thrilled to become a part of the Joplin community. I’m especially looking forward to connecting with contributors who are interested in Google Summer of Code and open-source development.

:man_technologist: About Me

:graduation_cap: I’m currently pursuing a degree in Computer Science.

:laptop: My core interest lies in backend and full-stack development, where I enjoy working on the logic, architecture, and data flow that power real-world applications.

:rocket: I’m continuously working on strengthening my skills in system design, scalable backend systems, and contributing effectively to open-source projects.

:hammer_and_wrench: Technical Stack

Languages: TypeScript, JavaScript, C++
Frontend: React, HTML, CSS
Backend: Node.js, Express
Tools & Technologies: Git, GitHub, REST APIs, MongoDB
Interests: Software architecture, backend engineering, and developer-focused tools

:bullseye: Interest in GSoC & Joplin

I’m genuinely interested in contributing to Joplin because of its strong open-source philosophy and its well-structured, production-level codebase. Through this journey, I aim to:

  • Learn from experienced maintainers and contributors

  • Contribute high-quality, meaningful features or improvements

  • Deepen my understanding of large-scale open-source systems

  • Continue contributing long-term beyond GSoC

:link: GitHub

GitHub: codes-mayank (Mayank Agrawal) · GitHub

I’m excited to collaborate, learn, and grow within the community.

Looking forward to connecting with you all!

10

Hi everyone,

My name is Sujal, and I’m a final-year B.Tech Computer Science student from India. I mainly work with JavaScript/TypeScript, React, and Python, and I enjoy building full-stack applications and exploring intelligent features that make software more useful and intuitive.

Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time learning and experimenting with AI, sentiment analysis, and NLP, especially around how text data can be analyzed and organized in meaningful ways. Alongside that, I have a strong interest in cybersecurity and networking concepts, particularly in areas related to privacy, secure systems, and protecting user data — which is one of the reasons Joplin stood out to me.

I’m really looking forward to learning more about the project and the ecosystem, and I’d be happy to contribute wherever I can and collaborate with the community. Excited to get involved!

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Hi Joplin community!
My name is Cai Peng, and I'm a Master's student, where I'm specializing in Machine Learning, Data Visualization, and Generative AI. I'm thrilled to be applying for Google Summer of Code 2026, and Joplin's AI-powered project ideas immediately caught my attention — they sit right at the intersection of everything I love building.
My background spans full-stack engineering, cloud architecture, and applied ML, which I think maps well to the challenges these projects present:

  • AI/ML & RAG systems – I built a full RAG-based Interview Tutor using LangChain, the Gemini API, and Supabase vector stores, giving me hands-on experience with embedding pipelines, document ingestion, and LLM-driven Q&A — directly applicable to the Chat with your note collection and AI-supported search projects.
  • Full-stack development – I've shipped production features in TypeScript, React, Angular, and .NET across internships at SLB and Wintergreen Inc., so building plugin or external application UIs for Joplin feels very natural to me.
  • Backend & distributed systems – From microservices with Spring Boot and Go to distributed CI/CD pipelines with RabbitMQ and Docker, I'm comfortable designing scalable architectures that can handle large note collections efficiently.
  • Data & APIs – I have strong experience with MongoDB schema design and indexing, REST API design, and working with vector databases — all relevant for note ingestion and retrieval pipelines.

Projects I'm Excited About

I'm interested in contributing to all five AI project tracks:

  1. AI-supported search – I'd love to build a natural-language search layer that complements Joplin's existing engine, leveraging semantic embeddings to surface notes even when the user can't recall specific keywords.
  2. AI-generated note graphs – Visualizing relationships between notes using AI-driven clustering is a fascinating challenge. My experience with data visualization coursework and graph-based dependency resolution (DAG) in my CI/CD project gives me a strong foundation here.
  3. AI-based categorisation – Automatically tagging and organizing notes using LLMs is a practical, high-impact feature I'd be excited to prototype and refine with community feedback.
  4. Chat with your note collection – This is the project I feel most prepared for, given my RAG Tutor project. I'd be eager to build a ChatGPT-like interface grounded entirely in a user's personal knowledge base.
  5. Automatically label images – Accessibility matters deeply to me. Using vision models to generate descriptive alt-text for images in notes is a meaningful and technically interesting challenge I'd be proud to tackle.
    I'd love to connect, answer any questions, and discuss where I can best contribute. Thank you for the opportunity — I can't wait to get started!
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Hello everyone,
I'm Keerthi Aanand K S, a Computer Science Engineering (B.E. CSE) student from India. I work primarily with JavaScript/TypeScript, React, and Node.js, and have experience across the full stack from building UIs with React and React Native (Expo) to backend services with Express.js and Spring Boot, along with databases including MySQL, MongoDB, and Supabase (PostgreSQL).

One of my proudest achievements is developing a Chrome extension that has made a massive impact on its user base which gave me deep experience with browser APIs, security considerations, and building software that real users depend on daily.

I'm excited to contribute to Joplin for GSoC 2026 and am particularly interested in two project ideas:
7. Support for Encrypted Notes: The ability to lock sensitive notes behind a password is a feature I find both practical and compelling. My experience with building secure, user-facing applications (like my Chrome extension) aligns well with this project's requirements especially around cryptographic tooling and building intuitive React-based UI for encryption workflows.

8. Password Strength Indicator: I'm also interested in this project as a natural complement helping users create stronger master passwords through a real-time visual indicator using libraries like I've already set up the Joplin development environment locally on Windows, built the desktop app from source, and am actively exploring the codebase. I'm now working on picking up issues to submit my first pull request.

GitHub: KEERTHIAANAND

Looking forward to learning from the community and contributing to Joplin!

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Hi everyone,

My name is Demilade. I’m an AI developer currently expanding into backend software development to deepen my engineering foundation and strengthen the systems behind the models I build.

I’m new to open-source contributions, and I’m excited to learn, collaborate, and contribute meaningfully. Joining the Joplin community as part of my GSoC 2026 journey feels like a valuable opportunity to grow while giving back.

Looking forward to learning from you all and contributing wherever I can.

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Hi everyone!

I'm Manthan, a software engineering student and open-source enthusiast. I've been using Joplin for a while and I'm excited to contribute to the project as part of Google Summer of Code 2025.

I've started familiarizing myself with the codebase and have opened a couple of PRs so far — one addressing leftover .crypted file cleanup (#14520) and another adding a global hotkey to show/hide the desktop app (#14521).

I'm learning a lot about Joplin's architecture, especially around E2EE and the Electron main/renderer process model.

My goal is to make meaningful contributions to Joplin through GSoC — improving the desktop experience, fixing long-standing issues, and working closely with the community on solutions that fit the project's standards.

Looking forward to learning from the maintainers and fellow contributors here. Happy to hear any suggestions on areas where help is most needed!

15

Hey everyone!

I'm Ahmed, a TypeScript/JavaScript developer from Tunisia. I've been using Joplin daily and have started digging into the codebase and tbh I am really enjoying it.

I have one merged PR so far: #13994: Fix insert time command not respecting locale settings, which fixed a bug where Ctrl+Shift+T ignored the user's locale on both desktop and mobile. I'm also currently investigating the AppImage restart issue (#14522) traced it to bridge.ts where Electron's app.relaunch() silently fails on AppImage builds. Planning to submit a PR for that.

Project-wise, I'm drawn to LAN Sync and Encrypted Notes. I've been reading through the sync architecture and encryption service to get a feel for how things fit together. Saw @yousef-genedy's research thread on LAN Sync great stuff, would love to build on that discussion.

Looking forward to contributing more.

Ahmed Idani, GitHub

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Hi everyone,

My name is Ronak Maheshwari, a Computer Engineering student from Pune. I primarily work with TypeScript and full-stack systems, building scalable applications using React, Node.js, and modern cloud infrastructure.

I’ve been contributing to open-source projects and currently have active PRs in repositories such as Drizzle ORM. I’m particularly interested in developer tooling and privacy-focused systems, which is what drew me to Joplin.

From a research perspective, I have authored three research papers in distributed systems and backend architecture, including an IEEE publication. Another paper describing a secure event-ticket verification system using layered cryptographic mechanisms is currently under journal review. Working on that system gave me hands-on experience with encryption workflows such as public/private key cryptography, nonce-based validation, and secure verification pipelines.

For GSoC, I’m very interested in the “Support for encrypted notes” project. Strengthening privacy at the note level seems like a valuable addition to Joplin.

While exploring the repository, I had a couple of questions regarding the current encryption architecture:

• Does Joplin’s encryption layer currently support note-level encryption internally, or is it primarily designed for sync-level encryption across devices?
• If selective note encryption is introduced, would the preferred approach be extending the existing encryption service or implementing a separate local encryption module?

I’ll spend the next few weeks exploring the codebase and contributing where possible.

GitHub: ronakmaheshwari (Ronak Maheshwari) · GitHub

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Hello everyone,

I’m Lucky, and I’m a 2nd year B.Voc student pursuing a course in Software Development at Ramanujan College, University of Delhi, India.
I’m pleased to be a part of this community and look forward to the opportunity to contribute to GSoC 2026.

I’m comfortable with the MERN stack, and my favorite is JavaScript. I want to learn how things actually work behind the scenes while creating a useful application using these technologies.

Why Joplin?
I’m really interested in creating privacy-oriented applications, and I really love the idea of creating applications that help users keep their data private and secure, as well as being user-friendly at the same time.

What do I hope to get out of GSoC?
I hope to get a good idea of the project, make some good contributions, and grow with the help of mentors and the community.

GitHub: LuckyLongre123 (Lucky Longre) · GitHub

18

Hello Joplin community!

My name is Joseph Kim, a university student from the US. My primary interest lies in utilizing technology, especially artificial intelligence, to improve education.

Recently, I have been developing multiple projects for this goal of mine. One project involves using sentence transformer library to calculate semantic similarity between bible verses and user query. A current project finetuning an open-source ai model to help users learn language through natural conversations with a typescript Next.js application. Both can be seen in my GitHub.

When I found Joplin in the list of organizations for the GSoC 2026 and its focus on AI/ML, I instantly thought it will be the perfect way to utilize my skills while making a meaningful impact for all the students who are use Joplin for their learning. Furthermore, I am looking forward to being mentored by the community of Joplin to improve my coding skills.

Currently, I am exploring both Joplin as an application and its underlying architecture. Excited to contribute to Joplin in any way possible!

GitHub

Personal Website

Thank you for this amazing opportunity!

19

Hello everyone,

I’m Chimuanya Iheakanwa, a Computer Science graduate and full-stack developer based in Nigeria.

While I have a strong coding background focused heavily on JavaScript, React, Node.js, and Python, I am taking my first steps into contributing to large-scale open-source projects for GSoC 2026.

Joplin stood out to me immediately because of the project ideas surrounding AI integration. Building features like "Chat with your note collection" or "AI-supported search" aligns perfectly with my React and Node.js stack, and I am eager to dive into the architecture behind it. I am currently setting up my local development environment and reading through the contribution guidelines. Rather than just dropping in to say hello, my goal for this weekend is to find and solve a problem on the GitHub repository, thoroughly understand the relevant code, and submit my first PR so I can get familiar with your review process.

I am really looking forward to learning from the maintainers here and helping improve Joplin.

Best,

Chimuanya

20

Hi everyone,

My name is Kaushalendra Singh, a 3rd-year B.Tech student at Harcourt Butler Technical University, Kanpur, India. I work mainly in full-stack development and AI-based applications, using modern JavaScript frameworks and machine learning tools.

Technical Stack
Languages: TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, C++
Frontend: React, Next.js, Tailwind
Backend: Node.js, Express, FastAPI
AI/ML: PyTorch, Hugging Face, YOLO, Gemini API, Stream
Database: MongoDB, PostgreSQL
Tools: Docker, AWS, CI/CD

Projects

  • Buildify Labs - AI business intelligence platform that converts natural language queries into dynamic UI components.

  • CosmoDetect - Space object detection system using a custom YOLO model and OpenCV, deployed as an inference API.

  • AI Interview Tutor - RAG-style system that analyzes resumes and generates technical interview questions and feedback.

  • MyAttendance - Attendance tracking PWA used by 1300+ users.

I have started exploring the Joplin codebase and plan to begin contributing by working on issues and understanding the architecture. I’m particularly interested in AI-related ideas such as AI-supported search, note categorisation, and chat with notes.

GitHub: https://github.com/Kaushalendra-Marcus
Portfolio: https://kaushalendra-portfolio.vercel.app