Files
A diary is a folder. Chow reads main.chow and the files beside it as one diary.
; main.chow
format 2
; foods.chow
food greek-yogurt "Greek yogurt, nonfat"
170 g = 150 kcal 11 carb 0 fat 26 protein
; entries/2026.chow
2026-09-14 08:20 greek-yogurt 255 g
Layout
Chow writes new records to these files.
| File | Records |
|---|---|
main.chow | format version |
foods.chow | foods |
containers.chow | containers |
entries/<year>.chow | entries |
burns/<year>.chow | calorie burns, e.g. exercise |
metrics/<year>.chow | readings |
targets/<year>.chow | targets |
recipes/<year>.chow | recipes |
Chow reads every .chow file in those folders. You can move records between files, or keep everything in main.chow.
Include
To add a file outside this layout, use include, e.g. include shared/foods.chow. The path is relative to the file that has the include.
Edits
When Chow edits a file, it only changes the lines it has to. It preserves your spacing, alignment, and comments.
If two devices edit the same entry while offline, the entry can appear twice after sync. Delete the extra one.