> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.rafftechnologies.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# VM notes — My Notes & Team Notes
> Two kinds of free-form notes attached to a VM, and who can see each
Updated May 8, 2026
Every VM has two free-form note fields living together at the bottom of the **Actions** tab on the VM detail page:
* **My Notes** — *only you* can see them. Private to the user who wrote them.
* **Team Notes** — *every team member* with access to the account can see them. Shared knowledge for the whole team.
Both fields are stored with the VM and survive resizes, reinstalls, and rebuilds — they're tied to the VM's ID, not its disk.
## Side by side
| | My Notes | Team Notes |
| -------------------- | ------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------- |
| Dashboard label hint | *only you can see this* | *visible to all members* |
| API type | `personal` | `account` |
| Scope | The user who wrote it | Every member of the account |
| Best for | Reminders to yourself, debug context, todo flags | Runbook hints, ownership info, "do not delete" warnings |
## When to use which
* **My Notes** — anything that only matters to you. `# investigating slow query, see ticket #ops-1234`. `# resize this VM after Friday's deploy.` Other people on your team don't need to wade through it.
* **Team Notes** — anything the team needs to know if you're away. `Owner: payments-team.` `Restore from backup before destroying.` `On-call: PagerDuty service raff-prod-payments.`
If you're hesitating, prefer Team Notes. Knowledge in My Notes leaves with the user; Team Notes outlive any one person on the team.
## What notes don't do
* **No notifications** — writing a note doesn't ping anyone; treat it like inline documentation, not a channel.
* **No formatting** — plain text only.
* **No version history** — the latest write replaces the previous one. Use git or a runbook tool if you need history.
* **No global search** — notes show on the VM they're attached to, not in a cross-VM view.
## Length guidance
There's **no enforced character limit** on either My Notes or Team Notes — the API accepts whatever you write. Practical guidance:
* **Keep it scannable** — a few short paragraphs. If a note runs longer than a few hundred characters, the value of "inline at the VM" starts dropping
* **Link to runbooks for the heavy stuff** — "See PagerDuty service raff-prod-payments" beats a 5-paragraph runbook embedded in the note
* **The Append API** (`PUT /api/v1/vms/{id}/notes/append`) is the right pattern for change-log-style notes — it adds a new line each call without overwriting earlier text. Use it from CI / deploy scripts: `raff vm notes append --content "deploy v2.3.1 by alice 2026-05-08"`
## Lifecycle
Notes survive:
* VM resize, rename, reset password
* Reinstall (Change OS) — notes belong to the VM record, not the OS disk
* Factory reset — same reason
Notes are **deleted with the VM**. Delete and recreate ⇒ notes are gone. If you want notes to outlive a VM, keep them in a runbook system instead.
## Related
Structured labelling that complements free-form notes.
Read and write notes via API.