Why Not Just a Notes App

What this means for you

The honest competitor is the user’s own scratch folder. Notes apps lose because they index by note title, not by prompt ID, status, or routing variable.

The pitch

A notes app stores text. EVA stores prompts — with structured XML, eval cases, status flags, and routing logic that a markdown editor has no opinion about.

Who it’s for

The engineer who has tried Obsidian, gists, and a ~/prompts folder, and is tired of fuzzy-finding by filename.

Proof points

• Prompts carry typed metadata (status, audience, routing) — see eva-002 schema
• Eval cases ride alongside the prompt body — see eva-007
• Catalog list shows status in Signal Green / Variable Amber — a notes app shows a file size

quadrantChart
  title EVA vs. casual alternatives
  x-axis "Free-form text" --> "Structured prompt"
  y-axis "Generic" --> "LLM-native"
  quadrant-1 "EVA"
  quadrant-2 "LLM playgrounds"
  quadrant-3 "Notes apps"
  quadrant-4 "Prompt template tools"
  "Obsidian": [0.15, 0.2]
  "GitHub gists": [0.25, 0.3]
  "Scratch directory": [0.1, 0.35]
  "ChatGPT history": [0.4, 0.85]
  "EVA": [0.85, 0.9]