Ask

A chat that reads your own boards, cards and papers, and proposes changes you review before anything moves.

Ask answers questions about your own notes, and it can propose changes to a board. It does not write anything by itself: a change arrives as a card you read, and the board stays as it was until you press Apply.

What Ask is#

A panel in the right margin. You type a question; it reads what it needs — your boards, their sections, your decks, papers and lectures, and a search across every note you have — and answers in a few short paragraphs. Where the answer came from a section of yours, the section is a chip in the text, and clicking it opens the board there.

It answers from your notes first. Where your notes do not cover something it says so and then answers from general knowledge, marked as not from your notes.

Ask can also tell you how the app works — where a button is, which surface makes what — and put a button under its answer that takes you there. It never says it has opened or made something; the button is yours to press.

Where to open it#

The Ask button sits on the bar of a board, in both Edit and Study, on that board's Cards, Exam, Oral and Lecture pages, on a subject's dashboard and on Home. From the places you are already looking at something there is a shorter way, and it opens Ask about that thing:

A highlight. Select text in Study mode and the tray offers Ask beside Explain. Under an Explain answer, Ask more carries on from it in Ask.
A section. Ask about this section is in the section's ⋯ menu in Edit mode, and a small mark on its head in Study mode. The Progress popover has the same row, with how well you know the section.
A flashcard. In a drill, Ask about this card; on the idle screen, Ask beside any card in the deck list.
A marked question. On a marked paper, Ask about this question. Ask sees the question, your answer, the mark and the examiner's comment.
A score sheet. On an oral attempt's score sheet, Ask about this criterion.
A lecture. Hover a paragraph of the transcript while it plays and choose Ask about this paragraph.
⌘K. Type four or more characters in the command palette and the Ask: … row puts your words in Ask's box, ready to send.

There is no Ask inside a paper you are sitting; it appears again once the paper is marked.

The context chip#

Opened from something, Ask shows what it was opened from as a chip above the box — About: Pathogenesis › "follicular hyperkeratinisation". That is what makes "why that dose?" an answer instead of a search: Ask is already looking at the passage.

The chip stays for the whole conversation until you press its × or open Ask from something else, which replaces it. Dropping it does not clear the conversation. The chip carries your own material, as data; nothing in it is read as an instruction.

Each board has its own conversation, and so does each subject's dashboard and Home. Open another board and you get a fresh one; come back and the first is where you left it. New chat starts over. Conversations are not saved — they end when you reload the page.

Proposals#

On a board, Ask can propose these changes. Each is a card in the conversation, drawn the way the board will draw the result:

New sections. Ask picks the headings; the same writer that fills a board writes the bodies, in your board's style and language. Each new section previews as a card and has its own tick.
A rewrite of one section — format, shorten, complete, lengthen, check, or edit with an instruction in your own words ("add the Mohs indications"). It is the toolbar's own rewrite, and it arrives as the same line-by-line diff: tick the lines you want.
Structural changes — rename, delete, merge one section into another, split a long one in two, add an empty card or a divider. Deletes are shown red, last, and start unticked.
A new board. How a board is split in two: Ask names the new board, where it is filed in the subject, and which of this board's sections move onto it, with their flashcards. One card shows the whole plan.
A board's settings — its name, its columns (1 to 6), the language the AI writes it in, or archiving it, which is shown red. An archived board is kept for 90 days and restored from Home.

The card says what state the world is in. Before you press anything it reads Nothing has changed yet, with Apply and Discard. After Apply it reads Applied, the sections that changed are flashed on the board, and the card has an Undo. One Apply is one step: Undo takes back exactly that, and it works in Study mode, where ⌘Z does not. If something else has been changed on the board since, the card says so and Undo refuses — use Version history from the bar for that.

If a section changed while a rewrite was waiting, the card greys and says the section changed — ask again. A board shared with you to view can be asked about but not changed.

For what already has a dialog of its own — moving or copying a board (which is also how a board is translated, and the dialog shows what that costs), sharing a subject, a new board from Home, Version history, merging a scratchpad item into the board — Ask opens that dialog, filled in, and nothing happens until you confirm there.

Applying never spends anything on its own: a proposal that runs a writer is billed when it is made, as the matching button on the board would be, and Apply is free.

What it can and cannot change#

Ask changes the board you are on, and only through a card; whatever has a dialog of its own it opens instead. It cannot:

write a section's text itself — new text always comes from the board's writer, or from your instruction to a rewrite;
delete a board or a subject — archiving is the most it will propose, and deleting for good is always a button you press;
edit a subject's index, or change your account, plan or settings;
make cards, papers, lectures or stations — it takes you to the page that does, where the usual limits and prices apply.

Anything else it can only describe: where the control is, and what it does.

Plans#

Ask is part of a paid plan from the first click: a free account sees the padlock on every Ask button, and pressing one opens the plans. A conversation can make several model calls — one for the answer, more when it reads boards or runs a writer — and all of it draws on your plan's included usage like any other generation. See plans and usage.

Explain on a highlight is separate and stays available on the free plan.