Notes

A note is a page of text on the canvas. It is made of blocks in order: paragraphs, headings, lists, to-dos, quotes, code, dividers, and attachments such as an image, a file or a link card. Each note is saved as a Markdown file in the workspace, so agents can read and write it too.

Writing a note

Choose Add → Note in the canvas toolbar, or paste text onto the canvas. On the canvas a note shows its text, but you do not type there: a click selects it. Double-click it, press Enter, or choose Edit in its action bar, and the note opens in a large panel over the canvas. Close, Esc or a click outside the panel puts it away. On a narrow screen the note takes the whole canvas.

Under the text, + Text, + Heading, + List, + To-do and + Image or file add a block at the end. Close or Esc puts the note away.

Formatting

Select some text and a small toolbar appears with Bold, Italic, Code and Link (type or paste the address, then Add). On a link, the same button says Unlink.

Typing or pasting a full address that starts with https://, http:// or mailto: makes a link on its own. A bare name such as spec.md or example.com stays plain text, the same way the note's Markdown file reads it. A link you removed with Unlink stays removed as you type on.

Type / at the start of an empty line to choose what the line becomes: Text, Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3, Bulleted list, Numbered list, To-do, Quote, Code, Divider, or Image or file. Keep typing to filter the list, use the arrow keys and Enter to pick, or Esc to close it.

Checklists

A To-do block is a checklist item. Click its box to tick it off. Press Enter at the end of one to start the next.

The block handle

Hover a block in the note and a handle appears in the margin, with a + to add a block below it.

Drag the handle to move the block elsewhere in the note.
Click it for the block's options: Turn into (another kind of text block), Duplicate, Move up, Move down and Delete. On an attachment you also get Open image, Download or Open link, and you can switch a link between a card and a plain link.

Attachments

Images, files and link cards can live inside a note as blocks of their own. Add one with + Image or file, the slash menu, or Attach image or file below… in a block's options. You can also paste an image or drop files straight onto the note. Uploaded files are stored in the workspace's uploads/ folder.

Moving blocks between notes and the canvas

Blocks travel both ways:

Drag a block out of a note by its handle and let go on the canvas. Text becomes a new note; an attachment becomes an image, file or link block.
Let go over another note and the block moves into that note.
Drag an image, file, link or note block from the canvas over a note. A line shows where it will go; let go and it becomes part of the note (a whole note's text is merged in) and leaves the canvas.

Each move is a single step, so one Undo on the canvas takes it all back.

Mentions

@ mentions of blocks and repositories work in a project's spec, not in notes. See projects and specs. To get someone's attention about a note, comment on it with @name.

A note an agent writes can name a repository file as a chip ([[code:<repo>/<path>]](name) in its Markdown, with #L10-40 for some lines). Pressing it opens the file in Files: in a project that has a worktree of that repository, the worktree; anywhere else, the workspace's read-only copy. A chip for a repository the workspace does not have is shown as missing.

Editing together

Several people can write in the same note at once. Everyone's changes appear as they type, and nothing is overwritten. If an agent changes a note's file while someone is typing in it, Yard merges the two. Changes are saved to the workspace's history like everything else on the canvas.

Viewers, and everyone while the runner is offline, can read notes but not change them.