Over time · Library and your record

Build a body of knowledge that compounds.

A Library you'd actually read: topic pages written from what you saved, the sources one tap away, your own notes in your voice. Ask it questions as it grows. Alongside it sits your record, the decisions, preferences and mental models you choose to carry forward.

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Library · Photography
Product concept, demo content
Topics
Photography14 sources · 3 pages
Longevity31 sources
Leading a small team9 sources
Home espresso6 sources
Wiki page · compiled from your sources

Exposure: the three decisions you make on every frame

Updated Sunday·4 sources·AI-written, sources attached

Aperture sets how much of the scene is sharp. Wider (f/1.8) isolates a subject; narrower (f/8) keeps a landscape crisp.1 Shutter speed decides whether motion blurs or freezes; 1/250 stops a walking figure.2 ISO is the trade you make when light runs out, paid for in noise.3

In golden hour the light changes fast enough that one of the three has to float. Most guides suggest fixing aperture and letting the camera pick shutter speed.4

Your noteI'm staying in aperture-priority until I can predict the meter. Manual mode is the goal for the bridge set.
Make it a taskAsk about thisOpen sources
Sources
1 · “Understanding aperture” (demo article)Saved from a link · Sep 21
2 · Camera manual, ch. 4 (PDF)Uploaded · Sep 22
3 · A note from a classPasted · Sep 24
4 · Golden-hour guide (demo)Filed by your research agent · Sep 27
Ask
Scope: Photography
Scope: whole Library
Scope: this page
Question

What settings should I start with on the bridge tonight?

Start at f/8, ISO 200, and let shutter float in aperture-priority; your camera manual says the meter handles side light well at that aperture.2 Once the sun drops below the far bank, open to f/4 and watch for shutter falling under 1/125, where your own class note says handheld blur starts for you.3 The golden-hour guide suggests one manual frame at the end to compare.4

Grounded in3 of your sources. Nothing from the open web unless you ask for it, and web results are marked as such.
Save this answerOpen the sources
Cited
2 · Camera manual, ch. 4
3 · A note from a class
4 · Golden-hour guide (demo)
Your record
Decisions8 current
Preferences12
Mental models5
Decision · current

Shoot RAW+JPEG until I trust my editing.

Made Sep 27·Supersedes “JPEG only” (Aug 3)·Visible to your AI

The extra files cost storage, not time. Being able to rescue a frame matters more while I'm still learning exposure.

Why it's hereProposed by an AI conversation you kept. You accepted it in your review queue.
Change my mindOpen the source
Also in your record
PreferenceShort replies, no bullet lists in chat
Mental model“Fix aperture, let shutter float”
DecisionRetros start with what went well
Product concept, demo content. Source titles are fictional samples.
Overnight

Sources become topics. Topics become pages you'd actually read.

Save a few things about the same subject and a topic forms around them. Each night, a librarian process reads what's new and rewrites the topic's reference pages: what the sources say, where they disagree, what you noted. The page is written by AI, with claims pointing back to the sources so you can check them. A synthesis can still miss context or a disagreement, which is why the sources stay one tap away. Your own notes sit apart, in your voice.

Topics

Photography, longevity, the thing you're learning for work. A topic home shows the reference pages, the open questions, and what you've decided about it.

Reference pages

Compiled from your sources, recompiled when new ones arrive. Read progress is kept, so a long page picks up where you left it. AI-written, with the sources attached.

People and books

A person you keep meeting in your sources gets a page. A book gets a chapter-by-chapter mirror you can annotate and question.

Sources come in

Save it the way you found it.

A source is anything you decided was worth keeping: an article, a chapter, a page from a manual, a meeting, a note from a class. It arrives with its origin, its date and its text, and it stays available beside anything written from it. Everything else the Library does is built on top of the source, never instead of it.

  • A link. Paste it and the page is fetched and kept.
  • Pasted text. The fastest way in for a note or a quote.
  • Files. PDFs, Markdown, plain text, images. PDFs are read on your device, not uploaded to a parser.
  • A book as a PDF, mirrored chapter by chapter so you can work through it.
  • A meeting. Saved private by default; you decide if AI may read it.
  • A research run. Ask the Library to go and look; it files what it finds as sources, marked as such.
  • An agent you connect can file a source too. It arrives with the agent's name on it. Externally configured
Add a source
Product concept, demo content
https://example.demo/understanding-aperture
Recently saved
“Understanding aperture” (demo article)Link · Photography · Sep 21
Camera manual, ch. 4PDF, read on device · Photography · Sep 22
1:1 with Priya, Sep 23Meeting · private · Leading a small team
Golden-hour guide (demo)Filed by your research agent · Photography · Sep 27
Synthesis

Sometimes a set of sources is worth more together than apart.

A reference page tells you what your sources say. An editorial makes an argument across them: the three guides you saved on exposure disagree about ISO, and here's why, and here's what that means for someone at your stage. That's a different kind of writing, and it shouldn't happen without you.

  • Proposed by default. The librarian suggests an editorial when it sees a reason. You accept it, and only then is it written.
  • Automatic if you choose. For a topic you trust it on, you can switch a topic to write editorials on its own, at most one every couple of weeks.
  • Never confused with your view. An editorial is labelled as AI synthesis. Your judgment lives in your record, and the two are never merged.
Review queue · proposed editorial
Product concept, demo content
Editorial · proposed Photography
Why your three exposure guides disagree about ISO
Two of your sources treat ISO as a last resort; the newest argues modern sensors make it the first knob to turn. The difference is the year each was written.
Write itNot nowChange the angle

This topic is set to propose. Switch it to automatic and the next one arrives written.

Ask

Ask the question, get an answer that shows its work.

Search finds the page you already know exists. Ask is for the question that needs three of your sources at once. The answer is grounded in what you kept, cites each source it used, and stops there. It won't quietly reach for the open web; if you want that, you ask for it, and web results are marked as web.

  • Scope it to the whole Library, a topic, a page, a source, or your own record.
  • Keep a good answer as a note.
  • Where the sources disagree, the answer is meant to say so. Check the citations when it matters.
Ask · Photography
Product concept, demo content
Is 1/250 fast enough for a cyclist on the bridge?
Your class note says handheld blur starts under 1/125 for you, so 1/250 covers camera shake.3 The manual's motion table puts a cyclist crossing the frame at 1/500 to freeze, 1/250 to keep a little blur in the wheels.2 Pick by the look you want. Two sources; they agree.
Save as a noteOpen the sources
From knowing to doing

A good page should change what you do next.

The Library and the Planner are the same product, so a useful sentence doesn't have to stay a sentence.

Make it a task

From a reference page or an editorial, one tap files a task with the page linked, so the reason travels with the work.

Open questions become research

A topic keeps the questions you haven't answered. Ask the Library to go and look, and it files what it finds as new sources.

Return to what you kept

A rotating selection from your Library appears in the Planner, with context influencing what surfaces. See the Planner →

What you learn also shapes what you aim for. A goal chosen after months of reading is a better goal, and the milestones under it are easier to name. See Goals & Direction →

Your record

What you decided, what you prefer, how you think.

A Library holds what the world says. Your record holds what you say: the decisions you made and why, the preferences that don't change week to week, the mental models you actually use. It's the part of HeroMind that is only about you, and it's useful whether or not you ever connect an AI to it. Six months from now you'll want to know why you chose RAW+JPEG, or what you told yourself about retros.

Six months from now, a new AI conversation can ask for the relevant part of your record before it starts. How things get in: tasks, sources and agent notes from a connection you set up arrive directly, with their source. Suggested changes to your record wait for your yes. When you say “record this” in a session you're running, it's written now.

Decision current
Shoot RAW+JPEG until I trust my editing.
Sep 27 · supersedes “JPEG only” · proposed by a kept conversation, accepted by you
Decision superseded
JPEG only. Storage is a hassle.
Aug 3 · kept for the history, no longer current
Preference current
Short replies. No bullet lists in chat unless I ask.
Visible to connected AI · you wrote this one yourself
Mental model private
Fix aperture, let shutter float. Move ISO last.
Marked private · nothing connected can read it

Changing your mind is the point

A new decision supersedes the old one. The old one stays, marked as history, so the trail of how you got here is never erased.

Private stays private

Accept a suggestion privately and it never reaches connected AI. Sources and your own pages switch between private and visible. Connected AI reads only what's visible.

What belongs here

Keep what you'll want again.

The Library is for subjects you expect to care about in six months: a craft you're learning, a field you work in, your health, the people and ideas that keep coming back. That's a purpose, not a file type. A meeting worth remembering belongs. A conversation you kept because it changed your mind belongs.

What doesn't need to come: the working files for next week's deck. They're better off with the deck. The task to finish it, a source you found while making it, and the decision it forced can all come back here, and that's the useful part.

Usually belongs

  • An article you'd cite again
  • The manual for something you own
  • A meeting that set a direction
  • A conversation that changed your mind
  • A decision, and the reason
  • A topic you keep returning to

Usually stays with the work

  • Draft twelve of the deck
  • A code branch and its scratch notes
  • A chat that only mattered for one task
  • A spreadsheet that's still moving
  • Operational state for another tool
Two places you'll learn the names of

A review queue, and a front page.

Everything that needs a yes from you, in one short pile: proposed decisions, suggested editorials, a person the librarian thinks deserves a page, a source it thinks is filed wrong. That queue is called the Desk. And the page that shows what the librarian has been writing and filing lately, newest first, unread first if you like, is called the Press. Open the Library and the Press is what you see.

A library that keeps up with what you care about.

Take command of your day.

HeroMind is in private beta. Request access and I'll send an invitation when a seat opens.

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