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Marginalia

An open-source AI research workspace

Research that shows its work.

Marginalia is a notebook for thinking with your own material. Ask questions in plain language; it answers only from the sources you've added — and every claim carries a citation you can click through to the exact passage.1

View on GitHubHow it works

Notebook · Sourdough, scientifically

Why does a colder, slower proof improve flavour?

Cold slows the yeast more than it slows the bacteria: gas production drops while acetic-acid fermentation carries on, so the dough gains acidity and depth instead of just volume.1A longer proof also gives protease enzymes time to free amino acids that later brown into richer crust flavours in the oven.2

Answered from 2 of 3 selected sources

Sources

  • fermentation-notes.md(selected)
  • Bread-Science-ch3.pdf(selected)
  • shopping-list.txt(not selected)

fermentation-notes.md

…refrigerated the second batch overnight. At 5 °C the yeast all but stalls while the heterofermentative bacteria keep producing acetic acid — the loaf came out noticeably tangier than the same-day bake…

Bread-Science-ch3.pdf · p. 84

…during extended fermentation, proteolytic enzymes release free amino acids that participate in Maillard browning, deepening both crust colour and aroma…

Hover or click a citation to see the passage behind it. This is a static illustration — the real thing streams.

How it works

One loop, from source to note

  1. 01

    Create a notebook

    One isolated workspace per project. Sources, chat, and notes in one notebook never leak into another.

  2. 02

    Add your sources

    Upload PDFs, plain text, or Markdown; paste text straight in; or pull in a web page by URL. Each source is parsed and indexed for retrieval.

  3. 03

    Ask, with your sources in charge

    Tick exactly which sources may answer. Replies stream in grounded in that selection — and when the evidence isn't there, Marginalia says so instead of improvising.

  4. 04

    Follow any citation

    Every claim links to its evidence. Click a citation chip and the source viewer opens at the exact cited passage, not just the right document.

  5. 05

    Keep what's worth keeping

    Save an answer as a note — citations intact — and build up your own layer of marginalia alongside the sources.

Audio overviews ·in development

Listen to your research

Turn a notebook's selected sources into a spoken overview you can play while you work — the script is generated from the same grounded retrieval as chat, then read by a synthetic narrator.2

The prototype starts with a single narrator. Two-host, podcast-style discussions are a later phase, so you won't find them promised anywhere on this page.

Scope

Small on purpose

Marginalia is a working prototype, built in the open. The first milestone is the loop above — notebooks → sources → grounded chat → citations → notes — done properly, before anything else.3 Features that aren't built yet aren't sold on this page; the cut list is public, and so is every architectural decision.

In the prototype

  • Notebooks with strict isolation
  • PDF, text & Markdown, pasted text, web URLs
  • Source selection per question
  • Grounded chat with streamed answers
  • Citations that open the exact passage
  • Notes, with citations preserved
  • Single-narrator audio overviews (in development)

Not yet — and not pretended

  • Web research & source discovery
  • Sharing & collaboration
  • Mind maps, flashcards, quizzes
  • Two-host or interactive audio
  • YouTube, Drive & audio-file import
  • Multi-language output

Read the code, not a brochure

The scope, the roadmap, and every design decision live in the repository — the same place the footnotes on this page point to.

View the repository on GitHub