Mark a passage anywhere
Highlight, comment or tag any passage in a card. Pick a tag and everything untagged dims, turning a sprawling canvas back into one line of enquiry.
sandarb · sandarbh — context
Think in branches, not in scroll.
Every answer is a card on an infinite canvas. Any card branches, and nothing you explore destroys what you already had. The canvas below is a working sandbox — ask it something.
Untitled canvas
Sandbox · canned replies, no model attached
Open in sandarb
Nothing you type here is saved or sent anywhere. While you are at it, try selecting any sentence on this page.
- Nothing is thrown away
- Ask for a different answer and the one you had stays, at
‹ 1/2 ›. - The source sits on the canvas
- Drop in a PDF and each page is a card you can question in place, not a file you switch to.
- Your work leaves whole
- It lives in your browser, and leaves as a file you can load straight back in, or as a markdown outline.
How it works
Three moves, and the map is doing the remembering.
Nothing to configure first. Open a canvas and ask something.
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Ask, and the answer is a card.
Not a line in a transcript — something you can move, branch from and come back to, with every earlier answer still on it.
For example“Explain the forgetting curve.”
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Branch where it gets interesting.
Select the sentence you doubt and choose Ask about this. The passage travels with your question, and the tangent gets its own limb instead of burying the main line.
For exampleselect “at the edge of forgetting” → “Is that measurable?”
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Put the source beside it.
Drop the PDF, paste text, or write by hand. The book lays itself out as a column you can argue with page by page.
For examplechapter 4 of the book, pages 61–78, one card each
What it does
A chat is one thread. Learning is not.
Same six questions. Two shapes.
Branching
Ask your next question on the card itself.
Select a card and a box appears along its bottom. Type, press Enter, and the answer arrives underneath. Try it — each button adds a real branch.
- Select a passage and ask about it — it comes along as a quote
- ⌘-click several cards and ask one question across all of them
- Tag a card with its purpose — a definition, an objection — and find it again in the Library
Documents
Drop a book on the canvas and argue with it.
Each page becomes a card showing the page itself. Pick a range on import — a chapter, not the whole volume.
- Annotate as much as you like — page 5 stays directly under page 4
- Text you can select and quote, even from awkward typesetting
- Up to 40 pages at a time — import the next range when you get there
Versions
Ask for a better answer, keep the one you had.
Say what you want changed — shorter, one concrete example — and the old answer stays behind an arrow. Step through them:
- Ask it a different way and both answers stay, side by side
- Leave a note on a version without asking again
- Pull one card into three places — edit it once, all three change
Also in the box
Everything a long enquiry accumulates.
A card you write on
Real pressure, real strokes. On iPad the Pencil writes and the hand navigates — a resting palm never leaves a mark.
One card in three places
Reference a card wherever it is relevant. Its answer, versions and comments stay one thing, so a change shows up everywhere.
Read any path back as a chat
Pick a card and the route to it reads as an ordinary conversation, in order. Copy the whole thing out as markdown.
Take the whole canvas with you
Export a canvas as one file, PDFs and drawings included, and load it straight back in. Or take it out as a markdown outline.
Fold away what you're done with
Collapse a branch you are done with, and long strands fold into one line with a count. The minimap gets you back across a canvas too big to see.
Six kinds of card, told apart at a glance
AI an exchange with the model
Source pasted material
Note your own words
Page a PDF page
Ink handwriting
Ref the same card, in a second place
Who it's for
Four enquiries that a scroll would have flattened.
Reading a hard paper
Four questions hang off page 4 — and page 5 is still directly below page 4.
Studying for something
Highlight and tag as you go, then pick a tag and everything else dims.
Checking a claim
Ask about the one sentence you doubt, and the answer hangs off that exact passage.
Thinking a decision through
Two answers to one question, kept side by side instead of one overwriting the other.
The model
You never hand it an API key.
There is no key field to fill in and no model to pick. Your questions go through Sandarb's own endpoint, which holds the key and answers only for someone signed in, so nothing secret ever sits in your browser.
Answers stream in as they are written, and can be stopped from the card's menu. If something goes wrong, the card says so and offers Retry instead of leaving you at a dead end.
- No key to paste, no endpoint to configure
- Only a signed-in account can ask, at a human pace
- A failed answer says why, on the card, with Retry
Interaction
Hands stay on the keyboard.
Most of the canvas has a key. Press Esc to let go of a card, then:
NNew strand
BBranch from selection
DDraw
AArrange
0Fit to screen
PShow or hide prompts
LLibrary
⌘SExport as markdown
EscClose whatever is open
Get started
Open to everyone.
Sandarb is a working prototype, and anyone can use it. Make an account and you are on your first canvas in a minute.
Create an account
Nothing to install, nothing to set up, no password to invent: give your name and email, and type in the code we send you.
Create an accountAlready have an account? Sign in.
Questions
The things worth knowing before you start.
Do I need an API key?
No. Sandarb answers through its own endpoint, which holds the key. You sign in with your email, and there is nothing to paste or configure.
Where does my work live?
In the browser you are using, not on a server of ours — so it does not follow you to another device yet. You can take the whole canvas out as a file and load it straight back in, or as a markdown outline.
Which model answers?
One model, chosen for you and run through Sandarb's endpoint, so there is nothing to set up. Your questions and the passages you quote are sent to it to be answered; your canvases are not stored there.
Does it work on an iPad?
Yes, in Safari — nothing to install. The Pencil writes and your hand navigates, so you can rest a palm on the screen and pan with a finger without leaving a mark. Worth saying: this has been checked in a browser, not yet on a real iPad, so pen feel may need work.
What happens to an imported book?
You choose a page range, because every page becomes its own card: up to 40 pages at a time, so a chapter rather than the whole volume. Import the next range when you get to it; the file itself is stored once.
Is it finished?
No. It is a working prototype, and everything described on this page works today, but it is one person's tool that other people are now trying, so expect rough edges and expect them to get fixed. Nothing you make in it is trapped: every canvas exports.
Start one question and let it grow.
Ask something, branch where it gets interesting, drop the book in beside it. Come back a week later, in the same browser, and the shape of what you were thinking is still there.