Creating Nodes

Nodes are the building blocks of a canvas. There are several ways to create them — pick whichever fits the moment. On an empty canvas you'll see the hint: "Use the Toolbar or Cmd/Ctrl + Click anywhere to create a node".

From the toolbar

The toolbar at the top-center of the canvas has a button for each node type, each with a single-letter hotkey:

Node type	Hotkey
Chat node	C
Text node	T
Image node	I
Post node	V
Document node	D
Web page node	W

1. Click a node type in the toolbar (or press its hotkey).
2. The canvas enters add mode and shows "Click anywhere on the canvas to add" followed by the node type.
3. Click where you want the node. Press Esc to cancel.

The toolbar also has Tidy Up (0) and Search (⌘K).

Use cases

• Press T, click, and jot a quick note while reading — no menus needed.
• Press C repeatedly to lay out several chat nodes for parallel questions on a research canvas.

From the right-click menu

Right-click any empty spot on the canvas and open the Add menu:

• Chat Node
• Text Node
• Web Node
• Post Node
• Document Node (Beta)
• Image Node (Beta)

The node appears where you right-clicked.

Quick chat node with Cmd+Click

Hold Cmd (Mac) or Ctrl (Windows) and click anywhere on empty canvas to instantly create a Chat node there. This is the fastest way to start a conversation.

Use cases

• Mid-reading, a question pops into your head — Cmd+click next to the source node and ask.
• Sketching a study plan: Cmd+click a row of chat nodes, one per subtopic, then connect them later.

Drag and drop files

Drop files from your computer straight onto the canvas:

• Images become Image nodes.
• Documents and text files become Document nodes.
• Dropping multiple files at once fans them out horizontally.

Unsupported file types show a toast: "File type .ext is not supported" (with the file's actual extension). See Document Node for the supported document formats.

Use cases

• Drop a folder's worth of lecture PDFs onto a canvas, then connect them to a chat node and quiz yourself.
• Drag in reference screenshots while planning a design, and annotate each with a connected chat.

Paste with ⌘V

Paste (⌘V / Ctrl+V) is content-aware:

• Copied nodes paste as nodes (see Organizing).
• A video or social URL becomes a Post node.
• Any other URL becomes a Web node.
• Plain text becomes a Text node.
• Image files on the clipboard become Image nodes.

Use cases

• Copy a YouTube link from your browser, paste on the canvas, and get a Post node ready for transcript-aware chat.
• Paste a paragraph from an article as a Text node, then branch a chat off it to dig deeper.
• Collect sources fast: paste five article URLs one after another while researching, sort them out afterwards.

Drag from a node's handle

Drag from any node's right-side handle onto empty canvas and release — a new Chat node appears, already connected to the source node. This is the natural way to "ask a question about this node". See Connections for how context flows through that edge.

Use cases

• Pull a thread from a Web node to summarize the page.
• Branch three separate chats off one Document node — compare answers side by side.