Build for understanding

Sometimes a summary is enough. Sometimes you need the argument, the example or the exact wording because you will use it in your own work.

Omphalis is for those occasions. Bring something you want to read, listen to or question. You do not need to turn everything you save into a study project.

A saved link does not always tell you why you cared about it. A note beside a passage can.

We want to make that note easy to leave and easy to find again. It should take you back to the source with enough context to pick up the thought.

An explanation can clear up an unfamiliar term. An answer can point to relevant evidence. Neither settles what you should think about the argument.

The reader should leave room to question a claim, write in your own words and change your mind.

Omphalis uses language models for explanations, questions and suggested connections. Their output can be wrong, even when it sounds convincing.

Keep source text, generated explanations and your own notes distinguishable. Show citations where an answer relies on a source, and make it possible to inspect the passage.

Cleaning a page, transcribing audio and explaining an unfamiliar phrase can help you stay with a source.

That is the kind of help we want to provide. You should be able to open an explanation and return to the sentence without losing your place.

You choose what to save, follow, upload or record. A tool for your reading should respect that choice.

We want discovery to help you find useful material without turning your Library into an endless feed.

Some questions take several sources and more than one sitting. A notebook can hold the articles, your notes and the questions you are still working through.

The source should remain available when you return. You should not have to reconstruct it from an answer in a conversation.

Work reading and personal reading may need different contexts. Spaces let you keep them apart; notebooks let you bring related sources and notes together.

Suggested connections should be things you can inspect and choose to follow.

A note records what you thought at a particular time. Later reading may support it, complicate it or show that you were wrong.

We want Omphalis to help you return to that earlier context and keep working, without treating a generated connection as a final conclusion.

People should be able to take their work to another tool. Export belongs on every plan.

We need to be clear about what an export contains, where technical limits apply and how to get help if something is missing.

Can you follow a difficult paper more closely? Find the passage behind a note? Explain an idea in your own words? Use what you read when you write or make a decision?

Those are the questions we want to test. The amount of material saved, or time spent in an app, does not answer them.

Omphalis is one attempt to make reading and learning better. Research, teaching, writing practices and other tools can help too.

We welcome examples that challenge our choices, particularly when a different approach works better for the person using it.

• Keep the source accessible while someone reads, asks or takes notes.
• Distinguish source material, generated explanations and personal notes.
• Make answers and suggested connections open to inspection.
• Respect what people choose to bring into their Library.
• Keep export available and explain its limits.
• Make it easy to return without pressure to spend more time in the app.

Try a source you know well. Notice where Omphalis helps and where it gets in the way.

If extraction loses something, an explanation misses the point or a question cannot be answered from its citation, tell us. Those examples give us concrete work to do.