Research and notes

Research is only useful if it lands in your files. Use Interpreter to read source material and write the findings into the notes you actually keep — not into chat history you'll lose.

Write into your files, not the chat

The chat is scratch space. Your workspace is the record.

  • Tell Interpreter the exact file to write to and the exact section to append under.
  • Prefer appending to an existing notes file over creating a new one each session.
  • When a task spans multiple sessions, point Interpreter at the same files so the notes accumulate.
  • If you don't know where it should go yet, ask Interpreter to propose a path inside the workspace and confirm before it writes.

Good research tasks

Research tasks work best when the input is concrete and the output location is fixed.

  • Read a paper and append the relevant findings to research-log.md.
  • Read 10 customer interview transcripts and update themes.md with the new patterns.
  • Turn a YouTube transcript into structured notes under a dated heading.
  • Summarize a long doc into a one-page brief, then link the brief from your index file.

"Read interview-transcripts/2026-04-*.md. For each new theme, append a section to themes.md with: theme name, supporting quotes (with file + line refs), and how often it appeared. Don't duplicate themes already there."

Demand citations

Notes you can't verify aren't notes — they're guesses.

  • Ask Interpreter to include file paths, line numbers, page numbers, or timestamps next to every claim.
  • For web sources, capture the URL and the exact quote, not a paraphrase.
  • When a finding spans multiple sources, list all of them inline.
  • If a citation looks wrong when you spot-check it, tell Interpreter to re-read and correct that section.

Use an intermediate file when input is messy

Going straight from raw transcripts to polished notes loses fidelity. Stage it.

  • Have Interpreter extract a clean intermediate first — a JSON file, a CSV, or a structured table.
  • Spot-check the intermediate. Fixing structured data is much easier than fixing prose.
  • Then ask Interpreter to write the narrative notes from the intermediate file.
  • Keep the intermediate in the workspace so you can regenerate the notes later without re-reading the sources.

Use voice mode for long sessions

Reading is a good time to be hands-free.

  • Switch to voice mode to ask follow-up questions while you keep reading.
  • Ask Interpreter to read passages aloud, then dictate the note you want appended.
  • See Voice mode for setup.
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