> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.selah.so/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Notes: Selah's rich text editor for Bible study notes
> Notes is Selah's full study editor — rich text, scripture blocks, slash commands, and a three-stage workflow from raw capture to finished teaching.
Notes is where your raw captures grow into something you can teach from. Each note opens in a clean, Notion-style editor with no visible toolbars cluttering the page — formatting happens through slash commands and a selection toolbar that appears only when you need it. Scripture is a first-class element: you can reference a verse inline, display the full text as a block quote, or let the editor detect references you've typed in prose.
## Note stages
Every note moves through three stages that reflect where it is in your study process. The stage shows as a colored dot on the notes list and can be changed at any time from the note editor.
The default stage for a new note. This is where a thought lands when it's not ready to be developed yet. Think of it as the inbox: something worth keeping but not yet worth structuring. Notes in Capture stage appear in the **Capture** filter tab on the notes list.
When you're actively working on a note — adding structure, pulling in scripture, developing an argument or outline — move it to **Study**. This signals that the note is alive and in progress. Study notes appear in the **Studying** filter tab.
When the note is complete — a teaching outline that's ready, a study that's fully developed — mark it **Done**. Done notes appear in the **Done** filter tab and are easy to find when you need them for a session.
Teaching prep notes created through the [Companion's `/prep` command](/features/companion#the-prep-workflow) arrive as a **Draft** stage, midway between Study and Done.
## Note types
Selah categorizes notes to help you filter and find them. The type is set when you create a note and can be changed in the editor.
| Type | What it's for |
| -------- | ----------------------------------------------- |
| General | Everyday notes, open-ended study |
| Insight | A specific observation or revelation |
| Thread | A topic or question you plan to explore further |
| Prep | A teaching or sermon you're preparing |
| Teaching | A finished teaching point for a lesson |
## Interview notes
When you finish a [Socratic interview](/features/companion#slash-commands) (either on the web or through [Telegram](/integrations/telegram)), the Companion saves the conversation as a full, editable study document — not a read-only summary. The saved note includes:
* **The arc** — a pull-quote capturing the theological through-line of your conversation
* **Your insights** — every significant observation you made, in your own words, with no artificial limit or truncation
* **Your words** — verbatim quotes from the conversation that are worth preserving
* **Scripture connections** — references discussed, with brief context
* **Open questions** — threads left to explore next time
The note opens in the same TipTap editor as any other note, so you can restructure it, add scripture passages, or develop it into a teaching outline immediately.
Each interview note includes a **View companion interview** button that links back to the conversation that produced it. You can jump from the saved note back to the original dialogue, continue thinking, and save again.
## Slash commands
Type `/` anywhere in the editor to open the command menu. Use the arrow keys to navigate and **Enter** to select, or keep typing to filter the list.
Inserts a small inline gold chip for a scripture reference. Click the chip to see the verse text in a popover. Use this when you want to reference a verse with light emphasis without interrupting the flow of your prose. After inserting, type the reference (e.g. `John 3:16`) into the chip's input field.
Inserts a full block-level scripture display with a gold left border and the verse text always visible. Use this when the verse is the point — sermon outlines, study notes built around a specific passage, devotional writing. After inserting, type the reference and the verse text fetches automatically.
From the passage block's menu (top-right corner of the block) you can **Refresh** the verse text, **Edit** the reference, or **Collapse to pill** to turn it into a compact inline chip.
Large and small section headings for structuring longer notes. Use H2 for major sections and H3 for subsections within them.
Standard lists for key points, steps, or observations. Numbered list is useful for ordered outlines and teaching sequences.
A block quote for longer quotations or passages you want to visually separate from your own writing.
Inserts a 3×3 table (resizable) for comparative study — comparing gospel accounts, word studies across translations, theme tracking across chapters.
A horizontal line to separate sections cleanly.
Appends the content from another note into the current one. Useful for consolidating related study material without copying and pasting.
Inline text formatting. (You can also apply these faster with the selection toolbar — see below.)
## Scripture display modes
Scripture can appear in three different ways in a note, each suited to a different authoring intent.
When you type a scripture reference like "Romans 8:28" or "Ps 23" in plain prose, the editor detects it automatically (after a short pause) and adds a **dashed sage-colored underline** beneath the text. You don't need to insert anything — just write naturally. Click or tap the underlined reference to see the verse in a popover.
Auto-detection runs on paste and as you type, so references you bring in from other sources are caught too.
Inserted with `/scripture`. A small **gold chip** flows inline with your text. Click to see the verse in a popover. Converting a full passage block to a pill (via the passage menu) produces the same result — the verse snapshot is preserved, so no re-fetch is needed.
Inserted with `/passage`. A **block quote with a gold left border** where the verse text is always visible — no clicking required. Best for notes where the verse is the centerpiece. You can collapse any passage block back to a pill using the menu in its top-right corner.
## Selection toolbar
Select any text in the editor and a floating toolbar appears above your selection. It disappears when you deselect. Available actions:
* **B** — Bold
* **I** — Italic
* **H** — Highlight (soft gold background)
* **H2 / H3** — Promote the selection to a heading
* Bullet list
* Block quote
* **Sparkle icon** — AI cleanup: reformats the selected text into structured markdown (headings, lists, bold, block quotes, dividers) without changing a single word. Requires at least 10 characters and works on selections up to 25,000 characters. See [Clean up formatting with AI](#clean-up-formatting-with-ai).
## Clean up formatting with AI
When you've captured a wall of text — a voice memo transcript, a pasted quote, a stream-of-consciousness draft — Selah can add structure without touching your words. The AI only adds markdown formatting (headings, bullets, bold, block quotes, dividers, paragraph breaks). It never rephrases, summarizes, corrects spelling, or changes the wording in any way. Every word you wrote stays exactly as you wrote it.
There are two ways to trigger it:
Click the **sparkle button** in the note's top bar. Selah reads the entire note, adds formatting, and saves the result. The button spins while the cleanup runs.
Use this when you want to structure a whole note at once — for example, after dictating a long voice memo or pasting in a raw transcript. Notes up to about 25,000 characters can be cleaned up in a single pass. If your note is longer, Selah asks you to select a section and use the selection-toolbar sparkle instead.
Select a block of text in the editor and click the **sparkle icon** in the [selection toolbar](#selection-toolbar). Selah reformats just that selection and replaces it in place, leaving the rest of the note untouched.
Use this for cleaning up a single section — a long paragraph that should be a bulleted list, a quote that should be a block quote, a stretch of prose that has obvious section breaks.
### What gets added
* `#`, `##`, `###` headings where section titles are obvious
* `**bold**` where the original clearly emphasizes
* Bulleted (`-`) and numbered (`1.`) lists where items are listed
* `>` block quotes where text reads as a quotation
* `---` horizontal rules at clear section breaks
* Blank lines between paragraphs for readability
* Table formatting for clearly tabular data
### What never changes
* Your wording — not a single word is added, removed, rephrased, or reordered
* Spelling and grammar — errors stay in (cleanup is not an edit)
* Punctuation style — hyphens don't become em dashes
* Meaning — no summarization, no paraphrase, no commentary
Cleanup uses a fast dedicated formatting model, separate from the Companion chat model. It's tuned for one job: adding structure without touching content.
### Try-again behavior
If the AI returns an empty response (rare but possible when a model hedges), Selah automatically retries once with a stronger prompt before surfacing an error. If both attempts fail, you'll see a soft toast like **"Couldn't reformat — try again in a moment"**. The original text is preserved, no changes are written, and you can simply click the sparkle again.
If you don't like the result, press `Cmd+Z` / `Ctrl+Z` to undo the cleanup and go back to your original text. Every cleanup is a single editor action.
## Sharing a note
You can publish any note as a public read-only page and share it with a link.
In the note editor, click the **Share** button in the top bar to open the share drawer.
If you haven't shared a note before, you'll be prompted to choose a username. Your notes will be available at `/@username/note-slug`.
Flip the **Publish** toggle on and click **Publish**. The link is copied to your clipboard automatically on first publish.
Use the share settings to control whether scripture references, your author bio, the published date, and the note type tag appear on the public page.
Published notes are read-only for anyone with the link. The note remains fully editable for you in Selah — changes you save are reflected on the public page immediately.
## Undo AI edits
When the Companion or [Telegram bot](/integrations/telegram) modifies a note, the edited blocks are highlighted with a **gold underline** so you can see exactly what changed. The highlight fades after a moment but can be retriggered by clicking **Show** on the edit card in the companion chat.
You can undo any AI edit in two ways:
* **Keyboard** — press `Cmd+Z` / `Ctrl+Z`. If the most recent action was an AI edit, it undoes the AI change first. If the most recent action was your own typing, the normal editor undo applies. One shortcut handles both automatically.
* **Companion chat** — each AI edit shows an [edit card](/features/companion#edit-cards) in the conversation. Click **View change** to see a before-and-after diff, then click **Undo** to revert.
Every AI edit is recorded with before-and-after content, the source surface (web or Telegram), and a diff summary. Edits remain undoable within a 24-hour window.
## Companion dock
Every note has an AI companion panel built right into the editor. You can ask the Companion questions about the note you're working on — request a cross-reference, ask what you might have missed, or have it draft an outline — without leaving the page. The dock stays alive as you navigate between notes, so your conversation picks up where you left off.
### Opening the dock
Click the **chat bubble button** (sage-green circle) in the bottom-right corner of any note, or press `Cmd+.` (Mac) / `Ctrl+.` (Windows). The Companion opens with your note already in context — a banner at the top confirms which note it's reading. Press `Cmd+/` / `Ctrl+/` to open the dock and jump straight to the input field.
### Display modes
The dock has five modes that adapt to your screen and workflow:
| Mode | Where it appears | How to enter |
| ------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Side panel** | Resizable panel to the right of your note (wide screens) | Opens automatically on screens 1024 px or wider |
| **Bottom sheet** | Overlay anchored to the bottom of the screen (portrait / narrow) | Opens automatically on narrower screens |
| **Floating window** | Draggable 340 × 420 window that floats over your note | Click the **pop-out** icon in the panel header (wide screens only) |
| **Minimized** | Small status pill in the bottom-right corner | Click the **minimize** icon (dash) in the header, or press `Esc` while floating |
| **Closed** | Only the floating action button is visible | Click the **×** button, or press `Esc` while minimized |
In **side panel** mode, drag the left edge to resize — the panel stays between 300 px and 55% of the viewport, and your note always keeps at least 480 px of space. In **bottom sheet** mode, drag the top handle to resize between 220 px and 75% of the viewport. In **floating** mode, drag the grip handle at the top of the window to reposition it anywhere on screen.
All size and position preferences persist across sessions.
### Keyboard shortcuts
| Shortcut | Action |
| ------------------ | -------------------------------------------------- |
| `Cmd+.` / `Ctrl+.` | Toggle the dock open or closed |
| `Cmd+/` / `Ctrl+/` | Open the dock and focus the input field |
| `Esc` | Minimize (when floating) or close (when minimized) |
### Quick prompts
When you first open the dock, three quick-action chips appear so you can get started without typing:
* **Suggest a cross-reference** — finds related scripture passages
* **What did I miss?** — reviews your note for gaps or underdeveloped ideas
* **Draft an outline** — generates a structured outline from your content
Click any chip or type your own question in the input field and press **Enter**.
The Companion dock remembers whether it was open or closed, and which display mode you last used. If you close it and reopen the note later, it stays closed — and vice versa.
## Stale-version banner
If you have a note open in the web editor and it gets edited from another surface — for example, you ask the Telegram bot to append a paragraph — a banner appears at the top of the editor with a **Refresh** button. Click it to reload the note with the latest content. This prevents you from accidentally overwriting changes made elsewhere.