# How a note works

> What a note holds, how links and backlinks resolve, what is recorded about it, and the ways a note arrives.

Page: https://docs.memex.tools/how-notes-work

A note has a title, a body, tags, a description, links, a status and a history. Whichever way it arrives, it is the same kind of note afterwards.

## What a note holds

| Part | What it is |
|---|---|
| **Title** | Required, up to 500 characters. Titles do not have to be unique, but links between notes resolve by title, so a distinct title is a well-connected note. |
| **Body** | Markdown. Headings, lists, tables, code blocks, task lists and links all render. Anything a Markdown file can hold, a note can hold. |
| **Tags** | A flat list of lowercase words. There are no folders and no nested tags. Three tags are special: `skill`, `live-state` and `user-profile`. See [How skills work](https://docs.memex.tools/how-skills-work). |
| **Description** | Two or three sentences saying what the note holds, so that a person or an assistant can decide whether to open it. It is called *summary* in the assistant tools. Your assistant writes it when it saves a note; you can edit it; memex can write one on your own key for what you add on the website, if you switch that on. |
| **Status** | *Verified* or *pending review*. See [How the review gate works](https://docs.memex.tools/review-gate). |

## Wiki-links and backlinks

Write `[[Title of another note]]` anywhere in the body, or `[[Title|shown text]]` to change the visible words. A link resolves to the note with that title, ignoring case; a filename or folder path from an imported vault also works. A link to a note that does not exist yet is kept as written and starts working the moment a note with that title appears. Links inside code blocks are not links.

A note's web address or number is not a link: both belong to one account, so an export or a move breaks them.

Every note shows its **backlinks**: which other notes link to it.

## Provenance

memex records how the note first arrived: written here, imported from a file, written by an assistant, or by memex, which only the welcome notes are. It keeps the source URL if the writer gave one, who added the note and who last changed it. Every author is named: a person by name, an assistant by the name and icon you gave its connection, memex itself when it wrote a description.

## History

Every change that alters the title, body, tags or description is kept as a version. Open the history, see what changed, restore any earlier version. The twenty most recent versions are kept per note.

## Number and address

Notes are numbered within your knowledge base, in the order they were created, and a number is never reused. The address of a note is `https://memex.tools/<your handle>/notes/<number>`, where the handle is a twelve-character code that identifies your knowledge base and never changes. Assistants refer to notes by the same number.

> **Self-hosted memex**
>
> A note's address starts with the server's own address, such as `http://localhost:8080`.

## Sources

A note may end with a *Sources* section: a list of links to what lies outside memex and governs what the note says, such as a vendor's documentation, a standard, or a page an assistant read while writing, each with a word on what it is for and when to reread it.

It is a convention, not a field: a `## Sources` heading and a list, so it exports with the note and any editor can write it. Assistants are told to record the sources they consulted under that heading when they file a note, and to reread a note's sources before acting on what it says.

It is not the same as provenance: the source URL says where a note came from; *Sources* says what to consult next.

## Three ways a note arrives

You may only ever use one of these, and that is fine.

1. **Your assistant writes it.** You say "save that to memex", and your connected assistant files a note. By default it arrives in your review inbox as *pending* and becomes part of the knowledge base when you approve it.
2. **You write it in memex.** **New note** opens an editor with a formatting toolbar, live preview and link autocomplete. Notes you write are verified at once. See [How the editor works](https://docs.memex.tools/editor).
3. **You upload a file, or a whole vault.** Markdown and text files, one at a time or as a ZIP of a folder, such as an Obsidian vault. Frontmatter titles and tags are honoured, and links between imported notes resolve. See [How import works](https://docs.memex.tools/how-import-works).

memex fetches nothing from the web itself. A page you want kept is a page your assistant reads and files. The built-in `memex-writing` skill tells it how: the citation and link, why the page was kept, and which part it actually read. The same goes for a PDF or a deck.

## Related

- [Write a note](https://docs.memex.tools/write-a-note): Create a note, link it to others, undo a change, or start from a file.
- [How the review gate works](https://docs.memex.tools/review-gate): What happens to new notes, edits, reports, deletes and merges an assistant files, and the one role that skips part of it.
- [How search and the Notes list work](https://docs.memex.tools/how-search-works): How a search chooses between exact words and meaning, the search operators, filters, workspaces and the list itself.
- [Import notes](https://docs.memex.tools/import): Bring in Markdown or text files, or a ZIP of a folder such as an Obsidian vault.