What it is
Ask reads your notes and answers questions about them. Not the internet's opinion — your pages, with a citation linking every claim back to the note it came from.
Why it matters
Search finds words; Ask finds meaning. "What was I afraid of before the wedding?" has no keyword. Ask is how ten notebooks become a memory you can consult rather than a pile you can only rummage.
How it works
When you ask, SandDune runs a short pipeline — and shows it to you honestly as it happens:
- Planning — your question is read for timeframe and topic. "What did I write in March about the garden?" becomes March's pages + garden.
- Gathering — the relevant pages are collected: everything in the timeframe you named, plus the pages that match your question's meaning, plus recent context. The timeline shows real counts and date ranges, not theater.
- Writing — the answer streams in, grounded in those pages, citing each one it uses. Citations are links; tap to open the page.
Each run uses one Ask unit (Usage limits). Asking inside a notebook scopes the whole pipeline to that notebook.
Tips
- Say the timeframe when you know it — Ask resolves dates in your timezone and fetches that window completely.
- One good specific question beats three vague ones. "How did I feel about the job in my first month?" outperforms "job thoughts?" — and each question is billed the same.
- Rate answers with the 👍/👎 that appears below — it feeds our quality measurements directly.
- A question worth repeating deserves Save as Timeline (free — see Timelines).
Current limitations
- Not a chat. One question, one complete answer, no follow-up thread. Ask again to go deeper.
- Answers come only from transcribed pages — writing still sitting in your notebook, unphotographed, doesn't exist to Ask yet.
- Ask inherits any transcription errors in the source pages. Citations make this findable: check the cited page, fix the line, re-ask if it matters.
- If your notes don't contain an answer, Ask is designed to say so plainly rather than improvise.