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Notes

Markdown note panes with Whisper dictation and inline Mermaid diagrams.

In this guide

A note pane is a TipTap-backed markdown editor on the canvas — a place to capture context, draft a spec, or sketch a diagram next to the agents that need it.

What you get

Each note pane is a TipTap editor configured with starter-kit, the markdown extension, and a placeholder — so it reads and writes plain markdown. Common features:

  • Standard markdown — headings, lists, code blocks, links.
  • Inline Mermaid diagrams — fenced ```mermaid blocks render live inside the note.
  • Whisper dictation — toggle the mic on the pane header to dictate into the note.

Spawn one with Cmd8Ctrl8, or from the spawn menu.

Dictation

The note's dictation action records audio, transcribes it through Whisper, and writes the result back into the note. The Anthropic-powered polish path can clean the dictated text after the fact so a long verbal brain-dump becomes structured prose.

Use it for capturing ideas while you're walking, or for narrating a feature spec beside the agent pane implementing it.

Inline Mermaid

Drop a fenced Mermaid block into a note and it renders inline:

Code
```mermaid
flowchart LR
  Builder --> QA
  QA -->|needs changes| Builder
  QA -->|ship it| Validator
```

The diagram updates as you edit the source. This is the same Mermaid you'd use in GitHub, GitLab, or any markdown surface — flowcharts, sequence diagrams, state diagrams.

Notes are files

Every note pane is a markdown file in <projectDir>/.agent-grid/notes/, and the file is the source of truth. Write a .md there — from an agent, a script, or your editor — and it appears on the canvas within a moment; the filename becomes the title:

Code
echo "# Sprint planning" > .agent-grid/notes/sprint-planning.md

It works in both directions: edit the file and the open note updates in place; edit the note in the app and the file is saved on pause, blur, or close. If the file changes on disk while you hold unsaved edits, the competing version is preserved as a .conflict- sibling instead of anything being overwritten. This is how agents drop summaries, plans, or meeting notes onto the canvas without you copy-pasting — masters can also use the spawn_note_pane tool to anchor the note next to themselves.

See The .agent-grid/ folder for the rest of the project-local conventions (.agent-grid/notes/, roles.json, qa-specs/).

A Markdown file in .agent-grid/notes and its canvas note are connected by arrows in both directions, showing file-to-pane and pane-to-file updates.

The Markdown file is the source of truth. File edits update the pane, and edits in the pane save back to the file.

Diagram by AgentGrid
  • The .agent-grid/ folder — every project-local convention in one place.
  • Voice mode — separate from note dictation; this is for live conversations with a supported agent pane.
  • Orchestrating agents — masters often drop summary notes into notes/ after long runs.