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Introduction

Cortex is a personal knowledge management system designed for people who think for a living. It combines four powerful paradigms into one cohesive tool:

  • Zettelkasten Notes — Atomic, interlinked notes that form a knowledge graph
  • Spaced Repetition — AI-generated flashcards that adapt to your memory
  • Semantic Recall — Ask questions in natural language, get answers from your own knowledge
  • Task Management — Boards that connect to your notes and learning

Why Cortex?

Most note-taking apps are glorified text editors. You write things down, then never find them again. Cortex is different:

  1. Every note is atomic — One idea, one note. This forces clarity and creates meaningful connections.
  2. Links are first-class — Notes automatically discover related ideas. Your knowledge graph grows organically.
  3. AI understands your knowledge — Semantic search means you can ask “What do I know about X?” and get real answers, not keyword matches.
  4. Memory is reinforced — Spaced repetition surfaces what you’re about to forget, exactly when you need to review it.

Quick Example

# Create a note via API
curl -X POST https://api.cortex-app.dev/api/workspace/notes \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "title": "Spaced repetition intervals follow exponential growth",
    "content": "The optimal review schedule roughly doubles each time: 1 day, 3 days, 7 days, 14 days, 30 days. This matches the forgetting curve discovered by Ebbinghaus.",
    "note_type": "fact",
    "tags": ["spaced-repetition", "memory", "learning"],
    "importance": 0.8
  }'

The system will:

  • Store the note in your knowledge graph
  • Automatically find and link related notes
  • Generate flashcards for review
  • Make it searchable via semantic recall

Architecture Overview

┌──────────────┐     ┌──────────────┐     ┌──────────────┐
│   Frontend   │────▶│   Backend    │────▶│   Storage    │
│   Next.js    │     │   FastAPI    │     │   SQLite +   │
│   React      │◀────│   Python     │◀────│   ChromaDB   │
└──────────────┘     └──────────────┘     └──────────────┘
                           │
                     ┌─────┴─────┐
                     │  Claude   │
                     │  (Haiku)  │
                     └───────────┘
  • Frontend: Next.js App Router with Tailwind CSS
  • Backend: FastAPI with SQLite (Litestream replication)
  • Embeddings: ChromaDB with sentence-transformers
  • AI: Claude Haiku for queries, auto-escalation to Sonnet for complex synthesis

Next Steps

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Overview