Artifacts

When Pepper produces something you'll want to find later — a report off a morning brief, a recipe, a trip plan, a checklist, notes from a conversation — you can save it as an artifact. Artifacts are durable: they don't scroll off in conversation, they're labeled and searchable, and they show up again when they're relevant.

What you can save

• A write-up Pepper just produced: "Save that as an artifact called Greece itinerary." Pepper keeps the full text and gives it a name.
• A link to something elsewhere: "Save the link to that Google Doc as an artifact." Useful for pointers to Drive, Box, or any web doc.
• A file you upload yourself: images, PDFs, receipts, screenshots. Upload them in the Artifacts app in the web app — Pepper indexes them so you can find them by description later (a text query like "the receipt from the hardware store" can find an image artifact).
• A file you attach in chat: anything you send with the paperclip in web chat (an image, an audio file, a PDF) is saved as an artifact automatically — Pepper reads it in the conversation, and it's kept for later like any other upload.
• An image Pepper made for you: when you ask Pepper to create or edit an image (see Other lookups), the result is saved as an image artifact automatically, so you can find it again by description later.

Finding them later

Just ask. Artifacts surface through Pepper's normal memory when they're relevant — "what did I save about Greece?", "find that recipe I saved", "the receipt from last month." If a saved artifact is on point, Pepper pulls it into the conversation and points you at it; you don't have to remember the exact name.

Asking about a file you saved

Long saved text reports can be read in pages rather than stopping at a preview.
Pepper should read all pages before claiming it checked the whole report. If the
text changes during that read, it must start again; if it reads only part, it
should say so. Paging does not change the saved text or its version history.

You can ask about a saved image or PDF long after you sent it — "what's the total on that hardware store receipt?", "what does the warranty PDF say about returns?", "which of my saved screenshots shows the error?" Pepper opens the file and reads it there and then, rather than pointing you at the Artifacts app to look for yourself.

This works for images and PDFs. Very large files can fall back to a pointer to the Artifacts app instead, and Pepper says which it's doing rather than guessing at the contents.

What you can upload. Pictures, PDFs, plain text files, audio clips and MP4 video. Other kinds — spreadsheets, Word documents, zip archives — aren't accepted, and an upload of one is refused at the time you try it rather than saved and quietly unreadable later. Pepper also checks that a file really is what it claims to be, so renaming something to .png won't get it through.

You can also browse and search them directly in the Artifacts app — open it from the menu, or just say "show me my artifacts".

If two of your artifacts share a name, asking for it by name gets you a question rather than a guess — Pepper lists the ones that match with the date each was saved and asks which you meant. Picking one quietly is the thing worth avoiding: the same request could land on a different one each time you asked, and nothing would look wrong.

Labels

Group related artifacts with labels — recipes, travel, receipts, work. Tell Pepper when you save ("label it as travel"), or type them in when you save something in the Artifacts app. Changing labels afterwards is a conversation: "label the Greece itinerary as travel too." Reusing existing labels keeps things tidy; Pepper will reach for one you already use rather than inventing a near-duplicate.

In the Artifacts app each label becomes a collection you can tap to filter by.

Managing your artifacts

The Artifacts app is the home base:

• See your full list, filter by collection, and search by name, label, or the first line of a note. For anything deeper, just ask — Pepper searches the whole thing.
• Pictures show as thumbnails in the list, so you can spot the one you want without opening each in turn. Everything else shows an icon for what it is.
• Open one to read it — a note renders its formatting, an image or PDF or recording plays right there, and anything else is a download.
• Save a new note, link or file.
• See a note's version history, and put an old version back. Open a note you saved and there's a Version history control under it: every write that replaced the text is listed with when it happened, how much changed, and a link to the conversation that did it. "Show changes" lays one version against the note as it stands now, so you can see exactly what a write took out. Restore this version puts the old text back — and because restoring saves what was there first, restoring the wrong one is undoable too. This is for notes; uploaded files aren't versioned. In the Notes app, an open note that has earlier versions shows a small History (clock) button under its title: it lays the versions out like the list — Current first, then each earlier one with when, who wrote it (you, Pepper or a room member) and how much changed — and the one you select is drawn beside the list. ↑/↓ move through them, Restore this version puts one back (the current text is saved first), and Esc or ✕ returns to the note; a note imported from elsewhere shows its history without a Restore. History is readable on a room's shared notes too — see Shared with your rooms for what's different there.
• Delete what you no longer need. Deleted artifacts stay recoverable for a while before they're gone for good.

You can also ask Pepper conversationally: "Delete that old recipe artifact", "Rename the trip artifact to Greece 2027."

Notes — the same things, as a board

The Notes app is the other way to look at this collection: the notes in it
— not the links or the files — as a list with the selected note drawn beside
it, or as a board of cards showing what's written on each one (the List |
Cards switch in the header; Pepper remembers which you chose). It's the same
collection, so a note you write here is an artifact there and the other way
round; nothing is copied, and nothing can be in one and missing from the
other.

• The list. Every note you have, with its title and the start of its text,
  its labels and when it last changed. Press a column heading to sort by it
  (press again to reverse); it starts with the most recently changed first.
  Press a note to see it on the right; press Edit there, double-click it,
  press Enter or press a card to open it. On a phone the list and the note
  stack.
• Filter as you type. The box under Title searches the titles and the
  whole text of every note, and the matching words are marked. The Labels
  and Updated boxes narrow by label (each meeting note's own label is its
  own choice) or by how recently a note changed. Pressing a label on a note
  filters to it. The header says "N of M notes", and Clear filters is
  there when nothing matches. The keys: / jumps to the filter, N starts a
  new note and ↑/↓ move through the list. Notes load first and their text a
  moment later, so a word from deep inside a long note can take a moment to
  match on a very large collection.
• Write one with + New note. The right-hand side starts as a blank note:
  write in it and it saves itself as you go — the first words create the note
  and each pause after that updates it, so there is no Save button and nothing
  to confirm. If you don't give it a title, Pepper suggests one once you stop
  writing, and the note says "Title suggested by Pepper" until you change it.
  A title you set — or are in the middle of typing — is never replaced. If you
  filter to a label first, a new note starts with that label. Press ✕ (or Esc)
  to put the form away: what you wrote is already a note. In Cards the
  same form appears above the board. If the page closes before a note's first
  save, what you'd written comes back in the form next time.
• Checklists. Start a line with - [ ] and it becomes a checkbox you can
  tick straight from the board — the tick is saved to the note, so it's there
  next time whichever way you open it.
• Formatting shows. Notes are written in Markdown, the same as everywhere
  else in Pepper, and the board draws it: a heading reads as a heading and
  **bold** is bold, right there on the card.
• Paste keeps its shape. Copy something out of a web page, a document or a
  spreadsheet and the structure comes with it — a list stays a list, a table
  stays a table, links keep their destinations, and a page's own tick-boxes
  arrive as checklist lines you can tick. What lands in the box is the Markdown
  for it, so you can read and edit what you pasted before saving, and undo puts
  it back the way any other paste would.
• Paste a screenshot straight in. Copy a picture — a screenshot, an image
  from your photos — and paste it into a note: it's saved to your artifacts and
  the note shows the picture. It says "Uploading image…" beside the box while
  that happens, and if it can't be saved it tells you why and leaves your note
  alone. One thing still comes through as text: a picture you copied from a web
  page arrives as its caption, because what your clipboard carries there is a
  link to someone else's copy rather than the picture itself.
• Drop a picture, or use the Image button. While you're editing a note you
  can drag an image file onto the text to put it where you drop it, or press
  Image under the box (Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+I) to pick a file and preview it
  before it goes in at your cursor. PNG, JPEG, GIF or WebP, up to 25 MB; an
  iPhone HEIC photo is turned away with "Export as JPEG and try again". In a
  room's note the picture belongs to the room, so every member sees it.
• Make a picture from a description. Where the Generate tab is turned on, the
  Image dialog has an Upload tab and a Generate tab. Describe the image, pick a
  shape, and optionally base it on the picture your cursor is in; it takes about
  ten seconds, and Insert puts it at your cursor (Try again makes
  another). Closing the dialog first keeps the picture in your artifacts without
  adding it. It counts against your usage allowance, and if it can't be made the
  dialog says why and leaves your note alone.
• Describe a picture: alt text, title, caption, long description. The Image
  dialog has four optional fields. Alt text (what the picture shows, for people
  who can't see it) and a title go into the note's text; a caption and a longer
  description are kept with the picture. In the note, a picture with a caption or
  long description shows as a figure: the caption under it, and the long
  description behind an Image description toggle. To change them later, put
  your cursor on the picture's line in the note and press Edit image.
• Open one to read it. The note opens full page: the title and labels at
  the top, then the whole note, drawn the same way, with checklist lines as
  boxes you can tick from here too. Links are links once it's open — on the
  card they're just their words, because the whole card is the way in to the
  note. The ✕ at the top right (or Esc) takes you back to the list with that
  note selected. Create brief, Open original ↗ (for imports) and
  Delete sit in a row under the title.
• Link one note to another by writing its title in double brackets:
  [[Packing list]], or [[Packing list|the list]] to show different words.
  Open the note and the link goes straight to that note on the same board. A
  link finds notes in the same place as the note it's written in — a room's
  shared note links to the room's notes, never to your own. Your own note is
  the exception: a title it can't find among your notes is looked for in the
  rooms you're in now, and [[Dinner club/Menu]] names the room outright (a
  note whose own title contains a / still wins). If you leave the room the
  link just stops working, like a title with nothing behind it, which shows
  with a dashed underline instead.
  Clicking that one checks again (the note may exist by now), and if more than
  one note has that title it lets you pick. If there's still no such note, it
  offers to create it right there: in your own notes for a link in your note,
  or in the room for a link in a room's note or message. Pepper itself never
  creates a note just because a link names one.
  Under a note — in the list's preview and on the open note — Linked from
  lists the notes that link to it, newest first: an icon, the title, a line
  with that note's labels, and its date. Five show, with Show N more for the
  rest, and pressing one opens that note. If any to-dos were made from the
  note, one more row says so ("3 to-dos from this note · 2 open") and takes you
  to them. With nothing linking in it reads "Nothing links here yet. Link to it
  from another note with [[Title]]." A room's note lists the room's notes that
  link to it, plus your own notes that do, which only you see. It's up to date
  as soon as you write or change a link, without reloading.
  The same works in a room's messages: [[Packing list]] in a message links to
  that room's note of that name, and only that room's. Renaming a note leaves
  older messages that used its old name pointing at nothing, since a message
  says what it said.
  Pepper's replies in your chat on the web link the same way, as if the reply
  were one of your own notes: [[Packing list]] opens your note (or a room's,
  if you have none by that name), and a title with nothing behind it offers to
  create it in your own notes.
  Over text, WhatsApp, email and notifications a link can't be clicked, so it
  shows as its words instead: [[Packing list|the list]] reads "the list".
• Comments on a room's note. A note in a room can be commented on: select
  some of its text and press Comment, or press Comment on the whole
  note. Each thread has replies and Resolve / Reopen, and resolved
  threads fold under "N resolved". The commented text is highlighted; press a
  highlight to see its thread. In the list's preview the threads stack under
  the note, after Linked from. On the open note they sit in a column beside it,
  level with their text, and under the note when the window is narrow. A
  comment's own link ("Open note") opens the note at that thread. While you're
  editing the text the highlights and comments are put away and come back when
  you leave it, with anything half-written kept. Your own notes have no
  comments, so there's nothing shown for them.
• Things to do from a note. When Pepper has found something to do in a
  note, it's listed under the note as a todo (the same one your Todos app
  shows), and the line it came from is marked "On your list". Tick it or press
  × and it moves to Acted on below, with Undo; Run ↗ sends it to
  Pepper to take the next step. None of this changes the note. A room's note
  lists the to-dos on the room's own list the same way (any member can tick
  or dismiss them; Run ↗ is only on your own notes). Delete the note
  and its open todos close as done (soon after, not instantly); restore it and
  they reopen, unless you closed one yourself in the meantime.
  To stop Pepper finding to-dos in a note, press Don't extract todos from
  this note next to the heading. That adds the label no_todo_extraction to
  the note (you can also add it yourself), and the note's open to-dos are
  removed right away, with the to-do section hidden while the label is on.
  Remove the label to turn it back on and they return, unless you closed one
  yourself in the meantime. A recipe note is never read for to-dos.
• Labels. A note's labels show on its row and on its card (the first
  three, with a +N more button for the rest) and on the note itself. When
  you write a note, or open one, its labels are chips: type one and press
  Enter or comma to add it, press × on a chip or Backspace in the empty box to
  take one away, and the change saves with the rest. Notes imported from
  elsewhere keep their labels as they are.
• Briefs. Create brief writes a short summary of the note in Markdown,
  shown under it, with Copy, Download, Print and Share. You can edit a brief
  like any note, and Pepper never overwrites your edits: when the note
  changes, Update brief proposes a new version, and nothing changes until
  you press Apply.
• Ask Pepper about this note fills the message box (it never sends), and
  Pepper answers with that note in front of it.
• Edit by pressing the text. Press the note's text and it turns into the
  text exactly as it was typed, markdown and all, because that's what you
  edit; the title and labels are always editable. Everything saves itself after
  a pause — there is no Save button and nothing says it saved. Leaving the text
  (Esc, or pressing elsewhere) draws it again; a second Esc closes the note. A
  link or a box in the text does what it says rather than starting an edit, and
  a note imported from elsewhere stays as it is. Editing keeps the old
  version, so a change you regret is recoverable the same way an overwrite by
  Pepper is — see the version history above. If you empty the text and close,
  Pepper tells you a note needs something written on it rather than closing
  with the old text quietly kept. If the note changes somewhere else while
  you're editing it (in another tab, from the pepper CLI, or by Pepper),
  saving won't quietly undo that change. Pepper shows you the note as it is
  now, with your text still in the editor, and you choose: Use mine saves
  your version over it, Load theirs swaps in the current version (after
  asking, since your text goes), and Copy mine copies your text so you can
  merge the two by hand. If the page closes before a change is saved, it is
  kept on this device and saved — or put up as that same choice — the next
  time the note opens. A brief you're editing works the same way: save again to
  keep your text, or Cancel to see the current brief.
• Delete doesn't ask. The note is listed under Acted on at the foot of
  the board for a day, with Undo.
• Search by typing, or pick a label — the search covers the title, the
  text and the labels together; on the cards, "with todos" shows only the
  notes Pepper found things to do in.
• Recipes. A recipe is a note with a recipe label on it, and Recipes is
  the app for those. In the list they are ordinary rows; a single Recipes
  row at the foot of the list, and of the cards (which keep recipes out of
  their ordinary view), says how many there are and opens Recipes. It shows
  on the whole view or the recipes label, and not while a filter hides them.

On the web, Notes has its own row in the left-hand navigation, the way
Calendar does, with Voice, Journal and Add notes under it while Notes is open.

• Voice records a note by talking. Press Record; Pause stops
  listening without saving (what you said is kept on this device and comes
  back paused if you leave), and Save finishes the note. Pepper writes
  down what you said as the note's text, gives it a title, and looks for
  things to do in it. The recording stays with the note: deleting the note
  deletes the recording, and Undo brings both back.
• Journal is a page for each day. Write or record what's on your mind and
  Add to today; the page shows that day's entries, a short summary of your
  conversations with Pepper that day, and the things to do Pepper found in
  what you wrote. The month beside it marks the days you wrote, with a count
  for the last seven days, and Remind me each evening sends you a nudge at
  the time you pick.
• Add notes brings in notes you keep elsewhere: Google Docs documents or
  folders you pick (a folder includes its subfolders, and Pepper reads them
  again each day), Asana projects (each project's overview and its tasks'
  descriptions and comments), an email you forward with "save as a note", or
  files you upload: Markdown, text, HTML, Word, PDF, or an export zip from
  Apple Notes, Obsidian, Notion or Google Keep. Notes from Google Docs and
  Asana are read-only here; Open original to change them.

Files and links aren't on this board; they're in Artifacts, which is the whole
collection. Working documents that Pepper's other features keep for themselves
aren't there either.

A note in the conversation

Ask for one — "show me the note about the boiler", "pull up my packing list" —
and Pepper puts the note itself in the thread as a card rather than reading it
out: the title, the note drawn with its formatting, its labels, and when it
last changed. You can edit it right there. The title is a field you can
type in straight away; Edit swaps the note for its text as it was typed,
and it saves when you click away (or press Cmd/Ctrl-Enter). Escape puts back
what was there and closes the editor. A long note is clipped with a Read
more that opens it in place.

The card is a live view of the note, so scrolling back to an older
conversation shows what the note says now, not what it said then — and typing
in it edits today's note. If the note has changed since the card was drawn,
saving from the card won't overwrite that change. The card keeps your text and
links to the note on your Notes board, where you can see both versions and
choose. On a room's shared note the card is read-only, since changing one of
those happens in the room.

Asking to see your notes generally — "show me my notes", "what have I written
down" — opens the board instead.

Shared with your rooms

If you're in a room with Pepper (by email, group text, or in the web app — see Rooms), documents that belong to that room show up in a read-only Shared with your rooms section at the bottom of your Artifacts app, labeled with the room's name. You can also move one of your own artifacts into a room ("move my meal history to the family thread") — it keeps its links and history, and every member can then read it. Moving a document back out of a room is reserved for the room's owner. These are the room's shared documents — notes Pepper keeps for the thread, files someone emailed into it. You can open and read them, and follow links to them from the room's emails, but changing or deleting one happens in the room itself, not here. That includes a shared note's Version history: any member can see what the note said before and what each write changed, which is usually the point of a document a few people are keeping together — but Restore this version is offered only on your own notes, because writing a room's document happens in the conversation. Your own collection stays yours: other members never see your private artifacts.

Bringing a note into a room. Open the room's own Notes board (not your personal Artifacts app) and Import copies notes into it — pick your own collection or another room you're in as the source, tick the ones you want, and they land as new notes in this room's board. It's a copy, not a link: nothing in your own collection changes, nothing already on the room's board is touched, and the room's copy is its own document from then on, editable by the room the same as anything else shared there.

Commenting on a room's note. Select some text in a room's note and a Comment button appears beside it; write what you think and @mention anyone in the room — a room-mate, Pepper, or an agent member — to pull them in. Comment on the whole note starts a conversation that isn't about any one passage. A passage comment highlights the words it's about and sits beside the note (or underneath it on a narrow screen); replies sit under the comment. Resolve marks a thread settled and tucks it into a collapsed section of resolved threads; Reopen brings it back, and so does anyone replying to it. If a note is edited so the exact words a comment was about are gone, its thread moves to a separate "removed text" section instead of vanishing. These same comments also show in the room itself, as their own card in the note's conversation, so someone who isn't looking at the note still sees them come in — and if you ask Pepper something in the thread, it answers there with the note and the quoted passage in front of it, the same as any other question you ask it in a room. Only a room's shared notes can be commented on; copy a note into a room first (above) to discuss one of your own this way. Agents can take part too, through the pepper command line — see The command-line app.

Artifacts vs. other places things live

• Artifact = a durable, labeled object you want to keep and find later (a doc, file, recipe, report).
• To-do = an action item on a list — see Todos.
• Memory / preferences = facts about you Pepper carries into every conversation — see Memory & preferences.
• Feed item = an article from a site you follow — see Feeds & news.

If you'd want to open it again next month, it's probably an artifact.

Things to try

• Talk it out in the car. Record a voice note in the car with everything on your mind, and Pepper reads it for the things to do and puts those on your todo list.
• Ask about a receipt. Photograph a receipt and ask about it later — "what was the total on the hardware store receipt?" No shoebox, no searching the camera roll.