FAQ

Getting Access

How do I get access to Coffeescribe?

Coffeescribe is in private early access. You need an invite code to create an account. There are two ways to get one:

1. Join the waitlist — Enter your email on the homepage. Codes go out in batches to waitlist members (oldest signups first) as capacity is opened.
2. Get a code from someone — If a friend has a spare invite code (in CS-XXXX-XXXX format), you can use it at signup.

Once you have a code, go to /signup, fill in your email, password, and the invite code, then verify your email with the 6-digit code sent to your inbox. The invite code is redeemed automatically on verification and tokens are added to your account.

What is an invite code and how do I use it?

An invite code is a short, unique, one-time token in the format CS-XXXX-XXXX (for example, CS-AB34-7KJ9). It is issued specifically to you — it isn't shared with multiple people.

To redeem it: enter it in the Invite code field on /signup, complete the signup form, and verify your email. Once verification succeeds, the code is redeemed: tokens are credited to your new account and you're signed in automatically. A code can only be redeemed once — a second attempt will be rejected with "Invalid or expired invite code."

See Waitlist & Invite Codes for the full walkthrough.

Can I sign up with Google or GitHub?

Not during private early access. New accounts require an email address and an invite code — Google and GitHub OAuth are not available for signup right now.

If you already have an existing Coffeescribe account, you can still log in with Google or GitHub via the /login page. Once open access launches, OAuth signup will return.

How long is the waitlist? When will I get an invite?

There is no fixed timeline. Codes go out in batches as capacity is opened up. There is no way to skip the queue, but early signups are prioritised — the sooner you join, the higher your place. You'll receive an email with your personal invite code when yours is ready; keep an eye on your inbox (and spam folder).

What is the Brew Preview — can I try Coffeescribe before I have an account?

Yes. The Brew Preview widget on the homepage lets you try the product anonymously, with no account required. Type a topic (up to 200 characters), click Brew, and the AI generates a real scribe outline — a title, subtitle, a five-to-six chapter outline, and a hook. Pick one chapter and the AI writes that section with live web-search citations. You then see the real sources used, and can open the section in a reading mode where you can look up words or ask the AI questions about your brew.

You can copy or download the section as Markdown, plain text, or PDF. No signup, no tokens, no credit card.

The daily limit is 2 brews per IP address. After that, the button becomes a waitlist CTA.

See Brew a Preview for the full walkthrough.

What is the hero loop on the homepage?

When you land on the homepage before interacting, the hero area plays a short looping animation narrating the full Coffeescribe arc — from typing a topic through live research sources, cited writing, interactive reading, to a finished scribe. It is the attract state, showing the whole product in about 20 seconds.

The moment you click, type in the input, or tap "Try it yourself", the animation hands off immediately to the live Brew widget in the same spot. There is never a split-attention situation — the loop and the live widget share one space.

What is the research feed in the Brew widget?

After a section brews, the widget shows a research feed — the actual web sources the AI searched and used to write the section, with credibility badges and a source count. Every claim in the written section is backed by a real source you can click and read.

This is the visible difference between Coffeescribe and a generic AI chatbot: the writing is grounded in live web search, and you can see exactly what it found.

What is the "read beat" — what can I do after brewing a section?

After brewing, click "Read it" to open the section in a focused reading view. From there:

• Highlight a single word → a popover appears with a short dictionary definition, generated live by AI.
• Highlight a phrase or sentence → a question box appears. Type a question about the highlighted passage and click Ask. The AI answers based only on the text you brewed — it will not go beyond the passage.
• "Save to notebook" → teased here (grayed/waitlisted). Notebooks are an authenticated feature; join the waitlist to claim your brew and access notebooks when you sign up.

All of this is anonymous — no account needed. The define and Ask AI features require that you have already brewed a section (they do not work before a brew). They are also subject to small per-session caps (define: up to 30 lookups; ask: up to 10 questions) and are bounded by the upstream 2-brews-per-day-per-IP limit. No tokens are charged to you.

Can I ask the AI any question in the read beat, or only about the brewed section?

Only about the brewed section. The Ask AI feature in the read beat is deliberately constrained: the answer is grounded in the passage you highlighted and the section you brewed. If your question is not covered by that passage, the AI will say so rather than pulling in outside information.

This is intentional — the read beat is a taste of Coffeescribe's interactive reading experience, not a general-purpose chatbot. For open-ended AI questions, web-search-grounded research, and full document Q&A, those features are available inside the product for account holders.

Will my brewed preview be saved if I join the waitlist?

Yes. If you enter your email in the waitlist form after brewing a section, your brew (the topic, the full scribe structure, and the written section) is saved and pinned to that email address. When you later receive an invite code and sign up with the same verified email, the brew is automatically converted into a real draft scribe in your library under "Your scribes" — the outline becomes chapters and the written section is already there.

The brew is only saved if you choose to join the waitlist. If you close the page without submitting the form, nothing is stored. If you sign up with a different email, the claim does not happen automatically.

What does it mean that my brew has "live web-search citations"?

When the AI writes the section, it runs a live web search (via OpenRouter's web-search plugin) to find real current sources for the topic. The written section ends with a ## Sources list of real links — not fabricated references. This is the core differentiator: it is grounded content, not a stateless prediction from training data alone.

Source links are shown blue and underlined in light mode so they read as real links. Click any to open the original source in a new tab.

The same citation approach powers the full scribe creation experience for members, where every section can be generated with web search enabled.

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General

What is Coffeescribe?

Coffeescribe is an AI-powered scribe creation platform. You provide a topic and preferences, and AI generates a complete scribe with chapters and sections. You can read, edit, export, and share your scribes.

How does AI scribe generation work?

You enter a topic and use the tile-based form to configure your scribe (Scribe Type, Chapters, Sections, Style, Tone, and more). The AI first creates a scribe structure (chapters and sections), then writes the content for each section. The process is automated but you can control it through different creation modes (Instant Coffee, Americano, Cold Brew). You can also use AI Quick Fill to auto-suggest any fields you haven't filled in — it only fills empty fields and preserves your selections.

What is the Barista?

The Barista is an AI creation assistant available to every signed-in user. Instead of filling in a form, you describe what you want to create in a conversation. The AI asks follow-up questions, determines the best creation mode (Espresso, Americano, or Cold Brew), and builds your brief. You can type or use voice input (Chrome/Edge). When you're happy with the brief, the AI fills in any remaining details automatically and takes you to the form for final review.

What are Custom Instructions?

Custom instructions let you add extra context to your scribe that doesn't fit into the standard form fields. On any creation form, click "Add instruction" in the Final Settings section. Each instruction has a label (e.g., "Format", "Avoid", "Voice") and a description. These are fed directly into the AI generation prompts, giving you precise control over the output. You can add up to 10 per scribe.

Custom Instructions are a different, additive layer from Writing Prompts (Settings → Writing Prompts, or a scribe's own "Edit writing prompt" button) — see What's the difference between Custom Instructions and a Writing Prompt? below.

Is the content I create original?

AI-generated content is created on demand based on your specific topic and instructions. Each scribe is unique. However, AI models are trained on existing text, so outputs may reflect patterns from training data. Similar prompts from different users may produce similar content.

Can I use my scribes commercially?

Yes. Content generated on Coffeescribe is provided to you under a license that allows commercial use, modification, publishing, and distribution. You are responsible for reviewing the content and ensuring it doesn't infringe on existing copyrights.

How accurate is AI-generated content?

AI-generated content may contain errors, inaccuracies, or fabricated information ("hallucinations"). Always verify important facts from authoritative sources, especially for professional, medical, legal, or financial topics. Enabling web search helps improve accuracy for factual content. Scribes generated with web search show a "Web Searched" badge in the library.

Can I fact-check my scribe content?

Yes. Every signed-in user can use Verify Validity in the Workspace to AI fact-check sections or selected text. It extracts claims, searches the web for evidence, and rates each claim as verified, disputed, unverified, or opinion. You can also run a separate plagiarism check. See Verify Validity for details.

Why don't I see all the creation options on the Create page?

All creation modes (AI Create, Guided Creation, Empty Mug, and Start with Research first) are available to every signed-in user. If you can't see them, make sure you're logged in. Your token balance is the only limit — when tokens run out, you'll be prompted to buy a token pack.

What happened to "Espresso", "Americano", and "Cold Brew" on the Create page?

The Create page now uses plain-language labels for first-time clarity: AI Create (form or Barista) covers what was Americano/Quick Book, Guided Creation covers Cold Brew, and Empty Mug is a blank scribe. The original coffee names still live in chat summaries, the Workspace, and the underlying modes — only the entry-point picker changed. You can read the mapping in Understanding Scribe Types.

How do I start with research before creating a scribe?

On the Create page, below the picker cards, click the "Start with Research first" band. This takes you to Research Mode where you can build a Cafe — a workspace for collecting web searches, academic papers, YouTube transcripts, scraped pages, and uploaded documents. Once your Cafe has the material you want, come back to /create and pick how to create your scribe; you can reference your research notes from the Workspace using @ mentions. Research Mode is available to every signed-in user.

How do I create a blank scribe with no AI generation?

Pick Empty Mug on the Create page (available to every signed-in user). It reveals an inline title field on the same page — type a name and click Create. You're taken straight to the Workspace with a single blank chapter and section, ready to edit manually or fill in with AI Write later.

Why is the create form a slideshow now?

As of May 2026 (E64.3), both AI Create ("Fill out a form") and Guided Creation ("Fill out a form") use a 6-card slideshow instead of a single long form: Title → Topic & Purpose → Audience & Reader Level → Structure → Description → Review. One focused question at a time, with a Review at the end where every answer appears as a small tappable card. The slideshow keeps the form short and lets you skip anything you're unsure about.

What's the difference between Quick Read and Full Scribe?

On Card 1 — Title & length of the create slideshow, the Target length tile group lets you pick:

• 10 / 20 / 30 / 60 min — a Quick Read (Espresso) — a condensed scribe with a fixed total word budget of 250 wpm × N min (so a 20-min Quick Read aims for ~5,000 words across however many sections fit).
• Full scribe — a full-length book — multi-chapter Americano or Cold Brew with up to 24 chapters and no total word cap.

In both cases the AI now decides variable section counts per chapter from your title, audience, style, and tone — not a uniform N × M shape. After submission, AI Create and Full Scribe drop you on a Structure Review page where you can rename, add, and delete chapters and sections before writing begins. See Structure Review for details.

Note (E67, May 2026): The Target length tile group moved from Card 4 to Card 1 alongside the title, so AI Quick Fill knows the depth and tone to aim for before it runs.

What is the Structure Review screen?

After you click Create Scribe on AI Create or Full Scribe, you land on /book/[bookId]/structure-review — a dedicated page where the AI has proposed a chapter-and-section layout. You can rename, add, or delete chapters and sections, then click Proceed to Writing to start prose generation. The page is refresh-survivable — close the tab, come back later, and your edits are still there. See Structure Review for the full walkthrough.

Empty Mug skips Structure Review (there's nothing to review — you start with a blank chapter). Guided Creation has its own equivalent screen at /create/guided/[bookId] that uses the same editor.

Why do my chapters have different numbers of sections now?

Before May 2026 (E67), every scribe had a uniform N × M shape — e.g. always 10 chapters × 4 sections. The result was often awkward: a small topic got padded out, a big topic got cut short. Now the AI picks variable sections per chapter from your title, length, audience, and style — Chapter 1 might have 2 sections; Chapter 4 might have 5. Quick Read totals stay within the duration's word budget; Full Scribe stays under 24 chapters. If you want a uniform shape, you can edit on the Structure Review screen, or use the legacy Chapters/Sections tiles on Card 4 (Guided + Full Scribe) as overrides.

What is Simple Mode?

Simple Mode is the quickest way to a scribe — just a topic and a length tile. It lives at /brew and there's an amber Simple Mode entry button on the right side of the secondary band on /create. No multi-card form, no slideshow — type a topic, pick 10 / 20 / 30 / 60 min or Full scribe, and submit. You'll still go through the Structure Review pause for AI Create-style flows. Available to every signed-in user.

What's the difference between Simple Mode and AI Create?

Both are AI-driven. Simple Mode at /brew is a one-form flow — topic, length, submit, done. AI Create at /create (the leftmost card) opens the 6-card slideshow with optional Audience / Style / Tone / Description fields and access to AI Quick Fill, the model picker, custom instructions, and so on. Use Simple Mode when you just want output fast; use AI Create when you want to shape the brief before generation.

Why does structure generation feel slower now?

Structure generation (the step that picks chapter count and variable section counts) runs on Sonar (Perplexity) for every signed-in user since E67. Sonar is a research-grounded model with built-in web search — slower than a generic chat model, but it produces structures that reflect what's actually written about your topic on the web rather than the model's stale training data. Section writing uses your selected model (the CoffeeScribe Model by default, or any model you pick from the picker), so per-section speed is unchanged. The trade-off is most noticeable on a 10-min Quick Read where the structure step is a larger fraction of total time.

What happens if I leave fields blank in the create form?

Skipping is fine — the hint at the top of every card reminds you: "Skip anything you're not sure about — AI can fill the rest on Review." On the Review card you'll see two ways to fill blanks:

• ✨ Let AI fill the rest — populates only the fields you skipped, preserving anything you typed. You can edit or delete what AI suggests before generating.
• Sticky purple FAB ("AI fill everything") at the bottom-right of every card — fills every blank field and jumps you straight to Review.

If you click Create Scribe with optional fields still blank, a confirm modal appears with three options: Let AI fill the rest first, Create with what I've given (AI fills any gaps with sensible defaults during generation), or Cancel to keep editing.

Can I save a draft of the create form and come back later?

Yes. Your slideshow progress saves automatically to your browser as you go. If you close the tab and return to /create/quick or /create/guided, you'll see a "Resume your scribe?" prompt with [Resume] (pick up where you left off) or [Start fresh] (clear and begin again). Drafts are stored locally on your device — they aren't synced across browsers — and expire after 7 days.

What is "AI fill the rest"?

On the Review card of the create slideshow, ✨ Let AI fill the rest fills only the fields you skipped (preserving what you typed). It uses your title and topic as context to suggest sensible values for description, goals, audience details, and so on. Nothing generates silently — you can review, edit, or delete the AI's suggestions before clicking Create Scribe.

This is different from the sticky purple FAB ("AI fill everything") which appears on every card and fills every blank in one shot before taking you to Review.

Why is the button now "Create Scribe" instead of "Create Book"?

Coffeescribe's product naming uses Scribe for the unit of work — the thing you create, read, share, and export. The button on the create slideshow Review card is now Create Scribe to match the rest of the product (Scribe Hub, Audioscribe, Empty Mug, "Brewing Your Scribe"). The behaviour is unchanged — it kicks off generation and takes you to the live progress page.

Where did Advanced settings (model, generation mode, custom instructions) go?

On the create slideshow they live in an Advanced settings accordion on the Review card, below the Generate button. The accordion is collapsed by default to keep the default surface clean. Expand it to access AI model selection, web search toggle, generation mode (Lightning / Pour Over / Slow Brew), language, custom focus prompt, and custom instructions. Every signed-in user gets the full model picker — the CoffeeScribe Model (the curated default we maintain) is pre-selected, but you're free to pick any other model. Web search, generation mode, language, custom focus, and custom instructions are available to every signed-in user in the accordion.

Can I make the Advanced settings stay open by default?

Yes. Go to Settings → Preferences and turn on "Show advanced controls". After that, the Advanced settings accordion on the create slideshow Review card opens automatically every time you reach Review — so web search, generation mode, custom instructions, and the model picker are visible without an extra click. Toggle it off and the accordion goes back to being collapsed by default. The preference is per-account and persists across browsers and devices (it's saved to your account, not just your browser), and works the same way for every signed-in user.

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Importing your own books (Scribe Conversion)

What is Scribe Conversion?

Scribe Conversion lets you upload a document you own — PDF, EPUB, Word, plain text, or Markdown — and turn it into a native scribe in your library. From /create, click Upload your own. You then pick one of three conversion modes: Word-for-Word (faithful, cheapest), AI Rewrite (rewrites the whole book in a style you choose), or Mini-Scribe (condensed version). See Importing your own books for the full walkthrough.

What file types can I import? And how big?

PDF, EPUB, DOCX, TXT, and MD up to 100 MB. Scanned PDFs are OCR'd automatically (Mistral OCR, billed against your token allowance — typically $0.30–$1.40 per book). DRM-protected EPUBs are detected and rejected. Files with mismatched extensions (e.g. a PDF renamed to .epub) are also rejected — we check the actual file signature.

Does Scribe Conversion cost tokens?

Yes. Each mode shows an estimated token cost before you commit:

• Word-for-Word — cheapest, just structure detection.
• AI Rewrite — proportional to word count × your selected model.
• Mini-Scribe — proportional to word count, generally cheaper than AI Rewrite.
• OCR — only for scanned PDFs, billed at upload time, $0.30–$1.40 per book.

If you don't have enough tokens, the convert button is disabled with a top-up link.

Who can use Scribe Conversion?

Every signed-in user. It is not tier-gated. The only limit is your token balance.

Are my scribes public by default?

No — every scribe is private by default, for every signed-in user. Only you can see a new scribe until you choose to publish it. Right after creation you'll see a "Your book is brewing!" dialog with a Private / Public toggle (it defaults to Private), and you can change a scribe's visibility any time from the scribe's page. Publishing puts it in the public library where signed-in members can read it; switching back to private removes it.

Are imported scribes public by default?

No — imported scribes default to private. They live in your library and are not visible to anyone else until you explicitly publish them via the Publish to library flow. Publishing requires a separate consent confirmation in which you re-affirm you hold the rights to share the work publicly.

What if I publish a scribe I don't own the rights to?

We will remove it from public view. Coffeescribe's stance is direct: if you did not write it, and AI did not generate it, then you uploaded it. It could be plagiarism. Even if AI then rewrote it, it could still be plagiarism. We have a full right — and a responsibility — to remove that content from public view. AI rewriting does not launder copyright. An AI Rewrite or Mini-Scribe derivative of a copyrighted source is still derivative of that source, and you remain responsible for the rights upstream. If a rights-holder reports a published imported scribe, we remove it and notify you. Repeat infringement may result in account suspension or termination. Please only publish content you have the rights to — and aim for powerful content. See Terms of Service section 3.5 for the full text.

Are images and figures preserved in imported scribes?

Not in v1 — only text comes through. You'll see a warning in the dropzone and again on the structure-review screen. If you need images, treat the import as a starting point and re-add them in the Workspace.

What is the "Manual split" tab on the review screen?

It's grayed out in v1 with "Coming in V2 — drag-to-highlight section markers on PDF preview." For now, pick AI-proposed and edit the chapter list in the Workspace after conversion, or pick Use as-is if the source already has clean chapter breaks.

Why do scanned PDFs cost more?

Two reasons: (1) Mistral OCR charges per page of text it extracts, and (2) the v1 pipeline re-runs OCR during the convert step instead of caching the parsed text, so a scanned PDF roughly doubles in cost compared to a text PDF of the same length. We plan to fix the second part in a follow-up release.

Can I leave my import running and come back later?

Yes. The whole pipeline is resume-safe. You can close the tab during upload, OCR, or generation — the server keeps working. To pick up where you left off, go back to /create/import?resume=<uploadId> (the URL is preserved in the address bar while you're in the flow) or check your library when it finishes.

What's the "Convert to Scribe" button in the Workspace?

If a scribe grows too large for the Workspace editor to handle smoothly, you'll see a too-big banner with a Convert to Scribe button. It pre-fills the import flow with the current scribe as the source — useful when you want to re-shape a sprawling work into a cleaner Mini-Scribe or AI Rewrite.

Why don't my imported scribes show "Chapter N:" in the title?

Most published books already include the chapter number in the title (e.g. "Chapter 1: The Beginning"). On imports, CoffeeScribe drops the synthetic "Chapter N:" prefix in the viewer and Read view so the title displays as the author wrote it — no duplication.

How do I find my imported scribes in the library?

Use the Imports filter chip in the library. Imports also sort newest-first by default so a fresh upload is easy to spot at the top of the list.

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Subscription & Pricing

Coffeescribe is currently pay-as-you-go: any signed-in user buys one-time token packs ($10 → 10M tokens, $20 → 20M, $50 → 50M) through Polar, our Merchant of Record. There's no subscription to buy right now — see Plans & Pricing and the Billing FAQ for the full picture. Every signed-in user reaches every feature — the full model picker, audiobooks, all export formats, all Research Mode tools — gated only by your token balance. Free, Pro, and Creator still exist internally as account labels (a holdover from an earlier subscription model), but no feature or price depends on which one your account has.

What do new users get?

Every new account receives a welcome credit on signup and can access the full app — every creation mode (AI Create, Guided Creation, Empty Mug), Workspace, Research Cafes, web search, all export formats, the full 350+ model picker, and audiobook generation. Scribes are private by default for every account (see Are my scribes public by default?). When your tokens run out, buy a token pack to keep going, or bring your own AI provider key (BYOK).

What's included?

See our Plans & Pricing page for the full feature list — it's the same list for every signed-in user. Token packs don't unlock anything extra; they just add to your balance.

How do tokens work?

Tokens are the units AI models use to process text. You get tokens from your signup welcome credit and from buying token packs; different models consume tokens at different rates. See Understanding Tokens for details.

Where's the fastest way to buy tokens?

The Buy Tokens button in the header — it's visible on every page once you're signed in and opens a dialog with the same token-pack grid as the Pricing page. Pick a pack and you're taken straight to checkout.

Where do I see my token balance?

Your exact token count is shown in Settings → Billing and in the account menu (click your avatar) — the real number, not a vague meter, so you always know exactly what you have before you spend it.

How many PDF downloads do I get?

Unlimited, for every signed-in user, at no token cost — the same is true of Word, EPUB, and StoryBook exports.

What happens when my free signup tokens run out?

When your welcome credit reaches zero, any action that costs tokens (creating scribes, research, AI analysis) shows a prompt to buy a token pack. Your existing scribes, highlights, notes, and exports remain accessible — you just can't generate new content until you top up (or use BYOK).

Can I change my plan?

There's no subscription plan to upgrade, downgrade, pause, or cancel right now — Coffeescribe runs on one-time token packs, and Settings has no billing-cycle management to do. Every signed-in user already has full feature access, so there's nothing to move between. See Buying Tokens & Plan Changes.

What happens if I run out of tokens?

Any action that costs tokens shows a prompt to buy a token pack — this works the same way for every account. A bigger balance always comes from buying a pack (or BYOK).

Partially generated scribes are saved and can be completed later — see below.

What if my tokens run out partway through a scribe being generated?

The token balance is checked before each section is written, not before the whole scribe is started. If you start a long scribe and your balance hits zero halfway through, generation stops cleanly at the next section — you don't get charged for a section that never runs. The chapters and sections written up to that point are saved, and the scribe is marked partial. Buy a token pack and resume — the system picks up from where it stopped.

This applies to anyone with a finite balance. A very long scribe (10+ chapters with many sections each) can still exhaust a welcome credit or pack before completion, especially on a pricier model.

Do unused tokens roll over?

There's nothing to roll over — purchased token packs never expire. Every token you buy stays in your balance until you spend it, however long that takes.

Can I get a refund?

Refunds are handled through Polar, our Merchant of Record. Tokens already spent on completed generations are non-refundable. See the Billing FAQ and Refund Policy for full details.

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Content & Quality

Why do different AI models produce different results?

Each AI model is built and trained differently. Every recommended model is scored on Writing, Research, and Cost (1-5 dots) so you can compare at a glance. Budget models are faster and cheaper but may produce simpler writing. Premium models tend to produce more nuanced, polished content. Tap the info icon next to any model to see its strengths and weaknesses.

How do I improve content quality?

• Be specific with your topic and instructions
• Use a premium AI model
• Enable web search for factual content
• Use the Research panel to gather information and save it as notes
• Reference research notes in AI Write using @ references for grounded, accurate content
• Add per-section instructions to guide the AI on each section
• Edit and refine in the Workspace
• Provide clear guidance on tone, audience, and focus

What are the author attribution options?

When you publish or export a scribe, you choose how your name appears: Created by (AI-generated with minimal editing), AI-Assisted by (you significantly edited the AI content), or Written by (100% human-written). If your scribe has a mix of AI and human-written sections, "AI-Assisted" is suggested automatically. You can change the attribution anytime from the export or attribution modal.

What's the difference between "Created by" and "AI-Assisted by"?

"Created by" means the content is primarily AI-generated. "AI-Assisted by" means you made substantial edits or rewrote portions of the AI output. Use whichever best describes your involvement. "Written by" is reserved for content you wrote entirely yourself — a compliance warning is shown if you select it.

Can I edit the AI-generated content?

Yes. Every signed-in user has full access to the Workspace where you can manually edit text, rewrite sections with AI, ask AI questions, research topics with web search, upload reference documents, and restructure chapters. The section editor is WYSIWYG — type normally, use the formatting toolbar (Bold, Italic, headings, lists, tables, etc.) or keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+B, Ctrl+I, Ctrl+Z) to format. No Markdown knowledge required. Every signed-in user can also export to Word for external editing.

What's the difference between the generation modes?

Coffeescribe offers four generation modes from fastest to finest: Lightning (all sections in parallel, cheapest), Lightning Medium (chapters parallel, sections sequential within each), Pour Over (chapters sequential, sections parallel within each), and Pour Over Slow Brew (every section one by one, maximum coherence). The token cost gap grows with more chapters and pricier models. Use Lightning for knowledge scribes and quick drafts; Pour Over or Slow Brew for creative writing and narratives. See Generation Modes for details.

Why did my scribe generate in Pour Over Slow Brew (or a slower mode) instead of Lightning?

As of July 2026, Generation Mode pre-selects a sensible default based on your Genre and Scribe Type — you're not stuck with one universal default anymore. Fiction and Comedy genres, and any story-shaped scribe (story, essay, article, blog post, or training course — memoir included), default to Pour Over Slow Brew because narrative writing needs every section to remember what came before (character names, plot points, prior arguments). Whitepapers and reports default to Pour Over. Everything else (book, guide, custom, or factual genres) keeps the original Lightning Medium default — never the fully-parallel Lightning mode, since a context-free mode is never a good default. This is only a starting point: open Advanced settings on the create form's Review card and pick a different mode yourself any time — your manual choice always sticks, even if you change the genre afterward. See Generation Modes for what each mode does and its cost trade-offs.

Why is Web Search off by default for my story or comedy scribe?

Web search now defaults based on your Genre and Scribe Type. Fiction is locked off entirely (the toggle is disabled with a tooltip explaining that it protects the writing voice). Comedy and any story-shaped scribe — including memoirs and other factual-but-narrative books — default to off, but you can flip the toggle on any time, for example if your story leans on real people or events. Factual genres (non-fiction, self-help, educational, business, technical, and similar) still default to on. Whichever way you leave the toggle sticks once you've touched it, even if you change the genre afterward. See Understanding Scribe Types for the full matrix.

Why doesn't my story show citations, even though I turned Web Search on?

Story-shaped scribes (story, and any memoir or narrative non-fiction using that Scribe Type) never show citation apparatus — no inline [N] markers, no clickable source links, no "References"/"Sources" block — even with Web Search manually turned on. The research still runs and still informs the writing; it's woven into the prose invisibly instead of being cited, because citation markers interrupt narrative voice. Every non-story scribe type (book, guide, whitepaper, report, article, blog post, training course) keeps normal citation behaviour. See Citations & References.

Does AI Quick Fill know that some form settings affect each other?

Yes. AI Quick Fill and the AI Barista now understand the knock-on effects of the fields they fill — for example, both know that picking Comedy should default Web Search off and Generation Mode to Slow Brew, so they won't hand you a combination that fights itself. They also keep genre words (like "Comedy" or "Memoir") in the Genre field and out of the Scribe Type field, so the scribe resolves the way you'd expect instead of, say, "Comedy" accidentally landing as a custom Scribe Type while Genre stays generic non-fiction.

If my scribe stops mid-generation and I click "Complete Scribe," does it write the rest in order?

For narrative-mode scribes — anything using Pour Over Slow Brew, Pour Over, or Lightning Medium — yes. The remaining sections are generated strictly in book order, one at a time, each threaded with everything written before it as context, exactly as if generation had never stopped. This matters most for a Slow Brew story that got interrupted partway through: without it, the resumed sections could fan out in parallel and lose track of characters or plot established earlier. Fully-parallel Lightning mode is unaffected, since its sections never depended on each other in the first place.

Why does my scribe's writing style change based on reading level, style, and tone?

The writing prompt now calibrates much more consistently to the Reader Level / Age Range, Style, and Tone you picked (or that AI Quick Fill picked for you). A scribe aimed at "Under 12" gets meaningfully simpler vocabulary and shorter sentences than the same topic aimed at "Expert" readers, and a "Casual" style reads differently from "Academic" — including a previously-reported issue where children's-level scribes still read like they were written for adults. These have always been form fields; the improvement is that the AI now reliably applies them.

How do I add research to my writing?

There are several ways to use research in the Workspace:

1. Click Research in the toolbar to search the web and save results as research notes
2. Click Upload to import a PDF, DOCX, TXT, or MD file as a research note
3. In the AI Write cockpit, check research notes in the right panel to include them as context
4. Type @ in any instructions field (AI Write or per-section instructions) to search and reference saved research notes

See Workspace and Research Mode for full details.

What file types can I upload as research?

You can upload PDF, DOCX (Word), TXT (plain text), and MD (Markdown) files. The maximum file size is 5 MB. Uploaded files are saved as research notes and can be referenced when generating content with AI.

My sidebar keeps collapsing when I click a section — what gives?

You probably haven't pinned it. Click the pin icon at the top of the sidebar — a pinned sidebar stays open across every section click, so you can browse chapter-to-chapter without it snapping shut. An unpinned sidebar will auto-collapse on click (to give you maximum room for the editor) and re-open when you hover over the left edge again.

Why does the sidebar sometimes open when I'm just moving my mouse across the screen?

It shouldn't. We added a 150 ms delay before the sidebar opens on hover so a quick cursor pass-by doesn't trigger it. If you're still seeing it open on transit, let us know — that's a bug.

How do I reorder sections within a chapter?

Hover over the section row in the sidebar — the grip handle appears on the left edge (always visible on touch screens). Grab and drag the section up or down to reorder. The new order saves immediately. Cross-chapter drag-and-drop isn't supported in this release — drop a section onto a different chapter and you'll see a "Cross-chapter moves coming soon" toast. For now, deleting + re-adding is the workaround.

How do I combine two sections into one?

Hover over a section, click the ⋯ menu, and choose either Combine with section above or Combine with section below. The two sections merge into one — the lower-numbered section's title is kept, and the content is joined with a blank line. If you change your mind, click Undo in the toast that appears (you have 10 seconds). Any highlights and notes on the merged section are automatically moved to the surviving section so you don't lose them.

What are Cafes in Research Mode?

Cafes are independent research workspaces where you collect material from multiple sources — web searches, academic papers, YouTube videos, and web pages. Each Cafe has its own Serving Tray for curating the best snippets. You can create multiple Cafes for different research topics. Find them under Research in the navigation bar. Available to every signed-in user — the CoffeeScribe Model is pre-selected by default for in-Cafe AI operations, and every user can pick a different model from the picker.

What academic databases can I search?

You can search three academic databases from the Academic dropdown in the search bar:

• OpenAlex — 250M+ works across all disciplines. Best for broad searches with citation counts. Includes journals and preprints.
• arXiv — Preprints in physics, math, computer science, and related fields. Best for cutting-edge research with direct PDF links. Not peer reviewed.
• PubMed — 35M+ biomedical and life sciences articles from NCBI. Best for medical, biology, and health sciences. Mostly peer reviewed.

All three cost the same — a small portion of your allowance per search — and feed into the same Analyze and Add Raw workflows.

What sources can I add to a Cafe?

You can add five types of sources:

• AI Web Search — AI-powered web search with synthesized responses and citations
• Academic Papers — Search millions of papers via OpenAlex, with optional AI analysis
• YouTube Transcripts — Extract transcripts from any YouTube video
• URL Scraping — Extract content from any web page or article
• Document Upload — Upload PDF, DOCX, TXT, or MD files
• Notebook Import — Import highlights and notes from your Scribes

What is the Serving Tray?

The Serving Tray is the right rail in each Cafe. It holds curated snippets — the most useful bits from your research. Highlight text anywhere and use "Add to tray" to save it. You can also add blank notes with the + button for pasting external content. As of W1.13, the tray defaults to a slim collapsed strip (count + top 3 titles) so it doesn't crowd the workspace — expand it to see the full list, drag to reorder, and click any item to read or edit it in the central reading pane. Combine multiple items into one via the Select toggle.

Where did the source cards go? Why does everything look flatter now?

As of W1.13, the Cafe workspace is three zones instead of expanded cards everywhere: a dense sources rail (compact rows, not full cards) on the left, a central reading pane where the full detail of whatever you click — a source, a tray item, or a report — actually renders, and a tray rail on the right. Nothing shows its full content in the side rails anymore; click a row and it opens in the pane with a single toolbar (Analyze, Verify, Add to tray, Copy, Download, Delete, ⓘ metadata) instead of a 5-button row repeated on every card. This declutters the view at large source counts while keeping every capability the old expanded cards had.

How much does Research Mode cost?

All research actions cost tokens. AI Web Search uses the most — a meaningful slice of your allowance per query. Academic paper search, YouTube transcript extraction, URL scraping, and Ask AI / Analyze each cost only a small portion of your allowance. Token estimates are always shown before you confirm an action so you know what you're spending.

What is Analyze source (formerly "Ask AI") on research sources?

Every saved research source has an Analyze source button (sparkle icon). Click it to run AI analysis with presets (Summarize, Key Points, Fact Check, Topics & Structure) or a custom prompt. You can select multiple presets at once. This works on any source type — web search results, transcripts, scraped pages, uploads, or imported notes.

This button used to say "Ask AI" — it was renamed so it doesn't get confused with the new highlight-anywhere Ask AI popover (see below), which is a quick chat about a specific highlighted snippet rather than a full structured analysis of the source.

How do I ask AI about something I'm reading in a Cafe?

Highlight any text — on a source card, a Q&A reply, a tray item, or a research report — and a small popover appears with Ask AI · Verify claim · Save to notebook · Add to tray. You can also right-click a source card to get the same popover scoped to the whole source. Click Ask AI and the "Ask your Cafe" chat opens pre-filled with your selection, ready to send. If you highlighted text inside a specific source or report, the answer automatically takes into account which one it came from.

Can I look up a word while researching?

Yes. Highlight a single word anywhere in a Cafe (a source, a report, the tray) and a Dictionary action appears in the popover instead of the usual four — click it for an instant AI definition, the same popup used in book Reading Mode. There's a "Save to notebook" button right in the definition popup if you want to keep it.

How do I save an Ask-AI answer or a definition to my notebook?

From the highlight popover, click Save to notebook to save a selected passage as a note (grouped under the Cafe's name in Notebooks). From a Dictionary definition, click the Save to notebook button inside the definition popup. From a full Q&A chat answer, use the +Notebook button under the answer.

What's the difference between Grounded and General in "Ask your Cafe"?

Ask Your Cafe has a prominent Grounded / General segmented control above the input, with a helper line explaining the active mode. Grounded (the default everywhere, including when you arrive via the Ask-AI popover) answers strictly from your in-scope Cafe sources and tray items, with citations — if your research doesn't cover the question, it says so instead of guessing. General answers from the AI's own knowledge with no research context and no citations, for background questions your Cafe's material doesn't address. Your choice is remembered across reloads. If a Grounded answer comes back as a refusal, an "Ask the AI directly" button appears to instantly re-run it in General mode.

Can I choose which AI model to use for research?

Yes — every signed-in user gets a model selector below the search bar that's used for all AI operations in that Cafe — web search, paper analysis, and Ask AI. The picker has CoffeeScribe Model recommended and pre-selected at the top, ~12 curated alternatives, then a collapsed advanced disclosure for the full 350+ catalogue (at your own risk). Each result card shows which model was used and how many tokens were charged.

Does web search work with all models?

Yes. Web search works with every model in the selector, not just Perplexity Sonar. The AI receives real-time web results regardless of which model you choose. Different models may interpret and present web results differently — experiment to find what works best.

Can I edit tray item text?

Yes. Click on any tray item's text to open an inline editor. You can modify the content directly in the textarea — trim irrelevant parts, fix wording, or add your own annotations. Press Ctrl+Enter (Cmd+Enter on Mac) to save your changes, or Escape to cancel. Each tray item supports up to 100,000 characters.

How do I add notes to my Serving Tray?

Click the + button in the Serving Tray header to create a blank editable note. This lets you paste in content from external sources (emails, other tools, your own writing) or write observations alongside your research. The note is saved as a regular tray item that you can reorder, edit, combine, or use in your Workspace like any other item.

How do I combine tray items?

Click the Select toggle in the Serving Tray header to enter selection mode. Checkboxes appear on each item — select two or more, then click Combine. The selected items are merged into a single item with --- separators between each original piece. An undo option appears for 5 seconds after combining. This is useful for assembling related excerpts from different sources into one consolidated reference.

What identifier types can I paste into a Cafe?

The identifier input (alongside the search bar in a Cafe) auto-detects: DOI (e.g. 10.1126/science.1099196), ISBN (e.g. 978-0-525-55947-4), PMID (e.g. 12345678), arXiv ID (e.g. 2305.12345), ISSN (e.g. 0036-8075), URL (including bare domains like www.bbc.co.uk). The submit button is disabled when the type is unrecognised. Identifier paste is available to every signed-in user.

What citation styles does CoffeeScribe support in Research Cafes?

Eight styles are available in the Cafe Settings panel (gear icon): APA 7 (default, via citation-js), APA 6, MLA 9, Chicago Notes-Bibliography, Chicago Author-Date (new in W1.2), Harvard Cite Them Right 2025, IEEE (new in W1.2), and Vancouver (new in W1.2). The style applies to all enriched source cards in that Cafe and to the bibliography of any Auto-Write Report. Change it any time in Settings — the change takes effect immediately on re-render. This is a per-Cafe setting, so different Cafes can use different styles. You can also override the style per-export on the Export Modal when you export a bibliography (e.g. report is APA 7, export as MLA 9).

Why are some IEEE / Vancouver citations rendered with the full journal title instead of the abbreviation?

IEEE and Vancouver styles ship with curated journal-abbreviation lookups — about 60 entries for IEEE (top IEEE Transactions) and ~180 for Vancouver (common medical journals). If your journal isn't in the curated list, the renderer falls back to the full title instead of inventing an abbreviation. The full NLM/MEDLINE list (~30k entries) is deferred to a follow-up so we don't bloat the main Cafe bundle. If you regularly cite a journal that's missing, let us know via feedback — we'll add it.

What is Auto-Write Research Report?

Auto-Write turns a Research Cafe into a fully-cited research output — a prose report, a brief, a comparison table, a slide deck, or a data spreadsheet. Click the Auto-Write (✨) button in the Cafe toolbar to open the dialog. Pick one of four modes (Topic, From Sources, Tray + Sources, or From Tray) and optionally select an output format and cross-cutting options. Reports are saved as artefacts in the Cafe and are URL-addressable at /cafe/[cafeId]/artefact/[artefactId]. See Auto-Write Research Reports for the full walkthrough.

What output formats does Auto-Write support?

Auto-Write now supports five output formats — select in the dialog before generating:

All formats use the same citation pipeline — [N] markers and a References section are present in every format. Four cross-cutting options compose into any format: answer-first vs narrative structure, confidence signalling, "What we couldn't determine" section, and a word cap.

Can I change the citation style on a report after generating it?

Yes. Open the full-screen report viewer (click View Report on the report card), then use the Citation style dropdown and click Apply. The bibliography re-renders in the new style and in-text markers convert for author-date styles. This is non-destructive — the raw markers in the stored body are never rewritten, so you can switch styles freely.

Available styles: APA 7, APA 6, MLA 9, Chicago Notes-Bibliography, Chicago Author-Date, Harvard, IEEE.

Can I click [N] markers in a report?

Yes. In the full-screen report viewer, clicking any [N] in-text marker scrolls to and flashes the corresponding source in the Sources column. On shared/standalone report pages (no Sources column visible), clicking a [N] scrolls down to the bibliography entry for that source.

Bibliography entries are also clickable — click any entry to open the original source URL in a new tab.

Can I copy or download a research report?

Yes. The report viewer has Copy and Download (.md) buttons in the header. Copy puts the full report text (body + bibliography) on your clipboard. Download saves a .md file you can import into Notion, Obsidian, Word, or any Markdown editor.

What's the difference between Auto-Write's four input modes?

Auto-Write now has four modes — pick from the tabs in the dialog:

The two-pass workflow (Topic → curate → From Tray) still produces the highest-quality targeted reports. From Sources is the fast lane when curation isn't needed.

How much does Auto-Write cost?

Cost depends on the depth tier you pick (Topic mode) or the source count (From Tray / From Sources modes). The Auto-Write dialog shows both the estimated cost and the active hard cap before you confirm. Hard caps are depth-scaled:

If a run would exceed the active cap, it is rejected before any cost is charged. Costs are deducted from your token balance regardless of tier.

My Auto-Write report is taking a long time — did it fail?

Probably not. Cafes with more than 8 sources run a multi-pass pipeline: a planner, per-section writers, and a completeness critic — which can take 2–10 minutes depending on source count. The dialog stays open and:

• Shows a spinner for the first 3 minutes, polling for completion every 3 seconds.
• Switches to "Still writing…" after 3 minutes and polls every 10 seconds for up to 10 minutes total.
• Surfaces the report automatically when it finishes — no manual refresh needed.

If the run actually failed, you will see an error message in place of the spinner — not a silent hang. If you navigated away, come back to the Cafe; the report card appears in the Reports section as soon as the job completes.

Why did my APA 7 (or Harvard) citation show the title instead of the author name?

That is correct behaviour for sources with no named author. Author-date styles (APA 7, Harvard, Chicago Author-Date, MLA 9) now fall back to a short title when a source has no author — for example (AI Safety Overview, 2024) — instead of leaking a bare [N] marker into the prose. The title fallback also applies to sources whose only "author" is a generic CMS byline like "admin", "Editor", or "Staff" — those are excluded from citation authorship entirely.

Why does the citation-style picker in Auto-Write now show an example?

Hovering any style in the picker shows a preview example — an in-text citation and a matching reference list entry in that style — so you can compare formats before committing. Nothing is generated until you click Run.

What is the "Research used" block on a report?

Every Auto-Write report now includes a Research used section at the bottom listing every source that informed the report — even if the report was generated as a Summary or Explainer with citations hidden. This is distinct from the bibliography (which shows only sources explicitly cited with [N] markers). Use it to trace which sources contributed to a report even when in-text markers aren't visible.

What is the Auto-Write sparse-source warning?

If a Topic-mode run finishes with fewer than three usable sources, Auto-Write surfaces a sparse-source warning on the report. It means the topic was too narrow, too niche, or too recent for the providers you have enabled — the report may lack depth. Fix it by either broadening the topic or enabling additional providers (e.g. an Apify Actor for community discussion or a non-academic angle) and re-running. The report is still saved either way; the warning is a heads-up, not a failure.

What is the Bibliography Editor?

Every Auto-Write Report has an Edit Bibliography button that opens the per-Report Bibliography Editor at /cafe/[cafeId]/artefact/[artefactId]/bibliography. It lists each citation as an edit card with a live preview, lets you edit fields (authors, title, journal, year, etc.), delete a citation, replace it with a freshly enriched source via the identifier-paste flow, or add a new citation manually. Manual citations create a cafe_sources row of type manual_entry. The editor is per-Report — different reports in the same Cafe can have different bibliographies.

What export formats does the Bibliography Editor support?

Four formats, plus a per-export citation-style override (defaults to the report's style but can be set to any of the 8 styles):

• BibTeX (.bib) — one file with all entries, Zotero/JabRef/BibDesk-import-ready
• RIS (.ris) — one file with all entries, Mendeley/EndNote/Citavi-import-ready
• PDF — one file per source with title, abstract, full URL, and formatted citation
• Markdown — one file per source for pasting into Obsidian, Notion, GitHub

The PDF format uses @react-pdf/renderer (lazy-loaded so it doesn't bloat the main Cafe bundle) and bundles the Inter font to render diacritics correctly. Whole-report PDF (the report body, not just sources) is deferred to a follow-up.

What is Detect Conflicts?

Detect Conflicts is an LLM-semantic background job that compares pairs of sources in your Cafe and flags factual disagreements between them. Click the Detect Conflicts (⚡) button in the Cafe toolbar to start a run. The model reads pairs of sources and reports if they disagree on any checkable claim — "Source A says X; Source B says not-X". Results land as a Conflict Report artefact in the amber Conflict Reports section of the Cafe's left column. Use it before publishing a literature review to spot disagreements you'll need to address. See Auto-Write Research Reports → Detecting conflicts.

What does Detect Conflicts cover — Tray, Report, or whole Cafe?

The whole Cafe. Conflict Detect scans every cafe_sources row in the Cafe, not just Tray items or the sources in a specific Report. The pre-filter skips obviously unrelated pairs to keep cost in check, but the universe is "everything you've gathered in this Cafe". If you want a conflict report scoped to a Tray's curated set, copy the Tray into a fresh Cafe and run Detect Conflicts there.

How much does Detect Conflicts cost? Are there limits?

The cost is O(n²) with the source count (every pair must be compared), mitigated by a token-overlap pre-filter that skips clearly unrelated pairs. Hard cap: $0.50 per run — the job aborts if it would exceed that. Soft rate-limit: one run per Cafe per 5 minutes (a second click within the window is ignored). For a Cafe with ~10 sources you typically see a run cost a few cents and finish in 10-30 seconds; very large Cafes may need to be split.

What is the "N potential conflicts" badge?

After any Auto-Research run completes, CoffeeScribe automatically runs a free, lexical-only scan of your Cafe's sources for possible factual disagreements — no AI model call, no tokens charged. If it finds candidate overlaps, a calm amber "N potential conflicts" chip appears next to the Detect Conflicts button. It's a nudge ("these might disagree"), not a verdict — click it to open the same Detect Conflicts dialog, which still costs tokens if you choose to run the full AI check. The count persists with the run, so it's still there if you come back to the Cafe later.

Is the "N potential conflicts" badge the same as Detect Conflicts?

No — they're two tiers of the same idea. The badge is a free, automatic, lexical-only nudge that runs after every Auto-Research completion with no cost and no AI call. Detect Conflicts is the paid, AI-powered pass you trigger manually (see How much does Detect Conflicts cost? above) that actually reads pairs of sources and reports real factual disagreements. Clicking the badge opens the Detect Conflicts dialog — it does not run the paid check automatically.

What's the difference between Auto-Write Reports and Conflict Reports?

Both are saved as artefacts, but they answer different questions. Auto-Write Reports are research write-ups — prose with inline citations and a bibliography. Conflict Reports are triangulation outputs — a list of fact-level disagreements between source pairs with both citations linked. Verify cited reports are the cited write-ups automatically produced when a Verify claim loop completes. Auto-Write and Verify reports both live in the sources rail's Reports group (W1.6.1); Conflict Reports live in their own Conflicts group. Any can be added to the Tray to fold into a follow-up synthesis.

Where do I find the Reports section in a Cafe?

Auto-Write reports and Verify cited reports live together in the sources rail's Reports group (W1.6.1; rehomed from a card-based section to the rail in W1.13). Use Group or narrow with Show → Reports to find them, listed newest-first. Click a row to open the full report in the central reading pane — reports no longer expand inline in a card. Conflict Reports have their own Conflicts group alongside it.

Why does a verify report appear in my Serving Tray automatically?

When a Verify claim loop completes, the cited report is automatically added to your Serving Tray as well as saved in the Reports group. This happens for Auto-Write reports too. Click that tray item and its reading-pane view shows an "Open report" link at the top — click it to jump straight to the full-screen artefact viewer. You can delete the tray item if you don't want it there; the report in the Reports group is unaffected.

I ran Verify on a source and re-verified it later — where is the first report?

Both reports are in the sources rail's Reports group. It lists every report row, so the prior verify report stays reachable even after you run a second verify on the same source. The source's "View report →" link tracks the latest verdict, but all prior reports remain reachable in the Reports group (W1.6.1 fix for re-verify orphaning).

I saved a Q&A answer to Notebooks — where is my note?

As of W1.6.1, notes saved to Notebooks from a Cafe Q&A answer are grouped under the Cafe's name in the Notebooks left panel — not under Free Notes. Open Notebooks and look for the Cafe's name in the left panel (it appears between Free Notes and your Scribes). Notes saved before W1.6.1 are still under Free Notes; only new saves go to the Cafe group.

What is the "Saved from Q&A" group in the Sources rail?

When you click +Source on a Q&A answer, the promoted source is saved with the rag_answer source type (W1.6.1). In the Sources rail, these sources are grouped under "Saved from Q&A" — a proper named group based on the source type, not a title-prefix hack. The citations from the Q&A answer are preserved in the source content.

Can I add an Auto-Write Report or Conflict Report to my Serving Tray?

Yes. Open any report in the reading pane — Auto-Write, Verify, or Conflict — and its toolbar's Add to tray action pulls a synthesis snippet of the report into the Serving Tray. From there you can feed it into another Auto-Write run, reference it via @-mentions in the Workspace, or carry it through to a Scribe via the Workspace's Cafe Trays tab.

Where is the "Add Source by Identifier" input now?

The identifier-paste input (DOI / ISBN / PMID / arXiv / ISSN / URL) lives behind a compact "Add by identifier" chip in the search bar's info row (next to the model picker), keeping the toolbar tidy. Click the chip to open a drawer containing the identifier-paste input along with Cafe Settings and Providers. Paste your identifier there and CoffeeScribe auto-detects the type.

What happens when I try to Tray an empty-content source?

When you click the Tray button on a source card whose body content is empty (e.g. an OpenAlex paper with no abstract), a confirmation dialog now opens with three options:

• Scrape full article — fires an Apify URL scrape for the source's URL, populates the content, then adds it to the Tray. Costs a small URL-scrape fee (~3,000 tokens).
• Add anyway — adds the source as-is, just the metadata. Free.
• Cancel — closes the dialog.

This replaces the previous silent path where empty sources used to land in the Tray with nothing useful to read.

Can I share a single Auto-Write report without sharing my whole Cafe?

Yes. Click the Share button that appears on an expanded report card in the Cafe column, or click Share in the full-screen report page. A dialog opens where you toggle Enable sharing on and copy the share URL. The report link is completely independent of Cafe sharing — recipients can read the report without being able to access the rest of your Cafe.

Recipients must be signed in to Coffeescribe to open the link. The link does not work for anonymous visitors. Toggle sharing off at any time to immediately revoke access.

Can non-Coffeescribe users read my shared report?

Not currently. Shared report links require the viewer to be signed in to a Coffeescribe account. Anyone who follows the link without being signed in will be redirected to the sign-in page. Truly-public (anonymous-accessible) sharing is planned for a future update.

Where do my Auto-Write reports appear in the Cafe?

Generated Auto-Write reports persist as rows in the sources rail's Reports group (reach it via Group → Reports or Show → Reports), so they're re-openable without needing to remember or bookmark a URL. Click a row to read the full body + bibliography in the central reading pane — reports no longer expand inline in a card (W1.13). You can drag-select text in the pane to add it to your Serving Tray.

Why do some reports show citations and others don't?

Citation display defaults depend on the scribe type used when the report was generated:

A Show / Hide citations toggle is available on every report so you can override the default. When hidden, inline [N] markers and the bibliography section are both concealed — the prose reads cleanly. Toggle them on to verify sources.

Why do APA 7 reports now show "(Smith, 2022)" instead of "[1]"?

APA 7 style uses author-date in-text citations, not numbered superscripts. As of W1.3, reports generated with APA 7 citation style have their in-text markers post-processed to the correct format after the AI writes the draft: (Smith, 2022), (Smith & Jones, 2022), (Smith et al., 2022). Web sources without structured author/year metadata continue to render as [N] + URL in the bibliography. Other citation styles (Vancouver, IEEE, MLA, Chicago) continue to use numbered [N] markers as before.

What happens to tray items that don't have a source when I use From Tray mode?

Plain notes (tray items you wrote yourself or added without a linked source) are included in the report as observations — they're woven into the prose without citation markers, and they do not appear in the bibliography. Only source-linked tray items (snippets from a search result, academic paper, or uploaded document) are cited with [N] markers and listed in the bibliography.

The From Tray dialog now shows the count of source-linked items and notes separately so you know what will be cited and what will be included as observation only.

What happens when I paste a DOI or ISBN now?

After fetching citation metadata (Crossref, OpenAlex, PubMed, etc.), CoffeeScribe now automatically attempts to scrape the full article body from the source URL in the background. For open-access articles this retrieves readable content. For paywalled publishers (Nature, Elsevier, etc.) the scrape is typically blocked and the enrichment metadata plus abstract are kept as the source content. Either way the 200 response arrives immediately — the body scrape is best-effort and doesn't slow down the flow.

Why doesn't W1.2 ship the "Draft Scribe from Cafe" button?

The backend, dialog, and per-button tests for Cafe → Scribe (Draft Scribe) all shipped in W1.2 but the three entry-point buttons (Cafe header, Tray, Report viewer) are hidden behind a feature flag (DRAFT_SCRIBE_UI_ENABLED = false). They'll be turned on in a future update once we close the Workspace-visibility gap — that is, when the Scribe Workspace can render rich inline citations from the enriched book_citations rows that Draft Scribe creates.

What scope does the Bibliography Editor cover — per Report or per Cafe?

Per Report. The Bibliography Editor opens at /cafe/[cafeId]/artefact/[artefactId]/bibliography — one artefactId per Auto-Write Report. Different reports in the same Cafe can therefore have different bibliographies. To review the raw sources in your Cafe outside of any report, use the existing Serving Tray and source-card surfaces from W1.1.

What does the source quality star rating mean?

The 1–3 star score (⭐ to ⭐⭐⭐) is a heuristic signal, not an editorial judgment. It's computed from four factors: metadata completeness (full enrichment = more stars), source tier (academic journal = more stars), recency (older sources = fewer stars), and citation count (from OpenAlex when available). Hover the stars to see the numeric score (0–100) and a per-component breakdown. Use it as a quick filter — don't reject a source solely because it scored 1 star (a recent blog post about a niche topic may score lower than a 1980s journal article, but that doesn't mean the blog is wrong).

Note (W1.4, reworded W1.6.2): The star score has been replaced by a source-detail badge — Well-documented / Some research / Limited research / No details — as the primary at-a-glance signal on source cards. It describes how much we know about the source, not whether it's true. The numeric quality detail is still visible inside the badge tooltip. See below for details.

What does the source-detail badge mean on a source card?

The badge (showing Well-documented, Some research, Limited research, or No details) is an automatic, structural read of how much detail we've captured about a source — not a judgement of whether it's accurate. The weak end is grey, never red: "Limited research" means we've only got a little about it (often just a link), not that it's fake. It looks at: any academic identifier (a DOI/PMID/arXiv id, even in the URL, marks a peer-reviewed work as authoritative), the source tier (academic journal vs social post), whether a named author and a publication date are present, domain reputation, and how complete the metadata is.

The badge updates automatically when a source is added or enriched — no action is needed. Hover it to see the reasons behind the rating.

Does the source-detail badge mean the source has been fact-checked?

No — and that's the key thing. "Well-documented" means we have a lot of detail about the source (named author, DOI, academic tier, reputable domain). It does not mean any claim in it has been checked against other sources.

Whether a claim actually checks out is the separate Verify feature: every source card has a working "Verify claim" button that cross-references the claim against other, independent sources and returns a verdict (see the next entry). The source-detail badge is a fast structural screen, not a truth guarantee — always read the source (and Verify important claims) before citing it.

What does "Verify claim" do?

Verify claim runs a real cross-reference research loop on a source in your Research Cafe. When you click it, a dialog opens that:

1. Shows the source's main checkable claims (extracted by AI in a cheap preview pass).
2. Lets you pick which to verify — the main one is pre-checked, or select "verify all", or type your own.
3. Lets you set a token ceiling — the agent searches within that budget.

After you confirm, the dialog closes and the card shows "Verifying…". When the loop finishes, the card badge resolves to one of four verdicts: Verified, Contradicted, Mixed, or Couldn't verify. Click View evidence on the card to see the supporting and opposing sources the agent found, each saved as a real source in your Cafe.

Both verify loops are available to every signed-in user. See Verify Claim & Find Credible Source for the full walkthrough.

Does "Verify claim" now produce a full report?

Yes. As of W1.6, the Verify loop automatically produces a cited report in the Reports section of your Cafe when it completes. You do not need to click anything extra. The report has one section per verified claim — a heading (the claim), a verdict line, 1–2 paragraphs with inline [N] citations drawn from the evidence the agent found, and a References list containing only the sources actually cited in the body.

The card also keeps the inline evidence panel (click "View evidence") which shows the raw underlying/supporting/opposing sources. The two are complementary — the evidence panel is the detailed agent output; the cited report is the synthesised readable version.

See Verify Claim & Cited Report for the full walkthrough.

What does "Verify claim" produce — a verdict or a report?

Both. The verdict badge (Verified / Contradicted / Mixed / Couldn't verify) appears on the source card. The cited report is saved automatically to the Reports section. The inline evidence panel (click "View evidence") shows the underlying sources the agent checked. All three are produced by the same run at no extra charge.

What do the verify verdicts mean?

What does "Couldn't verify" mean — did it fail?

No. "Couldn't verify" is an honest answer, not a failure. It means the agent searched for evidence and could not find enough to reach a confident verdict. This can happen because:

• The claim is an opinion or subjective statement — not falsifiable.
• The claim is too niche or too recent — peer-reviewed literature doesn't yet exist.
• The claim is simply underdocumented — even a thorough search found nothing definitive.

A "Couldn't verify" card shows everything the agent checked — which sources it found and why it couldn't reach a verdict. This is useful context before deciding whether to cite the claim.

Does "Verify claim" in a Research Cafe cost tokens?

Yes. The verify loop runs web and academic searches, which costs tokens from your balance. The exact estimate is shown in the confirm dialog before you commit — no tokens are charged unless you click Verify. The cost is similar to a Quick Auto-Research run on a single focused claim. Verifying multiple claims or raising the token ceiling costs proportionally more.

Is "Verify claim" in the Cafe the same as "Verify Validity" in the Workspace?

They are different features:

• Verify claim (Research Cafes) — cross-references a claim in a research source against external evidence. The loop finds corroborating and opposing evidence from the web and academic databases and saves them as real sources in your Cafe. Available to every signed-in user.
• Verify Validity (Workspace) — fact-checks claims in your scribe content and returns verdicts with web source links. Available to every signed-in user. The results are saved to Notebooks as verification notes.

Use Verify claim when you want to know whether a source you gathered is accurate. Use Verify Validity when you want to fact-check the scribe you are writing.

What is "Find the Truth"?

Find the Truth (W1.11) is a toolbar button in a Research Cafe, available to every signed-in user, that turns any claim — or question — into a researched probability that it's true, plus a cited report. Unlike Verify claim, which checks a claim already sitting in a source you gathered, Find the Truth researches a claim you type from scratch: it gathers supporting evidence, separately hunts for the strongest evidence against the claim, weighs everything by source credibility, and returns a probability, a plain-language "What we found" answer, an evidence breakdown, and the strongest counter-evidence it found. See Find the Truth & Claim Evidence Matrix for the full walkthrough.

What does the Find the Truth percentage mean? Why isn't it ever 0% or 100%?

The percentage is an evidence-weighted estimate, not a certainty — it's clamped between 5% and 95% on purpose. Even overwhelming evidence stops short of absolute certainty, and even a claim with almost no evidence found never rounds down to a flat zero. The number is computed by a fixed, deterministic formula from the weighed evidence (anchored on the model's overall reading of the sources) — it is not a raw "ask the AI what it thinks" guess.

Why did my claim only score in the mid-80s even though I know it's true?

Check the evidence breakdown for the credibility tiers behind the score. Sources are weighed by tier — peer-reviewed/authoritative sources carry the most weight, then established news, then general web, with unknown-tier sources (which currently includes most Wikipedia sources) carrying the least. If a claim's only supporting sources are Wikipedia, several of them together still can't push the probability much past the mid-80s, even for a claim that's genuinely well-established (this is a known example: "JFK was assassinated," backed only by Wikipedia sources, currently lands around 84%). "Unknown" tier means we haven't assessed this source — not that it's untrustworthy.

What sources does Find the Truth use?

Web search, academic databases (OpenAlex, arXiv, PubMed), news search, and Wikipedia. It deliberately excludes social media, Google Scholar, and manual URL scraping for a truth run specifically — a probability verdict should only draw on sources that can responsibly move it. Those other tools remain available in the Cafe generally (search bar, Auto-Research).

Why does the verdict card sometimes say "we've weighed the sources as a whole" instead of showing supporting/against sources?

This happens when the system can't confidently label each individual source as "for" or "against" the claim — most often on claims involving negation or absolute wording ("always," "never," "everyone"). Rather than risk mislabeling a source, the card falls back to a neutral, honest framing. The headline probability is unaffected — it's still computed from the same weighed evidence, just displayed without a per-source split that couldn't be trusted.

Does Find the Truth cost tokens?

Yes. Find the Truth is available to every signed-in user and costs tokens — it runs two full research passes (evidence for the claim, then a separate counter-research pass against it) plus scoring and report writing, so it's one of the pricier research actions. A cost estimate for your chosen depth is shown before you run it; nothing is charged until you confirm. The companion Claim Evidence Matrix (/research/[cafeId]/claims) is free to view for every signed-in user — it's a read view of evidence already gathered.

What is the Claim Evidence Matrix, and is it different from Find the Truth?

The Claim Evidence Matrix (/research/[cafeId]/claims, reached via the Claims chip) is a claim-centric table showing every claim checked in your Cafe — by Find the Truth or by Verify claim — with supporting/contradicting/silent sources grouped by credibility tier and deduped to "independent roots" (so several articles quoting one wire story count once, not several times). It's free to view for every signed-in user because it's just a view of evidence you've already gathered — there's no new research cost to look at it.

What is "independent roots" on the claim matrix?

It's a dedup count for corroborating evidence: if three news articles all trace back to the same original wire story or press release, that counts as one independent root, not three. This prevents evidence from looking more corroborated than it actually is just because a story got widely republished. A heuristic pass (matching by DOI or normalized URL) runs automatically; an optional AI "Refine independence" pass (small token cost, consent required, result persisted so re-running doesn't re-charge) can resolve ambiguous same-domain clusters more precisely.

What is "Earlier research" in the Sources rail?

Sources gathered by the older AI web-search path (before W1.4) — where the AI combined multiple results into a single synthesized response blob — are grouped under an "Earlier research" group in the sources rail (or reached via Show → Earlier research). They are preserved exactly as gathered and rendered read-only.

"Earlier research" rows do not show a source-detail badge, Verify button, or full reading-pane detail beyond the raw response (they are multi-result blobs the per-document reading view can't correctly represent). The "Well-researched only" filter hides them. Your research data is never deleted — if you have older cafes, their content remains accessible in this group. As of W1.13, "Earlier research" rows do get a scope checkbox — even though their content is read-only, they can still ground Q&A answers, so you need full control over whether they're included in scope.

What does the "Well-researched only" filter do?

The "Well-researched only" toggle in the sources rail hides sources with a Limited research or No details badge, leaving only Well-documented and Some research sources visible. It also hides "Earlier research" legacy entries. Use it when you want to see only the well-detailed sources you'd feel comfortable citing.

The toggle is visual only — it does not delete anything. Toggle it off to see all sources again.

What does the grouping knob in the Sources rail do?

The Group control switches how sources are grouped in the rail. As of W1.13 there are five options:

• Question (default when your research used fan-out sub-questions) — by the sub-question that produced each source
• Type (default otherwise) — by source type (Web, Academic, YouTube, Reddit, …)
• Used — splits into "Used" (cited in a report or added to the Tray) vs "Unused"
• Detail — groups by Well-documented / Some research / Limited research / No details
• Verify — groups by verification status
• None — a flat list with no grouping

Groups render as collapsible headers in the rail (large groups collapse by default so the rail stays scannable at 1,000+ rows). A separate Show dropdown narrows the rail to exactly one category at a time — a single type, Reports, Conflicts, or Earlier research — the same at-a-glance isolation the old pill row gave you. Both controls are purely view preferences — they change nothing about your data — and your choices are remembered per Cafe.

What is the "Used in reports" section inside a source?

Open any source in the reading pane — a "Used in reports" section appears if that source was cited in one of your Auto-Write reports. It shows the exact passage(s) the report extracted from the source — the sentence or excerpt the AI used to support a claim — tagged with which report used it.

This means a source your report cited is never a bare reference: you can always see what the report took from it, and verify it against the original. Multiple passages appear if the source was cited for more than one claim.

What is the Metadata Health badge on source cards?

The coloured pill (Full / Partial / URL only) shows how complete the enrichment data is for a source. Full (green) means all structured fields are present (author, year, journal, volume, issue, pages, DOI). Partial (amber) means some fields are missing. URL only (grey) means the enrichment returned only a bare URL — no structured metadata. The badge helps you quickly spot sources worth citing vs. sources that need manual verification.

Why do I need to consent to each Apify provider before using it?

Each Apify Actor scrapes a different platform — LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Google Scholar, Reddit, or YouTube. Each platform has its own terms of service regarding automated access. The consent modal shows a plain-language summary of the relevant risks and the approximate per-result token cost before you enable an Actor. Consent is recorded per Cafe per Actor — you only see the modal once per Actor per Cafe. You can revoke consent (and disable the Actor) at any time by toggling it off in the Provider Picker.

Does CoffeeScribe scrape LinkedIn?

Yes, when you explicitly enable the LinkedIn Actor in the Cafe Provider Picker and consent to its terms. The Actor is provided by a third-party Apify developer (apimaestro/LinkedIn Profile Detail) and runs on Apify's infrastructure. LinkedIn's terms of service prohibit scraping; Apify absorbs that risk on their side. Your queries are not attributed to your personal LinkedIn account. This Actor is available to every signed-in user and requires per-Cafe consent. You can disable it at any time.

What's the maximum references per search?

Up to 25 per search, for every signed-in user — the same ceiling regardless of account. Set it in Cafe Settings; leave it on Auto (default, resolves to 7) if you don't need a fixed count.

How do citations work in research results?

When you run a web search, the AI cites its sources as clickable links within the text. A numbered Citations section appears at the bottom of each result with all referenced URLs. You can click any citation to open the original source.

How do I know where a tray item came from?

Each tray item shows a small source provenance label — for example, "Web: coffee brewing methods", "YouTube: video title", or "Academic: paper title". Items you created manually show "Manual note". These labels appear in the Serving Tray, the Workspace Cafe Trays tab, and the import modal. When you import tray items into a Scribe section, the source attribution includes the original query and URL.

Do tray items from Auto-Research show which sources they were synthesised from?

Yes. As of W1.6, tray items produced by Auto-Research (Key Findings, Summary, Best Quotes, etc.) show clickable source chips beneath the item text. Each chip is numbered [1], [2], … with the source title or domain as a label. Click a chip to open that source in the reading pane. This lets you trace every synthesised claim back to the source that supported it.

What is "Ask Your Cafe" — is it still a chat bubble?

Not anymore. As of W1.13, Ask Your Cafe is the home view of the central reading pane — not a floating chat bubble in the bottom-right corner. Open a Cafe and, whenever nothing else is open in the pane (no source, tray item, or report selected), you're looking at the chat, ready for a question, with an overview strip (source count, in-scope count, conflicts badge, latest-report link) above it. Click any source, tray item, or report and the chat tucks behind it — click "← Ask your Cafe" in the pane to come back. On mobile, an "Ask" button opens the same chat. The AI answers using only your Cafe's in-scope material and cites sources with numbered references like [1], [2] — click any citation to open the original source in the pane. Q&A uses Gemini 2.5 Flash, separate from the model you choose for web search.

How do I make Ask-Your-Cafe answer only from certain sources?

Use the checkboxes on the sources rail (left side of the Cafe) — every source row (including legacy "Earlier research" rows) has a checkbox controlling whether it's included in Grounded Q&A answers. The rail header shows "N of M in scope," and each group has a toggle-all control for bulk scoping. Unlike the old session-only funnel filter, this choice is saved — it persists across reloads and sessions, not just for the current chat. Explicit "ask about THIS source" requests from the Ask-AI popover still override the checkboxes for that one question.

Why did Q&A answer when I unchecked all my sources?

Because your Serving Tray is never scope-gated — Ask Your Cafe treats tray items as already-curated and always available, regardless of the sources-rail checkboxes. If you uncheck every source but still have items in your Serving Tray, Q&A answers from the tray with an honest "Answering from 0 of N sources" banner on the reply, so you always know exactly what grounded the answer. Only when there's truly nothing in scope anywhere (no checked sources AND an empty tray) do you get the "all sources are toggled off" message instead of an answer.

Why does Ask Your Cafe show a spinner?

Your sources are being processed for search. When you add new research to a Cafe, the system chunks and embeds the text so it can be searched by Q&A. This takes a few seconds. The chat is available immediately so you know Q&A is coming, and the spinner disappears once processing is complete.

Is my research data sent to external services for Q&A?

No. Your research text is processed into searchable embeddings locally on the server using the nomic-embed model. No research content is sent to any external embedding API. The only external call is when the AI generates an answer to your question — and it only receives the relevant passages, not your entire Cafe.

How do citations work in Q&A answers?

When the AI answers a question, it cites passages as numbered references like [1], [2]. These appear as clickable badges in the answer. Click one to scroll to the original source in your Cafe. When you copy an answer, the full reference list is automatically appended so the citations remain meaningful outside the chat.

What does "Clear Chat" do?

Clear Chat permanently deletes all Q&A history for that Cafe and resets the conversation. This cannot be undone. Use it when you want a fresh start — for example, after your research has changed significantly.

How much does Q&A cost?

Each question uses a small portion of your token allowance (varies by answer length). There's also a small one-time embedding cost when research sources are first added (chunks roughly every few thousand characters). Embedding happens automatically in the background, and the per-action estimate is always shown before you confirm.

Can I save Q&A answers?

Yes. Each answer has action buttons: Copy (with references appended), +Tray (save to Serving Tray — titled "Cafe chat: {your question}", citations preserved and clickable), +Source (save as a new research source — saved as a "rag_answer" source type and grouped under "Saved from Q&A" in the Sources rail), +Notebook (save to Notebooks as a cafe note, grouped under this Cafe's title in the Notebooks left panel — not under Free Notes), and Delete (remove single entry).

Do citations survive when I save a Q&A answer to the Tray or Notebooks?

Yes. All three promote actions preserve the source references from the answer:

• Save to Tray — the tray item shows clickable [N] chips. Click one to open the cited source in the reading pane.
• Save as source — the promoted source is saved as a rag_answer source type (W1.6.1) and grouped under "Saved from Q&A" in the Sources rail.
• Save to Notebooks — the note is saved as a cafe note (W1.6.1) and grouped under this Cafe's title in the Notebooks left panel. It is separate from Free Notes. Open Notebooks and look for the Cafe's name in the panel.

If you saved Q&A answers before W1.6, those older notes still exist but display without clickable citations (the references were stored as text rather than source IDs). If you saved Q&A answers to Notebooks before W1.6.1, those notes appear under Free Notes (the old path); new saves go under the Cafe's title.

Can I share a Cafe with someone?

Yes. Open a Cafe, click Share in the toolbar, and toggle sharing on. A read-only link is generated that you can copy and send to any Coffeescribe user. Viewers can browse your sources, tray items, and ask Q&A questions — but they cannot search, add sources, or modify anything. Their Q&A uses their own tokens and is not saved to your Cafe.

Who pays for Q&A on a shared Cafe?

The viewer pays. When someone asks a Q&A question on your shared Cafe, the tokens are deducted from their account, not yours. Their Q&A history is session-only and disappears when they close the page.

How do I stop sharing a Cafe?

Open the Share dialog and toggle sharing off. The link immediately stops working. You can also click "Regenerate link" to create a new URL — the old one is permanently invalidated.

Is shared Cafe content moderated?

You are responsible for the content in your shared Cafes. Coffeescribe does not review shared research content. If a viewer encounters inappropriate material, they can report it via the Report Content button on the public scribe — a modal opens with a pre-filled email template, and the viewer sends it to support@coffeescribe.ai with subject REPORT CONTENT (all caps). See the Content Guidelines for the full reporting steps. AI-generated research may also contain inaccuracies — see our AI Content Policy for details.

Can I rename research sources?

Yes. Double-click any research source title to edit it inline. Press Enter or click away to save, or Escape to cancel. This helps you organise sources when the auto-generated titles aren't descriptive enough.

Can I paste a list of links into a Research Cafe?

Yes. As of May 2026 (Epic 11.1), the Cafe search bar auto-detects when you paste two or more sources and opens a batch import modal automatically — no separate button. Paste a mixed blob of YouTube URLs, article links, free-text web queries, and arxiv: / pubmed: / openalex: prefixed academic queries (newline-, comma-, or whitespace-separated) and each item is dispatched to the correct backend in parallel. One bad URL doesn't stop the rest — failures are isolated per row, retried up to 3 times on transient errors (5xx, 429, timeout, Apify), and surfaced with the underlying error message so you can hit Retry on just the failed ones. Every signed-in user can batch up to 50 items.

How much does batch import cost in a Research Cafe?

The batch modal uses the same per-item fees as the single-input search bar — there is no separate batch surcharge. Each item is billed individually on success: ~8,000-10,000 tokens per AI Web Search, 2,000 tokens per academic search (OpenAlex / arXiv / PubMed), 5,000 tokens per YouTube transcript, 3,000 tokens per URL scrape. The modal shows a pre-flight total (sum of every parsed item) before you click Run all, and the post-run summary banner shows exactly how many tokens were charged. Failed items don't bill.

Why does the multi-source modal open when I just pasted a single URL?

The modal only opens when the parser detects two or more sources. Single-URL pastes flow through the normal search bar. If it pops unexpectedly, your pasted text probably had stray whitespace, line breaks, or trailing characters that the parser split into multiple tokens — close the modal, clean the text, and paste again. The modal is non-destructive: nothing runs until you click Run all.

What's the difference between batch import and Auto-Research?

Batch import takes the sources themselves — you already have the links and queries — and ingests them into the Cafe in parallel. It's a fast lane for a curated reading list. Auto-Research takes a topic and lets an AI agent autonomously plan, search, and synthesize across web/academic/YouTube/scrape/wikipedia/news/social tools. Use batch when you know what you want; use Auto-Research when you want the AI to figure it out. They're complementary and you can mix them in the same Cafe.

What is Auto-Research?

Auto-Research is a steerable AI research agent that searches a topic for you across a wide range of tools — web, academic databases, YouTube, URL scraping, Wikipedia, news search, and optionally Reddit, Google Scholar, X, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok. You control what it extracts, which tools it uses, how thoroughly it researches (depth), and how wide a candidate pool each search casts (results per search). The agent creates a plan, executes it, adds sources to your Cafe's Sources rail, and synthesizes curated findings into your Serving Tray.

What are the new Auto-Research tools in W1.5b?

Auto-Research now supports ten tools total. The four always-free tools (Web, Academic, YouTube, URL Scrape) are joined by Wikipedia (free, no consent needed — MediaWiki REST, good for orientation and definitional queries) and News search (Apify actor, returns recent article titles and outlets). Six consent-gated tools (every signed-in user, token-billed) are now wired and returning real results: Reddit (community discussions), Scholar (Google Scholar via Apify), X (recent posts), Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok.

How much does Auto-Research cost?

It depends on depth, tools, and results-per-search. Quick runs use a modest portion of your allowance, Standard a larger portion, and Deep can vary widely depending on how many steps the agent decides to take. You set a token budget before starting — this is a hard ceiling, not a target. The pre-flight estimate in the modal shows the projected cost before you commit.

Will a Deep run burn my whole token budget?

No. "Deep" tells the agent to research as thoroughly as it judges useful — but the token budget is a ceiling, not a target. The agent uses its own judgment and typically stops well before the budget is exhausted, once it believes it has gathered enough. The budget just ensures the run cannot accidentally exceed what you're comfortable spending. A Deep run on a focused topic may use far fewer tokens than the budget ceiling.

What's the difference between research depth and results per search?

They control two different things:

• Depth (Quick / Standard / Deep) — how hard and how many cycles the agent runs. Deep = most thorough; the agent stops when it judges it has enough.
• Results per search (5 / 10 / 20) — the candidate pool each individual search fetches. Higher top-k means the agent sees more candidates per step, which is more expensive but gives it more to choose from.

For example: Quick depth + 20 results-per-search runs fewer cycles but each cycle considers a wider candidate pool. Deep depth + 5 results-per-search runs many cycles but each looks at fewer candidates.

Why do Reddit, Google Scholar, X, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok need consent?

These tools use Apify actors to access content on third-party platforms that have their own terms of service regarding automated access. Before enabling any of these tools in Auto-Research, a consent modal explains what data is sent, the approximate per-result cost, and links to the platform's terms. Consent is recorded per Cafe per tool — you only see the modal once per tool per Cafe. The executor also enforces consent server-side as a backstop. These tools are available to every signed-in user — consent and token billing still apply.

Why is Google Scholar content sometimes short?

Scholar results are returned as snippets by the actor's design — the full PDF is not retrieved automatically. The snippet is enough for the agent to assess relevance and cite the source. If you need the full text, use the "Fetch full article" option on the source card, or paste the DOI into the identifier input to trigger a full enrichment.

What is fan-out in Auto-Research?

Fan-out (under the Advanced panel) controls whether the agent decomposes your topic into parallel sub-questions or researches it as a single linear sweep. The control is a tri-state:

Deep selects Auto by default — because a thorough run naturally benefits from letting the agent decide. Quick and Standard default to Off. You can change this at any time in Advanced, and your explicit choice is remembered even if you switch depth.

What is the "Auto" fan-out setting and when should I use it?

Auto means the planner LLM decides at runtime whether your topic benefits from decomposition into sub-questions. If it does, it creates parallel research groups; if not, it runs a single linear sweep. Use Auto when you're not sure whether your topic is multi-faceted — the agent's judgment is usually good. Use On when you definitely want sub-question decomposition (e.g. a literature review across multiple themes). Use Off for simple, focused topics where a linear sweep is sufficient.

Why does the cost estimate say "Rough estimate" when I use Auto fan-out?

When fan-out is set to Auto, the planner decides at runtime how many sub-questions (if any) to create. Because the shape of the run isn't known until the planner executes, the pre-flight estimate is a best-guess rather than a deterministic number. The warning "Rough estimate — the agent decides how deep to go, up to your cap of X tokens" appears near the cost estimate. The executor's hard ceiling still applies: billing charges only actual tokens used, so the run can never exceed your budget even if the estimate is off.

Why did my Deep Auto-Research run show a second "Research plan ready" step?

Deep runs can now reflect and replan. After the first research pass, the agent checks whether it left any real gaps and, if so, runs up to two more focused rounds chasing the specific unanswered facets — you'll see a second (or third) "Research plan ready" boundary in the live progress log. This is the agent digging deeper, not a glitch. If the first pass already answered the topic well, it stops after one round — that's the correct, expected outcome for a well-covered topic, not a shortfall. Reflect-and-replan only applies to Deep; Quick and Standard never do it. It stays inside the same token budget you set and is hard-capped at two extra rounds.

Does reflect-and-replan cost extra tokens?

No separate charge — the extra rounds run inside the same token budget ceiling you set for the run, they don't get a fresh budget. The budget is still a hard ceiling: if it's spent after round 1, no further round runs regardless of whether the agent would have liked to keep digging.

Can I turn off reflect-and-replan?

Not from the Auto-Research modal yet — there's no toggle in the UI today. (It exists behind the scenes and will get a modal control in a future update.) Every Deep run currently reflects and replans by default.

What are Research Skills in Auto-Research?

Skills are toggleable preset research playbooks under the Advanced panel. Three are available:

• Systematic Literature Review — structured, comprehensive, tracks methodology
• Fact-Check Claims — actively seeks disconfirming evidence before accepting a claim
• Find Opposing Views — seeks counter-arguments and alternative perspectives

Each skill injects additional instructions into the agent's planner and synthesis. They can be combined. You can also edit the text of any skill's instructions and reset to the default.

Can I edit the agent's prompt?

Yes. Under Advanced — prompt, skills & loop, five structured sections (Role, Method, Evidence & Skepticism, Source Hierarchy, Output Contract) are pre-filled with sensible defaults. Edit any section to change the agent's research strategy, then click Reset to restore the default. The machine-readable JSON plan contract is always appended by the system after your text and cannot be overridden — your edits change strategy, not the agent's ability to produce a parseable plan.

Does my Auto-Research keep running if I close the tab?

Yes. Auto-Research runs as a server-side background job — it keeps going even if you close the tab, refresh the page, or navigate away. Come back to the Cafe and your sources will be there when the run finishes. If a run is still in progress when you reload, the live progress panel reattaches automatically.

Will my tray items (Key Findings, Best Quotes, etc.) land if I close the tab mid-run?

Yes, as long as the run completes. Sources are saved to your Cafe as each step runs; tray items are added once the full run finishes. If you cancel mid-run (by clicking Stop), sources gathered before you stopped are kept, but tray items are not produced for a cancelled run — the synthesis step only runs on completion.

Can I stop Auto-Research mid-run?

Yes. Click the Stop button at any time. The server-side job receives the cancel signal and stops at the next step boundary. Sources already found are kept in your Cafe. Tray items (Key Findings, Best Quotes, etc.) are not produced on a cancelled run — they are only synthesized when the run completes normally.

What happens if an Auto-Research step gets stuck?

Each step has a 90-second timeout. If a tool step (for example, a slow Apify actor cold-start) does not complete within 90 seconds, it is automatically skipped and surfaced as a skipped step in the progress log. The run continues with the remaining steps — you will never see an infinite spinner. Cold-starting Apify actors (Reddit, Scholar, social tools) can sometimes take 20-40 seconds on the first call; this is normal and within the timeout window.

What are the robot icon items in my Serving Tray?

Items marked with a robot icon were generated by the Auto-Research agent. They are synthesized findings based on the extract types you selected (Key Findings, Best Quotes, etc.). You can edit, delete, or build on them just like any other tray item.

Do I need to know Markdown to write in the Workspace?

No. As of May 2026 (E70.1), the Workspace section editor is WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). Type normally, and use the 15-button formatting toolbar at the top — Bold, Italic, H1/H2/H3, bullet / numbered lists, blockquote, inline / block code, link, table (with a hover-to-size grid picker), horizontal rule, undo, and redo. Keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+B, Ctrl+I, Ctrl+Z, Ctrl+Y, Ctrl+S) work the way you'd expect from any modern editor. The old raw-Markdown textarea and "Preview" toggle are gone — there's nothing to preview, because what you see IS the preview.

What happened to the Preview button in the Workspace?

The Preview button is gone — replaced by the WYSIWYG editor itself. Because formatting now renders live as you type, there's no longer a separate "raw vs preview" mode. If you want to drop down to raw Markdown for any reason (pasting in pre-formatted content, copying syntax out, debugging an unusual layout), use the <> Source button in the section editor header to toggle into Source View. Click the pencil icon to switch back.

What is Source View in the Workspace?

Source View is a power-user mode that swaps the WYSIWYG editor for a plain Markdown <textarea>. Click the <> Source button in the section editor header to enter it; click the pencil icon to leave. Available to every signed-in user (no tier gate) — useful if you're pasting in pre-formatted Markdown, copying syntax out for use elsewhere, or just prefer typing raw. Your choice persists per-browser, so once you turn it on it stays on across sections and page reloads until you turn it off.

What's the "Ask AI about selection" button?

Drag-select any text in the WYSIWYG editor and a small floating menu appears next to your selection with an Ask AI about selection button. Click it and the Ask AI panel opens with the selected text pre-filled — a fast way to ask the AI to explain a passage, rewrite a sentence, or sanity-check a claim without leaving the editor and re-typing what you want to ask about.

How do I insert a table in the Workspace?

Click the table icon in the section editor toolbar. A small grid popover opens (10 columns × 8 rows) — hover over the cells to size your table (the picker shows you the dimensions live, e.g. "3 × 4"), then click to insert. Press Esc or click outside to cancel. Once inserted, click into any cell to type, and use Tab to move between cells.

Where can I see a list of every keyboard shortcut?

Click the ? button in the section editor header. A small popover opens listing every shortcut the editor supports: Bold, Italic, Undo, Redo, Save, discard, and Tab / Shift+Tab for list indent / outdent (or 2-space indent inside code blocks). The popover replaced the old "Markdown help" cheat sheet — there's no Markdown syntax to memorise any more, only the shortcuts you use day to day.

Does AI Write still type the draft out word-by-word?

Not in the new WYSIWYG editor. AI Write generates the complete draft on the server and inserts it into the editor in one step. You'll see a brief loading state, then the finished, formatted content appears all at once — ready to keep editing. The change makes the live-generation feel less like watching a stream and more like getting a finished draft back from a co-writer.

Where can I see the open-source software Coffeescribe uses?

The footer of every page now has an Open Source link (alongside Terms, Privacy, and AI Content). It opens /legal/open-source, which lists every open-source package Coffeescribe depends on along with its licence (MIT, BSD, Apache-2.0, etc.) and a link back to the project. This is our way of meeting the attribution obligations that open-source licences require — and a public thank-you to the projects we build on.

What are the AI Write modes?

The AI Write cockpit offers five writing modes:

• Continue writing — AI continues from where you left off
• Improve existing — AI rewrites and enhances your current text
• Write fresh — AI writes new content from scratch
• Write from research — AI writes based on your selected research notes
• Expand from research — AI expands your existing text using research notes

What is the Quality Score?

The Quality Score (0-100) is a system-calculated number that reflects how a scribe was created — not reader opinion. It's based on the AI model's writing ability, whether web research was used, the generation mode (slower = higher quality), verified content, freshness, and custom instructions. Quality scores appear on public scribes in the library, blurb page, and Scribe Hub. See Library & Sharing for the full breakdown.

What's the difference between Quality Score and User Rating?

Quality Score is calculated automatically by the system based on creation signals (model quality, research, generation mode, etc.). User Rating is the star rating submitted by readers. Both are shown on public scribes but measure different things — quality score reflects how the scribe was made, user rating reflects what readers think of it.

Does Coffeescribe check for plagiarism?

Yes. Every signed-in user can use the Check Plagiarism button in the Workspace to scan sections for potential plagiarism. It chunks your text into paragraphs and searches the web for matches. Note that AI-generated content is created on demand and is typically unique, but similar prompts may produce similar outputs. For high-stakes use cases (academic, publishing), consider using a dedicated third-party plagiarism service as well.

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Writing Prompts

What is a Writing Prompt?

The Writing Prompt is the system-level instruction set the AI reads before it writes any scribe content — genre voice, structure, reader calibration, and style/tone, plus a locked structural contract CoffeeScribe always applies underneath (header fields, formatting rules) so nothing you edit can break generation. Coffeescribe now lets you see and edit it, either as the default for a category of future scribes (Settings → Writing Prompts) or as a one-off rewrite for a single scribe ("Edit writing prompt"). See Writing Prompts for the full walkthrough.

How do I edit the default writing instructions for my future scribes?

Go to Settings → Writing Prompts. Pick a Genre / Content type / Age range / Reader level / Style / Tone combination, and the four building blocks (Genre voice, Structure & shape, Reader calibration, Style & tone) resolve below it. Edit any block's text and click Save — it becomes the default CoffeeScribe uses for every future scribe matching that exact combination. Existing scribes are never affected.

Can I customize the writing prompt for just one scribe?

Yes. Once a scribe has a plan (its chapters and sections exist), open Edit writing prompt — a full button on the Structure Review screen, or a compact icon button in the Workspace section toolbar (beside the Web search toggle). It shows one big editable textarea with the scribe's complete effective prompt. Save your rewrite and it drives that scribe's introduction and every section — for new writes, regeneration, and resuming an interrupted scribe.

Does editing my Writing Prompts cost tokens?

No. Viewing, editing, saving, resetting, and reverting a Writing Prompt are all free — you're only editing instructions, not running the AI. Tokens are still spent exactly as before, when a scribe is actually generated using whichever prompt is in effect.

Is Writing Prompts a paid feature — do I need Pro or Creator?

No. Writing Prompts has no tier gate — Free, Pro, and Creator can all view and edit every block in Settings and every scribe's per-scribe prompt.

What's the difference between Custom Instructions and a Writing Prompt?

They're separate, additive layers. Custom Instructions (and per-section instructions in the Workspace) are short, discrete notes bolted onto a specific generation call — they always apply on top of whatever Writing Prompt is in effect. A Writing Prompt (Settings default or per-scribe edit) is the AI's underlying voice and structure instructions — the foundation Custom Instructions get layered onto, not a replacement for it. If a scribe has its own custom Writing Prompt saved, that one prompt wins over your Settings defaults for that scribe — but your Custom Instructions still apply alongside it either way.

Will editing a Writing Prompt change scribes I've already created or that are mid-generation?

No. A Settings block edit only affects scribes you create after saving it. A per-scribe prompt edit only affects that one scribe's future generation activity (new sections, regeneration, resume) — text already written stays exactly as it was written; nothing is retroactively rewritten.

Can I undo an edit to a Writing Prompt?

Yes, two ways. Reset to default (with a confirm prompt) discards a customization and returns to CoffeeScribe's stock wording. For a Settings block, History shows every version you've saved, newest first — click Use this version on any older entry to revert (this saves it as a new version; there's no separate "undo" step). Per-scribe prompts don't have version history — only Reset to default.

Does editing the "story" shape block turn citations back on?

No. Story-shaped scribes never show inline citation markers or a Sources block, regardless of what you write in the shape block — that rule is enforced by a separate step after generation, not by prompt wording. See Why doesn't my story show citations, even though I turned Web Search on? above.

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Audioscribe

How do I create an audiobook?

Open your scribe and click the Audioscribe tab in the secondary navigation bar. Choose a voice provider and voice, confirm the credit cost, and click Generate. You can generate individual chapters or use Generate All / Generate Remaining for multiple chapters at once. Audioscribe is available to every signed-in user — token balance is the only limit.

What voice providers are available?

Coffeescribe currently offers two AI voice engines: OpenAI (high-quality, fast, 6 built-in voices) and Chatterbox (open-source, private, supports voice cloning). When both are available, tabs appear in the Generate Audio dialog so you can compare and choose. Each provider has a short description to help you decide.

Can I use my own voice?

Yes, using the Chatterbox provider. In the Generate Audio dialog, select the Chatterbox tab, expand "Record your voice," read the provided script, and upload your recording (WAV, MP3, or M4A). The AI will approximate your voice for narration. Voice cloning is only available with Chatterbox — OpenAI uses its built-in voices only.

How much does audiobook generation cost?

Cost depends on text length and the voice provider — Chatterbox is slightly cheaper than OpenAI for the same text. The exact cost is shown before you confirm so you know what you're spending. There's no monthly cap — generate as many audiobooks as your token balance covers, any time.

What happens if some chapters already have audio?

The button changes to Generate Remaining and only generates chapters that don't have completed audio yet. Your existing audio is never overwritten. To regenerate a specific chapter with a different voice, use the individual Generate button on that chapter.

Can I stop generation once it starts?

Yes. Click the red Stop button that appears while chapters are generating. Any chapters that have already completed keep their audio — only pending chapters are cancelled. You can regenerate cancelled chapters later by clicking Generate.

Does Generate All run faster now?

Yes. When you use Generate All, chapters are generated in parallel rather than one at a time. A 10-chapter scribe completes significantly faster than before.

Is Read Aloud different from Audioscribe?

Yes. Read Aloud is free, instant, and uses your browser's built-in speech. Audioscribe uses AI voice generation for higher quality, saves the audio permanently, and can be shared publicly. Read Aloud is available in Reading Mode; Audioscribe has its own dedicated tab in the secondary navigation bar.

Can I share an audiobook with someone who doesn't have a Coffeescribe account?

Yes. When your scribe is public, click Share on the audiobook page to copy a direct link. Anyone you send it to can open the link and play the audiobook — full playback controls (play/pause, seek, speed, chapter switching) all work without signing in. Actions that change anything (Download, Generate, Delete, privacy toggle) prompt the listener to sign in first. The link is stable and stays working even if you later hide individual chapters.

Will my audiobook resume where I left off?

Yes. If you pause or leave a chapter partway through, Audioscribe remembers where you stopped — per chapter, per your account. Come back on the same device or a different one and the player automatically seeks to your last position. You'll also see a "Resume from MM:SS" label and a thin progress bar on each chapter card showing how far through you got. Resume only works when you're signed in; anonymous listeners always start from the beginning. Your listening position is private and never visible to anyone else.

Can I generate an audiobook on my phone?

Playback on mobile is great. Generating on mobile is more fragile — if you lock your phone, switch tabs, or the screen times out during a long generation, the browser may throttle the background work and the UI can appear stuck. You'll see a soft warning banner reminding you that generation works best on a laptop or desktop. You can dismiss the banner and generate anyway, but for longer scribes we recommend starting the generation from a computer. If a mobile generation looks stalled, pull down to refresh — the visibility-aware refresh catches up any chapters that completed while the tab was backgrounded.

How long can my custom voice clip be?

Voice clips can be 10 seconds to 3 minutes (180 seconds) long, up to 25 MB in size. The best results come from 60-120 second clips — long enough to capture your tone and cadence, short enough to stay consistent. Clips longer than 180 seconds are rejected with a friendly message asking you to trim them. Clips under 10 seconds produce poor quality cloning. See the Audioscribe guide for full recording tips.

Does my audiobook link keep working if I make the scribe private?

Audiobook files are cached by the listener's browser and served from a public-read storage bucket, so anyone who already has the link may still reach the audio even after you flip individual chapters private. Treat sharing as permanent — only share with people you're happy to have ongoing access. If you need to revoke access to a specific generation, delete and regenerate it under a new URL.

I edited a section / combined sections / reordered things — does my audiobook update automatically?

No — the audiobook is generated per chapter, captured at the moment you ran Generate. It doesn't re-sync on its own when you edit. Three cases:

1. You reordered or combined sections within a chapter, or edited section text, or deleted a section — the chapter's audio still plays but now narrates the OLD text. Regenerate that chapter from the Audioscribe page to bring the narration back in sync with your edits.
2. You reordered whole chapters (dragged a chapter handle in the sidebar) — ✅ nothing to do. Each chapter's audio is unchanged; the player just plays them in the new order.
3. You only renamed a section title — the section title isn't read aloud (the audio narrates section content, not titles), so no regeneration needed.

Rule of thumb: changes inside a chapter leave that chapter's audio stale; changes between chapters are free. See Audioscribe → When edits in the Workspace affect existing audio for the full table.

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Navigation

Where did the Notebooks tab go?

Notebooks has moved from the secondary navigation bar (inside individual scribes) to the primary navigation bar at the top of every page. This means you can access your highlights, notes, and verifications from anywhere in the app without needing to open a scribe first.

What is Audioscribe?

Audioscribe is the new name for the audiobook feature tab. You will find it in the secondary navigation bar when viewing a scribe. The feature itself is unchanged — it still lets you generate AI-narrated audio of your scribes, choose voice presets, or upload your own voice.

How do I know which scribe I am viewing?

The scribe title now appears directly in the secondary navigation bar, to the left of the tabs. This makes it easy to identify which scribe you are working with at a glance, without needing to scroll to the page header.

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Library Access

Do I need an account to read scribes in the library?

Yes. The library, the Brew page, and individual scribe pages all require a Coffeescribe account. If you try to open any of these pages without being signed in, you will be redirected to the login page.

The only way to read a specific scribe without an account is via a share link sent to you by the scribe's owner. See below.

How do I share a scribe with someone who doesn't have a Coffeescribe account?

Open the scribe (or its blurb, audiobook, or Workspace page) and click the Share button. The link that gets copied to your clipboard includes a short code that lets the recipient read the scribe without signing in.

Do not just copy the URL from the address bar — that bare link will redirect a signed-out person to the login page. The Share button is the only way to generate a link that works for non-members.

Only public scribes can be shared this way. Private scribes redirect to login regardless of what link is used.

Why does a link someone shared with me ask me to sign in?

Two likely reasons:

1. The link is a bare URL, not a share link. The sender copied the address bar instead of using the Share button. Ask them to open the scribe, click Share, and send you the copied link — it will have a short code at the end (e.g. ?share=abc123).
2. The scribe was made private after the link was sent. Private scribes redirect all signed-out visitors to login, even with a valid share link. The owner would need to make the scribe public again.

If you have an account, you can also just sign in — signed-in members can read any public scribe directly without needing a share link.

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Account & Sign-in

Do I need an invite code to sign up?

Yes, during private early access an invite code is required. Join the waitlist on the homepage to receive one, or ask an existing user for a spare code. See Getting Access above for full details.

How does the password reset flow work?

You request a reset on /forgot-password and Coffeescribe emails you a 6-digit code (not a clickable link). Type the code into the app, then set a new password. You're then redirected to /login to sign in fresh. The code expires 1 hour after it's sent. If you don't receive an email within a couple of minutes, check your spam folder, then click Resend code once the 30-second cooldown ends.

I didn't get my password reset email — what should I do?

Wait 1-2 minutes first — delivery is usually quick but can occasionally take a moment. Then:

• Check your spam, promotions, or "all mail" folder. Add noreply@coffeescribe.ai to your safe senders.
• Confirm you typed the email exactly as it is on your account (including any alias suffixes).
• If you originally signed up with Google or GitHub, you don't have a password to reset — sign in with that provider instead.
• After 30 seconds the Resend code button unlocks. Each new code invalidates the previous one — only the latest code in your inbox will work.
• If nothing arrives after 5 minutes and a couple of resends, use the in-app feedback button.

The reset code says it's invalid or expired — what's wrong?

A few common causes:

• Old code: Codes expire 1 hour after they're sent, and any earlier code is invalidated as soon as you click Resend. Make sure you're typing the code from the most recent email.
• Wrong digits: The field only accepts 6 digits — anything else is ignored. Re-type carefully.
• Rate limit: If you've requested several codes in a short window, Supabase may temporarily block new requests. Wait a couple of minutes and try again.
• Expired session: If you sat on the code-entry screen for over an hour, request a fresh code with Resend code.

Can I use a DuckDuckGo, Apple Hide My Email, or Fastmail alias?

Yes. Both signup confirmation and password reset use 6-digit codes that you type into the app, not clickable links — so URL-rewriting privacy forwarders can't break the flow. Just make sure you sign in with the same alias you signed up with, and that the alias is still active in your forwarder's dashboard so the email actually reaches you.

Do I need to verify my email address when I sign up?

Yes — if you sign up with email and password, Coffeescribe sends a 6-digit verification code to your inbox. Enter it on the verification screen to activate your account. Codes expire after 1 hour; request a new one if needed. Google and GitHub signups skip this step because the OAuth provider has already verified your address.

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Bring Your Own API Key (BYOK)

Do I need to add my own API keys?

No. Coffeescribe provides all the provider keys you need to use the platform — BYOK is entirely optional. You only need to add your own key if you want your requests to a specific provider (OpenRouter, OpenAI, Apify, Mistral, OpenAlex, or Google Books) to draw from your own provider account instead of the platform's shared quota.

Do I need platform tokens if I use my own key?

Only as a backup. When you save a working OpenRouter key, generating scribes, Quick Reads, and Research does not check or deduct your platform token balance — the cost goes to your own provider account. Platform tokens are only spent if your key fails mid-generation and Coffeescribe falls back to the platform key to finish your work. If your key is working, generation is free of platform token cost.

What does adding my own API key actually do?

When you save your own key for a provider, two things happen: (1) your requests to that provider use your key, and the cost goes to your provider account; (2) the platform token gate is skipped — Coffeescribe does not check or deduct your platform balance for that generation. This means with a working OpenRouter key, you can generate scribes regardless of your platform token balance. Platform tokens are only used if your key fails and Coffeescribe needs to fall back.

Why did a generation use my platform tokens when I have my own key?

Your key failed mid-generation. When your key hits an error — an authentication failure, a revoked key, a per-key spend cap, a quota error, or any other provider-side rejection after retries — Coffeescribe automatically falls back to the platform key to finish your generation so your work isn't lost. A toast notification appears after the generation completes: "Your [Provider] key isn't working, so we used your tokens — fix it in Settings." Go to Settings → API Keys and click Test saved key to check if your key is still valid.

Can I test a key I already saved without re-pasting it?

Yes. In Settings → API Keys, once a key is configured the test button label changes to Test saved key. Click it without entering anything in the field — Coffeescribe tests your stored key server-side. A green toast means it is still valid; a red toast with an HTTP status code means it has been revoked, hit a limit, or has an issue. The plaintext key is never returned to your browser during this test.

What happens if my key runs out of credit?

If your key runs out of credit mid-generation, Coffeescribe detects the error and falls back automatically:

• If you have platform tokens: the generation finishes using platform tokens, and a toast appears linking you to Settings → API Keys to fix the key.
• If you have no platform tokens: the generation stops and you are shown a message with two options — top up your token balance, or fix or change your key in Settings → API Keys.

To avoid this, keep a credit balance in your provider account, or set a per-key spend cap above what you typically use per generation. A generation of a 10-chapter scribe on a mid-tier model typically costs a few cents on your OpenRouter account.

Is my API key safe? Where is it stored?

Yes. Your key is encrypted with AES-256-GCM before it is stored in the database. After you save it, the plaintext key is never returned to your browser — you only ever see •••• last4 (the last four characters) as a confirmation. The key input is masked as you type. Only your account can access your saved keys (row-level security enforced in the database). We never log the plaintext key and do not share it with any third party.

Which features use which provider key?

You can mix and match — add only the keys for the features you use most. Any provider without a saved user key falls back to the platform key automatically.

Where do I manage my API keys?

Go to Settings → API Keys. All six providers are listed. You can paste a key, test it live before saving (Test connection), save it (encrypted), remove it at any time, and test an already-saved key with Test saved key. A Manage API keys button also appears on the relevant feature surfaces (Create, AudioScribe, Research, Import) and opens a modal scoped to that surface's providers.

How do I get an API key for each provider?

Each provider card in Settings → API Keys has a "Where do I get this?" link that takes you directly to that provider's key-creation page. See Using your own API keys (BYOK) for a full table of all six providers and their sign-up links.

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Privacy & Data

Who owns the content I create?

You do. You retain ownership of your ideas, prompts, and edits. AI-generated content is licensed to you for any use, including commercial purposes.

Is my content private by default?

Yes — every scribe is private by default, for every signed-in user. Only you can see a new scribe until you choose to publish it to the public library.

Can I delete my scribes?

Yes. Every signed-in user can delete any of their scribes at any time, including completed ones.

How do I export my data?

Go to your Settings page and scroll to the Data & Privacy section. Click Export Data to download a ZIP file (coffeescribe-export-YYYY-MM-DD.zip) containing your profile, scribes (with metadata), highlights, and notes. This feature is available to every signed-in user and can be used once every 30 days.

How do I delete my account and data?

Before deleting, consider exporting your data first from the Data & Privacy section in Settings (see above). To delete your account, scroll to the Danger Zone section in Settings and click "Delete Account." You'll need to enter your password to confirm. The process permanently removes your account, personal data, and private scribes. Public scribes are re-attributed to "Deleted User" and remain in the library. Any remaining token balance is forfeited and cannot be transferred or refunded — token packs are one-time purchases, so there's no recurring subscription to cancel.

<!-- training-data tier distinction: owned by the privacy epic — do not edit in W39 -->

Does Coffeescribe train AI on my content?

• Free + Pro: Your prompts are sent to the CoffeeScribe Model (our curated default) via OpenRouter. Whether the underlying provider uses prompts for training depends on the specific model behind the brand label at the time. We pick the underlying model with this in mind.
• Creator: If you stay on the CoffeeScribe Model the same applies. If you pick a model from the picker, training behaviour depends on that provider's terms — see the picker's info icon for each model's details.

See our AI Content Policy for full details.

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Citations & References

How do citations work?

When you generate a scribe with Web Search enabled, the AI cites its sources inline with small numbered markers like [1], [2]. Click a marker to see the source title, domain, and a link that opens the original page in a new tab. At the end of each chapter, a References section lists every source used in that chapter.

Can I edit or remove a source?

Not yet. Citations in v1 are read-only — you can't add, remove, or rewrite individual sources. Regenerating the section with Web Search on will produce a fresh set of citations. Manual citation editing may arrive in a future release.

Why doesn't my older scribe have clickable sources?

Citations only apply to sections generated or regenerated on or after 2026-04-14. Older scribes show [N] as plain text. To get live citations on an existing scribe, open the Workspace and regenerate the section with Web Search enabled.

Can I hide the inline markers while keeping the References list?

Yes. Open Reading Preferences (gear icon in the reader) and turn off Show inline [N] markers. Inline markers disappear, but the per-chapter References section still renders. The setting is saved to your browser.

Will citations appear in my PDF export?

Yes, by default. In the export modal, open Preview & Customise — the Include citations toggle is on by default. Inline markers render as superscript [N], and each chapter ends with a clickable References section.

Why doesn't my model cite inline with [N] markers?

Different AI models cite differently. Some (Perplexity Sonar/Sonar Pro, Gemini 2.0 Flash, Qwen 3 235B) reliably place numbered [1], [2] markers inline through the prose. Others (GPT-4o, GPT-4o-mini, Llama 4 Maverick, DeepSeek Chat, Grok 3 mini) return search sources but don't drop inline markers. CoffeeScribe adapts to whatever the model produced: when there are no inline markers, the chapter shows a "Sources consulted" bullet list at chapter end instead of a numbered list, with a one-line note explaining the gap. To get inline numbered citations, regenerate the section with a Perplexity model or Gemini 2.0 Flash. The model picker's info icon shows a Citation behaviour (web search on) line for each curated favourite so you know what to expect before generating.

What does the amber "Not in our recommended set" warning mean?

Every signed-in user gets the full model picker. It has three tiers of choice: CoffeeScribe Model recommended and pre-selected at the top, ~12 curated alternatives we've personally verified for writing quality and citation behaviour, then a collapsed advanced disclosure for the full 350+ OpenRouter catalogue. If you select a model from the advanced disclosure, the picker shows an amber "Not in our recommended set — quality and citation behaviour are unverified, and the model may fail to generate" note. The model is still available; the warning just means we haven't reviewed it. Some non-recommended models work fine; others (especially smaller models) may produce weaker prose, weaker citations, or fail to generate at all.

Why has my favourite model disappeared from Recommended?

We update the curated Recommended set when providers retire models or when a model's behaviour changes. For example, Anthropic retired the claude-3.5-sonnet endpoint on 2026-04-29, so we deactivated it and promoted claude-3.7-sonnet and claude-3.5-haiku into the curated set instead. Google's Gemini 2.5 Pro variants were demoted out of Recommended (they require reasoning mode, which doesn't fit our writing-focused picker contract) but remain available via Browse all for users who want them. Look for an amber "Not in our recommended set" note when picking from the wider catalogue.

Why did I get "The selected model is no longer available"?

Occasionally a provider retires a model endpoint with little warning — when that happens, the model is still listed in your picker until the next sync, but generation requests against it fail. Rather than burning a generation cycle and showing an "Internal Server Error" toast, CoffeeScribe now checks the model's status before calling the provider and returns a clean "The selected model is no longer available — please pick a different model" message. No tokens are charged. Open the picker, pick a different model (one of the Recommended favourites is the safe choice), and re-run the generation.

What models are in the catalogue?

We curate the catalogue for writing scribes — the picker shows text-completion models suitable for prose. Vision-multimodal, image, audio, embedding, transcription, and code-specialised models are filtered out so they don't clutter your picker. If you specifically need one of those for your work, you'll need to use a different tool — they're outside the writing-scribe scope.

Exporting Your Scribes

Why does my PDF look like a book now?

Since W51, Quick Download PDFs (and HTML exports) are book-grade by default — a cover page, chapter opener pages with a small-caps "CHAPTER N" label and an accent rule, serif body text, and a clickable table of contents with PDF bookmarks. This applies to every signed-in user automatically, costs no tokens, and involves no AI — it's generated entirely by code from your scribe's existing chapters. See Exporting Your Scribes for the full walkthrough.

How do I get the old plain PDF?

Open Preview & Customise in the Export menu and switch the Theme (or preset) to Classic. Classic reproduces the original report-style layout exactly — no cover, no chapter openers, no accent colours. Preview & Customise is open to every signed-in user, no upgrade needed.

What is "Customise with AI"?

A third option in the Export menu (also available as an "Enhance with AI" button on the customise page) that asks an AI model to design your book's look: an accent colour, per-chapter eyebrow labels, optional italic chapter intros, optional verbatim pull-quotes, and cover copy. You can optionally type free-text design instructions (e.g. "warm academic palette, no pull-quotes") to steer it, or leave it blank for a fully automatic design.

Does the AI change my book's text or citations?

No. The AI design pass only chooses layout and cover/chapter decoration — it never rewrites your chapters or sections, never changes facts, and never drops citations. Any pull-quote it adds is always a verbatim excerpt of your own writing, checked automatically before it's used — the AI can't invent a quote.

Does Customise with AI cost tokens?

Yes — it's billed like any other AI feature, and it's owner-only (you can't run it on someone else's public scribe). Quick Download and the plain Preview & Customise page never use AI and stay free and private — only pressing "Customise with AI" / "Enhance with AI" sends your book's text to the model. Once run, the design is saved on your scribe, so re-downloading is free; pressing "Re-run AI design" bills again.

Why is there no page number in the footer?

The running footer at the bottom of each page shows your scribe's title rather than a page number — a current limitation of our PDF renderer when combined with the new book layout. Use the table of contents or your PDF viewer's bookmark/outline panel to navigate instead; a numbered-page footer is planned for a future release.

Feedback & Support

How do I report a bug or suggest an idea?

Click the Feedback button (bottom-left on every page). It opens with three choices — Report a bug, Suggest an improvement, or Something else. For bugs you'll get a short form (what happened, what you expected, optional steps, and how disruptive it is); for ideas, just tell us in your own words. We auto-detect which part of the app you're in so it reaches the right place. See Sending Feedback for the full walkthrough.

Can I send feedback anonymously?

Yes — tick Submit anonymously on the details step. Your feedback won't be tied to your name on any public lists, though our team can still act on it. (When you submit anonymously, the follow-up email option is hidden.)

Will you email me about my feedback?

Only if you let us. There's an "OK to email me follow-up questions about this" checkbox — leave it ticked and we may email you for more detail, or untick it to opt out. It's hidden for anonymous submissions.