Using Branchspace

Branchspace is your own writing workspace. Everything in it is private until you decide otherwise — there is no step where something becomes public by accident.

It is laid out the way a code editor is, because the shape works: a tree of what you have on the left, the note you are writing in the middle, and what surrounds that note on the right. If you have used VS Code, you already know where to look.

A style changes the space, never the note. The panels, tabs, menus, Opening and Start screens and their lettering change; the note’s title, fields, text, headings and quotes look the same in every style. Published notes, essays and dailies keep their own look too.

Branch Default is the workspace as it has always looked, and is what you start with. Terminal Afterglow brings monospaced lettering, signal colours, rounded neon panels and glow. Phosphor ’84 is a rounded CRT screen, with phosphor letters, scanlines on the panels and glow. Desktop ’95 has classic system lettering, bevelled windows and neutral headers.

A style is not a theme. Lqiia Scarce, Soulish White, Haze Warmth and Harbor Dusk each work with every style; choosing one never changes the other. The “Suits …” line in Settings is a hint, not a rule.

Terminal Afterglow and Phosphor ’84 have a Glow strength slider. Each keeps its own value: switching styles does not lose the strength you chose. Reset glow puts the chosen style back at 100%; Restore default returns to Branch Default and puts both glows back at 100%, leaving theme and size alone.

Kept in this browser only, like Theme and Size. Another device or browser starts on Branch Default. If Settings and Branchspace are open in separate windows of this browser, the workspace follows the change without a reload.

Ctrl N makes a note. Give it a title and start writing; it saves itself as you go, and the status bar at the bottom says whether it has.

Notes live in spaces. A new account has one called My Space — rename it, or make others. A space can hold folders inside it, for order. The space is the unit that matters: a link reaches every note in it, folders included, and Current space in the graph draws all of it.

Databases. The database icon at the top of the Explorer (or Ctrl P ▸ “New database”) makes a note that shows your notes as rows, the way Obsidian's Bases do; Insert ▸ “Database” puts one inside any note. You start from Blank or a ready-made one: a writing pipeline, a reading list, this week's writing, or (inside a note) the notes linking to it. Columns are each note's own fields (title, space, kind, discipline, tags, dates, words, links and backlinks) and every property in its “---” block. Give a property a type and it shows as one: choices, disciplines and tags in their own colours (the colour is in the letters), tick boxes, a date picker, and [[links]] in the colour of the note they reach. Click a value to change it in that note; a note's Tags open a card where a click adds or removes one, and typing finds or makes a new one.

The icons on the left of the database's bar are its views (click the lit one to rename it or change its kind; + adds one). The icons on the right search, filter, sort, group, choose the properties shown, add formulas, and (⋯) set the row height, Compact, Comfortable or Roomy; hover any icon for its name, and one in use is lit, with a count. Click a column's name for its menu (sort, filter, group, summary, name, type, hide); drag the name to move the column, and its edge to widen it. Search narrows the rows as you type; the arrow keys move between cells, and Enter changes one. Filter lines its rules up in three columns, in groups (all, any or none of these), and says at its foot how many notes match; Sort and Properties are lists you drag into order by their handles (the eye hides or shows a property; click its name to rename it); groups can nest two deep and fold away (they stay folded on that device), and Formulas adds columns worked out from others, in Obsidian's formula language, suggesting names as you type and saying whether it reads. A database can hold several views (table, list, cards, a board whose cards you drag between columns, and a calendar whose notes you drag to another day), each with its own filters; “+ New” makes a note that already carries the view's values. Hover a title for a glimpse of the note, with Open to read it in a new tab. It saves itself as a ```base block, so your Google Drive copy opens in Obsidian as the same database. On a published page a database is never shown: it reads your private notes.

Import Markdown, the folder icon with an arrow in the Explorer's header (or Ctrl P ▸ “Import Markdown…”), brings notes in from this device (a folder of Markdown notes, or a .zip) or, when Google Drive is connected, straight from the “Branch Press” folder this site keeps there, which is the way back if an account is ever lost: sign up again, connect the same Google account, and read it back. Its folders become spaces, and a space you already have by that name is used. Before anything is written it shows what it found: the new notes, the new spaces, and anything it leaves out (images and other files that are not notes). A note that is already here waits for your choice: leave it, replace it with the file when the file is newer, or keep both. Imported notes are private, with their tags and dates. A note copied to Drive comes back as it was: plain or rich, an essay with its subtitle, and a note with its own design with that design (kept at the foot of its file, in a comment Obsidian hides).

Above the writing, a plain note carries a short record. A rich note keeps the same record off the page, in Properties… (see Plain and rich, below).

Discipline is the first tag, and it is the one that earns its place: the graph colours a note by it, and the legend lists it. Tags are for you.

Every note is one of two kinds. A plain note is Markdown and nothing else: every mark in it is one a Markdown file can write, so it reads the same in Obsidian, in your Google Drive copy and in a Markdown download. Branchspace sets it in a monospaced face, with its record above the writing. A rich note holds anything a page can: colour, fonts, underlining, alignment, pictures laid out, a design of its own. Branchspace sets it the way a published page is set, its title and subtitle centred at the top.

A new note starts plain, and stays plain for as long as Markdown can hold what you write in it. An essay is always rich, and so is a Day Page; a note made from a template starts as whichever kind the template's words need.

A plain note becomes rich in one of three ways, and Branchspace tells you each time:

• Right-click the writing ▸ Make this note rich… It asks first: It will take any formatting. A rich note cannot be made plain again.
• The writing studio (below). On a plain note it asks the same before it opens.
• Something Markdown has no words for, such as HTML written in the note's source (<>). Nothing is cut down to fit: the note is saved rich, whole, and the status bar says Rich now.

It goes one way only, because making a rich note plain would mean taking things out of it. Just before a note turns rich, its history keeps it as it stood, so the plain version is never lost (see Version history).

Type [[ in a note and a list of your other notes appears; choose one and the link is made. It looks like this in the writing:

The argument turns on [[The Tragedy of the Commons]], which
says the same thing about fields.

Two things follow from a link. The note you linked to now knows you pointed at it — the Workspace pane on the right shows both directions, what this note points to and what points back, each backlink with the sentence it sits in. Under them, Mentions lists notes in the same space that name this note without linking it; Link shows the sentence as it would read and, on your OK, makes the link. And the link becomes a line in the graph, which is the map of everything you have written and what you thought connected to what.

A link resolves inside its own space. [[A Note]] finds a note of that name in the same space, not in a different one. A link that matches nothing is still a link — it just has nowhere to go yet, which is a reasonable way to write a note you have not written.

Renaming keeps links working. Change a note's title, and every link that reached it under the old title is rewritten to the new one, a heading or a different wording after # or | kept as it was; the status bar says how many links in how many notes. A link to another note of the old name, in another space or nearer to it, is left alone. If one of those notes is published, its readers see the new title too.

A note shown inside another

Put ! before a link, ![[Habit]], and the note it points to is shown right there, read-only, in its own lettering, below the line — Obsidian's embed. It always shows that note as it is now; its title opens it. Typing ![[ offers the same list as [[, inside a callout's text as well.

On a published page, only a public note is shown. If your public note embeds a private one, readers see nothing there at all — no box, no title — as they see nothing of a private neighbour in its graph.

The list under [[ offers only notes a link can reach: every note in the same space, whichever folder it is in, with the folder shown beside it. To link across spaces, move one of the two (right-click ▸ Relocate…). A note in Unfiled, such as a new one made from a template, is offered every note, the Unfiled ones first. Choosing a note in a space files yours beside it, so the link works, and the status line says where it went. The same list appears when you type [[ or ![[ in the source pane. If one space holds two notes with the same title, a link finds the one in its own folder first.

The right pane has a second tab, Agent: an assistant that reads your notes, maps their links and proposes changes. With Ask before changes (the default), you accept or reject each proposal; Allow additions and Allow all edits let it carry out allowed changes at once, with Undo. The three menus in its prompt box set what it may do, how hard it works and the model. It follows your AGENT.md instructions, and you choose its depth or let Auto choose for each question. It runs on your own OpenRouter account; Your account explains the link tools, instructions, automatic modes and how to connect it.

The Start tab

The Start page has its own tab, marked with a house. It appears whenever no other tab is open, and has no × when it is alone. Opening or making a note from an unpinned Start tab replaces that tab with the note.

To keep it, right-click the Start tab and choose Pin. It stays at the front of the strip and across reloads. Ctrl P ▸ Open Start page brings it back whenever you need it.

Right-click the writing for its tools. Format, Insert and Paragraph open to the side (Table too, inside a table), then come links to a note or a web address, cut, copy and paste, and Edit for undo, redo, select all and find. A plain note is offered what Markdown can write; a rich note also gets underline, raised and lowered letters, the letter size, Copy the look, alignment and spacing. Everything has a key as well, and Ctrl / shows the whole sheet. The note's own commands (rename, relocate, publish, take it out, delete) are on its row in the Explorer, and all of them are in the command palette, Ctrl P.

On a wide screen (1800 pixels or more) the rail has one more button, under the two side-pane buttons. It opens a column between the note and the Workspace pane: the graph of the note's space, the open note ringed, over your writing heatmap and the notes you last wrote in. The heatmap counts as your profile's does, private writing included. Branchspace remembers the choice on each device; Ctrl P ▸ “Show the graph and heatmap beside the note” does the same.

Type / in the writing to insert a block without leaving the keyboard — a callout, a table, an equation, a reference, a divider. Right-click gives you the note's own menu, acting on whatever you have selected.

The writing studio

A rich note can also be written in the studio: the same note, laid out over the whole window like a word processor. Press the pen beside the source button, at the top right of the note, or Ctrl P ▸ Edit in the writing studio. On a plain note it first asks to make the note rich, since a rich note cannot be made plain again. Close studio brings Branchspace back where you were.

Fonts and colours. Format ▸ Font offers the seven faces made for reading that every published page already carries (EB Garamond, Cormorant Garamond, Libre Baskerville, Merriweather, Charis SIL, Tinos and Courier Prime) and Fira Code for code. Format ▸ Colour offers eight inks. Each has a deeper shade for the light page and a lighter one for the dark, so coloured words stay readable in whichever theme a reader uses. Both are in a rich note's right-click Format too.

The page. The dashed lines show where each page would end if you printed the note now. The studio lays the note out as print does (11.5 point type on A4, with 20mm margins) and keeps paragraphs, quotes and tables whole, as print does. Printing it (the note's menu ▸ Take it out… ▸ Print, or save as PDF) gives the same pages.

The ruler. It comes in when you indent (Tab, or the indent buttons) and goes after a moment; View ▸ Ruler keeps it. Drag the top marker to move the first line, the lower left one to move the rest of the paragraph (the first line stays where it is), and the lower right one for its right edge. Each moves a quarter of a centimetre at a time, or by the arrow keys once you have chosen it. Indents are kept in centimetres, so a printout keeps them. There are no tab stops: a web page has none.

View puts the outline, the styles or the ruler away and brings them back, and shows the source beside the page. On a screen narrower than 900 pixels, the outline and the styles fold away.

Callouts, as in Obsidian

A callout is a coloured box with a heading, like Obsidian's. The Fleeting Note (Callouts) template is four of them, and Add a New Callout, at the foot of a note, offers many more. Or type one, as in Obsidian: a line that begins > [!insight] becomes that callout's own text the moment the ] is typed, ready for its heading and its > lines.

Click into one and it opens as its own text, exactly as Obsidian shows it, with the caret where you clicked, in the note's own lettering, with no box around it:

> [!question] Environment and set
> VS Code
> - [ ] Claude Code
> - [x] Codex

Now it is only text, and everything in it is yours to change:

[!question]

The kind. Write another — [!fleeting], [!keywords], [!insight], [!links], or any kind in the bank — and its colour and glyph follow.

The rest of that line

The heading.

> lines

The inside. Enter starts the next line with > for you. - is a list, 1. a numbered one, - [ ] a checkbox and - [x] a ticked one; **bold**, *italic* and [[links]] work as they do in Obsidian.

A line without >

Leaves the callout: it becomes a paragraph below it.

Esc, or a click anywhere else, and it is a callout again. The arrow keys run out of it at either end, into the next callout's own text or onto a line of writing. Its glyph still changes its kind from a list, and a checkbox still ticks with a click. A callout has no buttons of its own: to remove one, open its text, select all of it and delete; to move one, cut and paste its lines in the note's source (<>).

The caret goes anywhere. Between two callouts there is always a blank line, as in a Markdown file, for the caret to rest on and for writing between them; one left empty is not saved. Past the first or last box in a note a new line appears for you to write on, and a click below the last block puts the caret there.

The keys worth knowing on the first day

Ctrl N

A new note

Ctrl O

Go to a note by name

Ctrl P

The command palette — everything, by name

Alt D

Today's day page

Ctrl S

Save now, rather than waiting

Ctrl F

Find in this note

Ctrl H

Find and replace

Ctrl K

Link to a web address

Ctrl Shift V

Paste as plain text

Esc

Close what is open; leave focus mode

If you would rather see nothing but the note, the focus button at the top right of the editor hides everything else until you press Esc.

Source mode

The <> button at the top right of the editor opens the note's source beside it: the note as plain text, the way Obsidian shows a file. Edits on either side become the note.

It opens as Markdown. The switch at the left of its header turns it to HTML, the note exactly as Branch Press stores it, and back; Branchspace remembers your choice on each device.

---                               1
type: Fleeting Note
priority: Medium
tags:                             2
  - writing
  - memory
---
 
> [!fleeting] Fleeting Note     3
> A thought, **caught**.
> - [ ] Might be good for Chapter 3

The --- block

The note's properties, where a template has them, and its tags:, the discipline first. A tag written here lands in the Tags field, and one typed in the field shows here.

Callouts

> [!kind] Heading, then > lines, as above. An Obsidian-edition callout reads [!fleeting|obsidian]: the word after the bar keeps its look, and Obsidian reads it too.

The rest

# headings, - and 1. lists, - [ ] checkboxes, **bold**, *italic*, ==highlight==, ~~struck~~, [text](address), [[links]] and ![[embeds]], tables and ``` code.

Blank lines

One between two blocks; each one more is an empty line in the note.

HTML inside

What Markdown has no words for, such as a fold, a styled paragraph or a designed page, stays as HTML among the Markdown, as Obsidian allows. A fold is its opening line, Markdown inside, and its closing line.

Nothing is lost to the view. Each time it opens, Branchspace checks that the note would come back from Markdown exactly as it is. If it would not, perhaps two line breaks in a row inside one paragraph, the source shows HTML instead, with a line saying so, until the note can be shown as Markdown again. The source window on a second screen always shows HTML.

If you change the note while source you have written by hand is open, the source waits for you to press Editor changed — reload source rather than overwriting your formatting. Markdown written the way the view writes it has nothing to lose, so it keeps following the note.

Source opens on the right. The ⇄ button in its header moves it to the left, and back; Ctrl P ▸ “Put source on the left” does the same. Branchspace remembers the side on each device. On a narrow window the two stack instead, source underneath.

With a second screen, the ⧉ button in the source's header (or Ctrl P ▸ “Open the source in its own window”) moves it into a window of its own. In Chrome and Edge that window goes straight to your other screen, after asking your permission once; elsewhere, drag it across. The two stay in step as you type, and Branchspace does the saving. If Branchspace is closed or opens another note, the source window says so and waits.

A template is a note you start from. The Templates button opens a gallery of them at full size — your own, and the Branch Press library — and Use this template always makes a copy, so writing in the new note never changes the template.

To make one: write a note the way you want it, right-click it and save it as a template, or start a blank one from the gallery. A template open for editing says so above the writing, and its record gains two rows:

Library name

What it is listed under in the gallery.

Makes

The kind of note it produces — a plain note, an essay, a day page, and so on.

Fill-ins

A template can leave blanks that fill themselves when a note is made from it. They are in the right-click menu's Insert ▸ Fill-in while a template is open, and each row says what it will become today:

{{DATE}}

The date the note is made, sortable — 2026-09-23

{{DATE_LONG}}

The same date written out — 23 September 2026

{{WEEKDAY}}

The day it is made — Wednesday

{{WEEK}}

The week of the year

{{DAY_OF_YEAR}}

How far into the year it is

{{YEAR}}

The year it is made

{{DATE_TIME}}

The moment it is made

{{ZETTEL_ID}}

A unique number from that moment

{{CALENDAR}}

An empty block to write the month into

A fill-in is written when the note is made, not when you put it in. That is the whole idea: the template keeps the blank, and every note made from it gets its own date. Preview as a new note, in the same tab, shows you exactly what someone will get.

Alt D opens today's page — the weekday, the week, the day of the year, and prompts for the day: what you noticed, what you read or heard, whom you spoke with, what to carry into tomorrow. The prompts are drawn by the page and never saved, so what you write is all the note contains.

When there is no time for any of that, /account/capture is a single box. It opens focused on an empty field, saves with Ctrl Enter as a private note filed nowhere, and loses nothing: a half-written thought survives a closed tab, and one written with no signal is kept on the device and sent when you are back.

Branch Press keeps a version of a note for each day you change it. The first change you make on a new day keeps the note as it stood: the last state of the last day you worked on it. One is also kept just before you restore an earlier version, and just before a plain note becomes rich. Plain notes and rich alike, kept until you delete them.

Open a note's history from its row in the Explorer (right-click ▸ Version history), from the studio's File menu, or with Ctrl P ▸ Version history of this note. The newest day opens at once, in the note's own place; the arrow keys walk the days.

While an earlier day is shown, your note is not touched: it waits underneath, as you left it. Restore this version first keeps today's note in the history, then brings back that day's words and subtitle; the title, tags and space stay as they are, because a new title would break the links to the note. It is an ordinary edit, so Ctrl Z takes it back. As it was shows the day without marks, to copy a passage out by hand. Esc goes back to today.

Room for history

Each plan includes room for history: 5 MB on Free, 50 MB on Pro and 200 MB on Nerd, measured as stored. A version of an ordinary note takes a few kilobytes. When four fifths are used, Branchspace says so once; when it is full, it says so once a day. Your notes still save, but new daily versions wait until there is room.

Make room… (under the list of days, in that notice, or in Settings ▸ Writing ▸ Version history) asks how far back to clear: older than a year, six months, three months, a month or a week, or every version that counts, each saying how many versions that is and what it frees. If you have connected Google Drive, it then asks whether to move them there or delete them. Moved versions go to a "Branch Press version history" folder in your Drive, one readable file for each, and stay in the list, marked "in Drive", to open and restore from there. Deleting one, or its note, sends its file to Drive's trash.

A published note's history is partly public. Readers can open the versions kept while the note was public, never the drafts from before it. Those versions do not count against your room and never move to Drive. Deleting one withdraws it: readers then see only that a version of that day was withdrawn. Take the note back to private and they see none of it. The reading guide shows what readers see.

Branchspace can keep a copy of everything you write in your own Google Drive: one Markdown file for each note, in folders that match your spaces. It is a backup you hold yourself, Obsidian opens it as a vault, and it is the way back if you ever lose your account. It is off until you connect it.

Connecting

In Settings ▸ Writing ▸ Google Drive, press Connect Google Drive. Google's own window opens: choose your Google account, and tick the box that lets Branch Press work with the Drive files it uses. Left unticked, the connection fails and the card says so.

That is the narrowest permission Google offers. Branch Press can see only the files and folders it makes, and the folders you choose for them; nothing else in your Drive. Its key for that permission stays on Branch Press's server, encrypted. The Privacy Policy says exactly what is kept, under Your Google Drive copy.

What is copied, and when

Every note, private ones included, becomes a Markdown file named after its title, inside a folder called “Branch Press”, with a folder for each space and each folder in it. Notes filed nowhere go into Unfiled. While Branchspace is open, a note is copied a few seconds after it changes, and renaming or moving it renames or moves its file. Copy changes now sends at once, from Settings and without opening Branchspace, whatever is new, changed or missing from your Drive, then says what it sent.

Each file opens with its properties, as Obsidian writes them: its tags, when it was made and last changed, whether it is plain or rich, its subtitle, whether it is an essay, and a link back to the note in Branchspace. A note with its own design keeps that design at the foot of its file, in a comment Obsidian hides.

Delete a note in Branchspace and its file goes to your Drive's trash, where Google keeps it for 30 days. Delete a file in Drive by hand and the next copy puts it back: to remove a note, delete it in Branchspace.

The copy goes one way, from Branchspace to Drive. A change you make to a file in Drive or in Obsidian stays there only until the note next changes in Branchspace, which writes the file again over it. To bring a change back, read it in with Import from Drive, below.

Where the folders go

Both folders start at the top of My Drive. Under Where the folders are, each has a row saying where it is now. Choose folder… opens Google's own folder chooser: pick a folder and Branch Press moves its own folder into it, with everything inside, and the copying carries on there. Back to the top of My Drive puts it back. Each folder goes where you like, so you can keep the version history out of an Obsidian vault, where every old version would show up as a page.

You can also move or rename either folder in Drive itself, and Branch Press still finds it. Moved into a folder you never chose here, the row can only say in a folder of yours, since Branch Press cannot read that folder's name.

Opening it in Obsidian

With Google Drive for desktop installed, your Drive is a folder on your computer. In Obsidian, choose Open folder as vault and pick the “Branch Press” folder. Links, tags, callouts, tables, equations and footnotes read as they do in Branchspace's Markdown view.

Bringing notes back

Import Markdown, in the Explorer's header, has a part for Google Drive once it is connected: Read from Google Drive… reads the “Branch Press” folder, shows what it found, and writes nothing until you say so; a note that is already here waits for your choice. It is how you recover a lost account: sign up again, connect the same Google account, and read it back. Plain and rich notes come back as they were, and so do essays and designs.

Old versions

Once Drive is connected, Make room… (see Version history) can move old versions into the “Branch Press version history” folder instead of deleting them. Each becomes a page that opens in any browser. They stay in the note's list of days, marked in Drive, and open and restore from there. Versions of a published note never move.

Disconnecting

Disconnect stops the copying and withdraws Branch Press's permission at Google. The files stay in your Drive, yours to keep. Connect again later and the copy starts in a new “Branch Press” folder; the old one stays where it was, and Import from Drive asks which of the two to read. Deleting your account disconnects too.

A note's menu has a single Private/Public switch — there is no separate publish step to forget. Made public, a note gets its own page, shows on your profile, and draws a small graph of its own from the other public notes it links to. A private neighbour is simply absent: not a dot, not a count.

An essay is a rich note of its own kind, with a masthead, a contents block, references that number themselves, and a cover. It reads on the site exactly as an article does. On its page, a rich note of plain prose is set the same way; a note with its own design is shown as you designed it, and a plain note as you wrote it.

Whatever you publish, essay or note, plain or rich, readers can rate it, save it to their shelves and comment on it, and it is listed under Articles on your profile. Publishing, and being read shows what they find.

To add a reference, put the caret where it belongs and choose Insert ▸ Reference. Write it in the one box exactly as it should read, or paste its DOI (such as 10.1037/0033-2909.132.3.354): Branch Press looks it up at Crossref, fills in the authors, title, journal and year, and links the reference to its source, and you can still change any word. Only the DOI is sent, by Branch Press's server, never your writing. Double-click a reference's number to change or remove it.

Plain notes take references too. There a reference is kept as plain words, with its source's address written out, and underneath it is a Markdown footnote, as Obsidian writes one: [^1] in the writing and a [^1]: line at the end. That is how the Markdown view, the Drive copy and a Markdown download show it, and footnotes typed in the Markdown view, or brought in from Obsidian, become references.

Your writing is yours to take out at any time: a note's menu will give you Markdown or a Word file, or print it. Nothing you write is locked in here.

• Publishing, and being read — what a reader finds, your profile, following, and branching.
• The graph — the dots, lines and colours, and how to narrow one down.
• Templates — the gallery, the library, and making your own.
• Reading, and marking what you read — reading mode, highlights, and translation.
• Your account and settings — your profile, themes, the AI assistant, and security.
• Boards and the album — the quieter parts of a profile.
• The graph, from Ctrl P ▸ Open knowledge graph. Everything you have written, coloured by discipline, with a depth you choose.
• Your profile, at /u. What a reader sees: your Articles, your public spaces, and your graph.
• Notifications. Writers you follow, branches of your essays, and who followed you.
• Settings. Themes, the size of everything, what you are told about, and your own OpenRouter account for the Agent, if you want one.