#Creating Documents — Notes, Lists & Reports

Documents in ambientChat aren't just receipts and manuals that you scan. You can create your own — notes, lists, plans, meal prep schedules, gift ideas, anything you want to write down and have your AI remember. Think of it as a notebook that your AI can actually read.

#What It Does

Beyond storing receipts and product manuals, ambientChat lets you create and manage your own markdown documents. These documents become part of your AI context — searchable, queryable, and available whenever you ask your AI assistant a question.

Markdown is a simple formatting language. If you've ever used **bold** or # heading in a message, you already know the basics. Your documents can have headings, bullet lists, tables, links, and any structure you need. They can also carry YAML frontmatter — structured metadata like title, tags, category, and version — that makes them easy to organize and find later.

Every document you create is processed for semantic search. This means your AI can find your documents by meaning, not just by the exact words you used. Write a packing list for "beach vacation" and your AI will find it when you later ask about "trip to the coast."

#How to Use It

#iOS App

Creating a document via chat:

The most natural way to create a document is to ask your AI:

  1. Open the Chat tab
  2. Ask the AI to create what you need:
    • "Create a packing list for my camping trip next weekend"
    • "Write up a shopping list based on what I'm running low on"
    • "Make a note about the plumber's visit — they fixed the kitchen sink, charged $180, and said the water heater should be replaced within a year"
  3. The AI creates the document and saves it to your chosen folder (or the default folder if you don't specify one)
  4. Find it in the Documents tab under My Things

Uploading a markdown file:

  1. Open the Documents tab in My Things
  2. Tap the + button
  3. Choose File Browser
  4. Select a .md file from your device
  5. The file is uploaded, parsed, and indexed — ready for AI search

#Admin Web

Uploading markdown files:

  1. Go to the Documents section
  2. Click Upload
  3. Select one or more .md files
  4. Documents are processed and appear in the current folder

The Admin Web also supports drag-and-drop: just drag a .md file onto a folder to upload it there directly.

#Via Chat

Your AI assistant is your primary document author. Some examples:

Creating from scratch:

  • "Create a document called 'Home Maintenance Schedule' with sections for monthly, quarterly, and annual tasks"
  • "Write a meal plan for this week using ingredients from my pantry"
  • "Make a gift list for the holidays — I need ideas for Mom, Dad, and my sister"

Creating from your data:

  • "Summarize everything I bought at Costco this month and save it as a document"
  • "Create an inventory report of my garage for insurance purposes"
  • "Write up a comparison of the coffee makers I own"

Updating existing documents:

  • "Add 'sunscreen' to my beach packing list"
  • "Update the Home Maintenance Schedule — mark the furnace filter as done for March"
  • "Replace the 'Dinner' section of my meal plan with pasta recipes"

The AI can update documents at the section level — it can replace or append to a specific heading without touching the rest of the document.

#Via Claude Desktop (MCP)

The markdown tools give Claude Desktop full document authorship:

  • create_markdown_document — Create a new document with title, content, optional folder, and YAML frontmatter
  • update_markdown_document — Update content, or target a specific section by heading name (replace or append)
  • get_markdown_document — Retrieve a document's full content, metadata, and table of contents
  • list_markdown_documents — List documents filtered by folder or tags
  • search_markdown_content — Semantic search across all your markdown documents

Example: Tell Claude Desktop "Create a shopping list document in my Groceries folder with everything I need to restock from my pantry" and it will search your inventory for low or expired items, compose the list, and save it as a searchable document.

#Document Format

Documents use Markdown with optional YAML frontmatter:

---
title: Weekend Camping Packing List
version: 1
tags: [travel, camping, outdoors]
---

# Weekend Camping Packing List

## Shelter & Sleeping
- Tent (2-person)
- Sleeping bags (2)
- Sleeping pads
- Camping pillow

## Cooking
- Portable stove
- Fuel canister
- Pot and pan set
- Plates, cups, utensils

## Clothing
- Hiking boots
- Rain jacket
- Warm layers (check weather forecast)

Frontmatter fields you can use:

Field Purpose Example
title Document title "Weekly Meal Plan"
version Version number (auto-incremented on update) 1
tags Searchable tags [recipes, shopping, meal-prep]
category Document category help, note, list, report
status Publication status draft, published

#Tips & Tricks

  • Documents appear alongside your receipts and manuals in the Documents tab. They're first-class citizens — same search, same folders, same AI context. There's no separate "notes" section to check.
  • Use headings to structure documents for section-level updates. When you ask the AI to "update the Dinner section," it finds the ## Dinner heading and replaces just that section. Good structure makes documents easier to maintain over time.
  • Tags in frontmatter make documents easier to find. Adding tags: [travel, hawaii, 2026] to your vacation planning document means your AI can find it when you ask about any of those topics, even months later.

#Options

Setting What It Does Default
Default folder Where new documents are saved when no folder is specified My Documents
Auto-version Whether version numbers auto-increment on update On
Embedding generation Whether documents are indexed for semantic search On

#Known Limitations

  • No rich text editor. Documents are markdown — you write with formatting syntax (**bold**, - bullets, ## headings), not a toolbar with buttons. The AI handles most of the formatting for you when it creates documents, so you rarely need to write raw markdown yourself.
  • Images must be linked, not embedded. You can include image URLs in markdown (![alt](url)), but you can't paste or drag images directly into a document. For image-heavy content, use the scanning workflow instead.
  • No collaborative editing. Documents belong to one user. There's no shared editing, commenting, or version merging between users. If you need to share, export the document.
  • Section-level updates depend on heading structure. The update_markdown_document tool matches sections by heading text. If your document doesn't use headings, the entire content gets replaced.
  • Frontmatter parsing handles common cases. The YAML parser supports simple key: value pairs and arrays ([item1, item2] or - item lists). Nested objects and complex YAML structures are not supported.

#Version History

Version Date What Changed
1 2026-03-01 Initial guide