Lino
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Quick Start

Lino — never stop creating.™

Lino is an infinite Canvas where your ideas land, connect, and grow, with an AI that works from your notes instead of a blank chat box. Here is how to get going, and what to reach for once you're in.

Get going in three steps

1. Bring your work in

Open Settings → Import. Under Files & apps, bring in notes from Obsidian, Heptabase, Bear, Logseq, or any folder of Markdown files and images. Under AI, bring in what ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini already knows about you, so Lino AI doesn't start from zero. You can also just drop files, Images and Links onto a Canvas.

2. Press ⌘T and say what you're working on

⌘T opens the Start page: Lino AI's front door, with your recent work and what's coming up on your calendar underneath. Tell it what you're working on, like a trip, an essay or a project. It can set up a Canvas, draft the first Cards, and keep a plan on a Plan Card when the work takes more than one go. What it makes lands in your Inbox Stack for you to place. See Proposals & Undo and Planning & Background Tasks.

3. Keep creating on the Canvas

Lay things out, write in Cards, and draw Connections between them; drag from the middle of any object's edge to start one. Right-click or double-click an empty spot for everything you can add. Switch a Canvas to Bento view to see it as a grid of tiles, and ask Lino AI for a Chart or a Spark when an idea is ready to become something you can use.

While you work

The Right Panel docks beside your Canvas, so the things you work with stay in sight. Each one has its own button in the title bar.

  • Read — Files (⌘⇧P) opens PDFs, EPUBs and most other files, and remembers where you left off. Select a passage and drag it onto the Canvas, or hold ⌥ and drag to snip a figure; both arrive with a link back to the exact spot.
  • Browse — Browser (⌘⇧B) is a full browser next to your Canvas, with bookmarks and profiles. Drag any image or passage straight in. You can import bookmarks and sign-ins from Chrome, Arc or Dia.
  • Plan your day — Schedule (⌘⇧D) shows your tasks and your calendar together. Connect your Mac or iCloud calendars, then create and move events right there.

Meeting notes, and image & video generation, are on the way.

Core concepts

Canvas. An infinite, endless desk. Lay your materials out side by side instead of squeezing them into pages, so reading, comparing and writing feel like working across a wide table.

Connection. Connect anything to anything, even across Canvases. Connections are searchable and countable: you can always see what an idea touches and where it came from.

Artifact. Cards, Images, Links, Sketches, Charts, Tables and Sparks are Artifacts. Each one lives in the Artifacts Gallery (⌘⇧G); the same Card can sit on several Canvases, and editing it once updates it everywhere.

Lino AI. It reads your Cards, Connections and Canvases, so you can point at something and say "connect this to that" or "what am I missing?". It makes Proposals, you apply them, and you can undo. Anything you mark Hide from AI stays out of its sight.

Why Lino?

1. Help you think clearly, not just produce more 🧠

Producing output keeps getting easier; thinking something through doesn't. Lino puts thinking clearly first: a space wide enough to think in, then AI to help. You don't need the goal on day one. Spread your materials out and let the question surface.

2. Panoramic thinking, not scroll-shaped notes 📜

A feed makes you scroll past what you just read. On a Canvas, related sources sit in front of you at once, so you can see which passages need comparing and which ideas disagree.

3. AI starts from your materials, not from zero 🤖

Lino AI sees what you've already written, linked and arranged, plus whatever you've brought in. The conversation doesn't start with introducing yourself; it starts with your work.

Where to go next

  • Layout Tour — a one-minute map of the interface.
  • Lino AI — your thinking partner on the Canvas, and how it plans, proposes and stays safe.
  • Right Panel — Files, Browser, Schedule and the Artifacts Gallery.
  • Cards & Concepts — the basic building block.
  • Connections — weave notes into a knowledge web.
  • Canvas & Spaces — organize your work across Canvases and Spaces.
  • Canvas Objects — Images, Links, Sketches, Charts, Tables, and Sparks.
  • Your Data — where your work is stored, sync, and backups.