# The Margin documentation, complete > Every page of https://themarginapp.com/docs as markdown, in reading order. Generated at build time from the pages' own source. The index is https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt. # What The Margin is > One workspace holding tasks, notes, money, habits, dinner and the people you share them with, plus a Mind that reads across all of it and agents that can operate it. Most productivity setups are five apps in a trench coat. Tasks in one, notes in another, money in a spreadsheet, habits in a phone app, dinner decided at 6pm, and the household coordinated over text messages. Each one is good at its job and completely incurious about the other four. The Margin keeps all of it in one place, and the pieces can see each other. > **Tip: Look before you sign up** [The demo](https://themarginapp.com/demo) walks through a made-up household with nothing to install. > [Try it now](https://themarginapp.com/try) opens the real app with that household in it, in your > browser, and you can keep it if you like it. ## How it is organized A **workspace** is the outermost container, and everything you make belongs to one. Most people have a personal workspace and, if they share a home, a family one. You can belong to several and switch between them from the top of the sidebar. You can also stay signed in to more than one account at once and swap between them from the header. A notification says which workspace it is about, and opening it takes you there. **The words the rest of these docs use** - **Workspace**: personal, family or team. It decides who else can see what is inside it. - **Module**: one surface inside a workspace, such as Notes, Boards or Expenses. Each has its own color in the sidebar, so you can tell where you are without reading. - **Hub**: the extra surface a family or team workspace gets, pinned under Dashboard. - **The Mind**: the memory that reads across every module. ## What is in the sidebar The sidebar groups modules by what you came to do. | Group | Modules | | ---------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | At the top | Mind, Names and Organize, three views of the same memory | | First | Dashboard, the workspace's hub if it has one, People, and Today | | Create | Notes, Boards, Whiteboards, Checklists, Journal | | Plan | Planner, Calendar, Inbox, Habits, Focus, Recipes, and Meals and Shopping in a family workspace | | Track | Expenses, Chat, Pacts (on plans that include them), Templates | | Below them | Your boards, then **Views**, the saved filters that gather cards across boards | Search lives in the header on every page, and so does one command panel on `⌘ K`. The break room is in the header too. A family workspace adds its hub: chores, pocket money, the shopping list, points and a wall display for the kitchen. A team workspace adds a roster, the boards the team shares and, on the Team plan, the team's own Agents. See [Family workspaces](https://themarginapp.com/docs/family) and [Team hub](https://themarginapp.com/docs/team-hub). > **Note: Money is one module** Expenses holds spending, income and money owed between people, and all > three are free on every plan. Budgets need a paid plan, and splitting a bill > between people comes with Family. > See [Expenses and money](https://themarginapp.com/docs/expenses-and-money). ## The Mind, the assistant, and your own agents **The Mind** reads across everything you have written and keeps a memory of the people, projects and commitments that keep coming up. See [The Mind](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-mind). **Margin Intelligence** is the assistant. It works through the same tools an outside agent gets, so what it can reach is written down in one list rather than improvised. See [Margin Intelligence](https://themarginapp.com/docs/margin-ai). You can talk instead of type, to quick capture and to the assistant, with a monthly allowance of cloud voice on every plan. See [Talking instead of typing](https://themarginapp.com/docs/voice). **Agents you bring yourself** connect over MCP and get that same tool list. When more than one agent is working here, an [Agent Pact](https://themarginapp.com/docs/agent-pacts) sets the terms they work under. See [Agents and MCP](https://themarginapp.com/docs/agents-and-mcp). **Team agents** are ones a team makes inside Margin, on the Team plan: a name, instructions and tools, run by hand or on a schedule against the team's boards. See [Team agents](https://themarginapp.com/docs/team-agents). > **For agents:** An MCP client can try all of this with no account. Point it at > `https://mcp.themarginapp.com/sandbox/mcp` and it gets its own copy of the > demo household, deleted about an hour after its last call. ## Two kinds of data Your own material lives in a real database on your device: boards and cards, notes, habits, expenses, income and debts, whiteboards, recipes, the week's meals, the shopping list, chores and chat. You can edit it on a plane, and it syncs when you reconnect. Account material lives on the server and only there: which plan you are on, who belongs to a workspace, what role each person has. A device that could edit its own plan would not be a business, and a device that could promote itself to owner would make permissions decorative. > **Known limit: What needs a connection** Billing, inviting and managing members, sharing and public links, connected > services such as Slack, GitHub, Zapier, Canva and Google Calendar, and Agent > Pacts all wait for signal. So does Margin Intelligence and everything it reads > for you, because it runs on a server: its answers, the words in a scan or a > picture, and the dates in a letter. Uploading a file and fetching a new link > preview need a connection too. The full list is in > [Working offline](https://themarginapp.com/docs/working-offline#what-waits-for-a-connection-and-why). ## Who it is for The household is the first case the product was built around. The team workspace sits on the same sharing model, so a team gets the same boards and notes with a roster on top. ![The demo is a read-only tour of a made-up household, drawn by the app's own screens (15 seconds, silent).](https://themarginapp.com/docs/media/loops/dl34/dl34-poster.webp) _The demo is a read-only tour of a made-up household, drawn by the app's own screens (15 seconds, silent)._ Some of it is unfinished. Where a page describes a limit, it says so in a box like the one above. **Where to next** - [Your first hour](https://themarginapp.com/docs/your-first-hour): signing in, the welcome, and what to put in first - [Working offline](https://themarginapp.com/docs/working-offline): what works with no signal, and what waits for it - [Plans and limits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits): what Free keeps and what the trial opens --- Section: Start here. Checked against the running product on October 5, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/what-the-margin-is. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Your first hour > Sign in, take the short welcome or skip it, install it properly, put real work in, decide about the trial, and let the first sync finish before you go anywhere without signal. > **Tip: Want to look first?** [The demo](https://themarginapp.com/demo) is a read-only tour of a made-up household, and > [Try it now](https://themarginapp.com/try) opens the real app with that household in it, in your > browser, with no account. Keep the sandbox when you are ready and it becomes > yours. ![Try it now opens the made-up household straight away, with no account; it is saved in that browser until you keep it (15 seconds, silent).](https://themarginapp.com/docs/media/loops/dl26/dl26-poster.webp) _Try it now opens the made-up household straight away, with no account; it is saved in that browser until you keep it (15 seconds, silent)._ ### What the sandbox leaves out The sandbox runs in your browser with no account behind it, so a few parts of the app are off there. Each one says so on its own screen, with the reason and a Keep it button, instead of showing an error. - **Agent Pacts.** A pact is a lasting record two agents keep about work they share. - **Sharing and invitations.** Sharing an item, inviting someone or sending a connection request. - **Outside services.** Canva, Google Calendar and Sheets, web recipe import, the recipe catalog and live exchange rates. - **File uploads.** Attaching a file or rendering a whiteboard to an image. - **Memory.** The Mind and the Weave: what The Margin remembers and the connections it suggests. - **Full Margin Intelligence and agents.** Voice dictation, team agents and every tool that asks a model to do work. The assistant is here in a small form: it reads a summary of the sandbox, answers up to ten questions, and cannot change anything. Open the assistant and ask about the household, like what is due this week or where the money went. Keep the sandbox and the full assistant takes over, on your own plan's allowance. - **Account and billing.** Plans, billing, connected apps, notifications to your devices and email. Everything else works on the made-up household and is saved in that browser only. [Agents and MCP](https://themarginapp.com/docs/agents-and-mcp) lists the reason for each one. ### How long it lasts, and keeping it A sandbox lasts two days in the browser that made it (seven in the phone app). The banner at the top says how long is left, and in the last day it turns the accent color and Keep it becomes a full button. Once you have added three things of your own (a shopping item, a note, a card, a meal, a habit), a small card asks whether you want to keep them. Three, because by then you are building something the sandbox would erase. Press Keep it, sign in with the link we email you (or Google or Apple), and what you made moves into your new workspace. Not now closes the card, and it does not ask again in that visit. The sandbox records nothing about you. It keeps a one-word label for where you came from, like "reddit" or "direct", and we count a few steps as plain numbers per day. [The privacy policy](https://themarginapp.com/privacy) lists all of it. ## Signing in The Margin signs you in with a magic link by email, with Google, or with Apple. There is no password to forget, and so no password to leak. ![An email address, Send magic link, and the link is on its way: no password (15 seconds, silent).](https://themarginapp.com/docs/media/loops/dl81/dl81-poster.webp) _An email address, Send magic link, and the link is on its way: no password (15 seconds, silent)._ New accounts start on Free, which does not expire. The trial is something you start when you choose to, not a clock running down while you read the docs. See [Plans and limits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits). ## The welcome If you signed in with a magic link, the app first asks what to call you, since an email address carries no name. It is one field and the only question without a skip. Your first workspace starts out as "My Margin" and becomes "Alex's Margin" (with your own first name) once you answer; a workspace you have named yourself is never renamed. Change your name later in **Settings → Profile**. A new account then opens on a short welcome: three panels about what the app is, then four steps. 1. Name the workspace and say who it is for: just you, a household, or a team. 2. Pick a look from the eight themes. The app changes as you tap. 3. Put one real thing in, a note or a board. 4. Decide how it reaches you: sounds, notifications on this device, and installing it as an app. **Skip setup** is on every screen, and nothing is lost by pressing it. Whatever you did not get to stays in the Start here list on your dashboard, which is also where the trial offer lives. > **Side note:** Two sample habits and a few starter notes come with the account, so day one > is not a blank page. Delete them whenever you like. To see the welcome again, open **Settings → Help and reports**, where Getting started replays it and can turn the Start here list back on. Typing "Replay onboarding" into the command palette does the same. > **On the phone:** The phone app has the same replay under Settings. ## Install it as an app This matters more here than for most web apps. Offline only fully works once the app is installed and has cached itself. - **iPhone and iPad:** open the site in Safari, tap **Share**, then **Add to Home Screen**. - **Android:** Chrome offers **Install** in the address bar or the menu. - **Desktop:** Chrome and Edge show an install icon at the right of the address bar. Installed, it opens without browser chrome, keeps its own storage and updates itself in the background. A new version never reloads the page while you are looking at it. It waits until you leave the app for a while or follow a link, and a **Refresh now** prompt lets you take it straight away. ## Put something real in The quickest way to find out whether this fits your head is to give it a week you actually have to get through. 1. Make one board for a live project, not a demo board. 2. Open the Planner and drag this week's work onto days. 3. Write one note: a meeting, a decision, a half-formed idea. 4. Press `⌘ ⇧ K` (on a phone, tap the feather in the header) and capture something to the Inbox without deciding where it goes. > **Tip: Capture first, file later** That last step is the habit worth forming first. Capture should take no > thought; filing is a separate job, and the Inbox is built to do it quickly > when you get there. See [Notes](https://themarginapp.com/docs/notes). ## Bringing existing work in - **Notes**: markdown files and folders, a zipped Obsidian vault with its folders and wikilinks intact, or a Notion export. - **Boards**: a CSV file, or a Google Sheet kept in two-way sync rather than pasted once. - **Recipes**: a link or a paste. ![A zipped vault dropped in: the preview names what it found, note by note and folder by folder, before anything lands (15 seconds, silent).](https://themarginapp.com/docs/media/loops/dl85/dl85-poster.webp) _A zipped vault dropped in: the preview names what it found, note by note and folder by folder, before anything lands (15 seconds, silent)._ The details are in [Importing from other tools](https://themarginapp.com/docs/importing-your-life). ## About the trial Start it when you have a real reason to, and start it in the workspace you are actually thinking of paying for. Choosing a household or a team in the welcome's first step starts it for that plan. Otherwise the offer waits in Start here. > **Note:** The trial grants the plan of the workspace you start it in. Starting it in a > family workspace is what gets you the chores, the meal plan and the ledger to > try. There is one trial per account, ever. ## Let the first sync finish Before you rely on offline, open the app on a connection and let it settle for a minute. The first sync is what writes your data into the local database. > **Careful: Before you fly** Leave before the first sync finishes and you get an app with nothing in it. > That is what an empty local database looks like, and it fills the next time > you have signal. After that, being offline is the normal state and not an error. **Where to next** - [Working offline](https://themarginapp.com/docs/working-offline): what works with no signal, and what waits for it - [Boards and cards](https://themarginapp.com/docs/boards-and-cards): the first thing most people build - [Plans and limits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits): what Free keeps and what the trial opens --- Section: Start here. Checked against the running product on October 8, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/your-first-hour. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Working offline > What works with no connection, what deliberately does not, and how conflicts resolve when two devices edited the same thing. Every device keeps a real SQLite database of your workspace. It holds the actual rows, and every screen queries them locally. When you open a board with no signal, nothing is being retried in the background, because the data is already there. Edits land in that local database at once and queue for upload. There is no "saving" spinner, because there is no server round trip to wait for. ## What works with no connection **Everything here reads and writes offline** - **Work**: boards, cards, columns, labels, checklists, the Planner, Today, the Calendar, notes and folders, the Inbox, the journal, whiteboards and templates. - **Routines**: habits and their check-ins, focus sessions. - **Money**: expenses, income, debts and budgets. - **The household**: recipes, the week's meal plan, the shopping list, chores, allowances, the family ledger, savings goals, points, houses and seasons. - **People**: chat messages, reactions and your notifications. Search runs against the same local database, so finding a card, a note or a habit works offline too. The one exception is **Words in files**, the results that find a picture or a scan by a word inside it: those words are kept on the server, so that group stays empty until you are back online. See [Files and scans](https://themarginapp.com/docs/files-and-scans). The shopping list was built for the supermarket basement with one bar of signal. Adding items, checking them off and claiming the run all work there. > **On the phone:** The phone keeps its own copy of the database in the same way, so a phone that > synced this morning has everything on it this afternoon. ## What waits for a connection, and why Not everything is in the local database. Some things live on the server by design, and some need a service that only runs there. None of them stop the rest of the app working; they wait, or say they cannot reach the server. **Account and people.** These live on the server and only there: - billing and plan changes - inviting members, changing someone's role, and guests - sharing a board or a note with someone, and making or revoking a public link - answering a claim that someone owes you money - a child's other home: offering or answering a share, its switches, and **See the child's other home** (see [Family workspaces](https://themarginapp.com/docs/family)) - Agent Pacts A client that could write its own plan or role would make both meaningless. Pacts are the same case: their whole value is that the server refuses the writes it should refuse, and a rule enforced on a device you can edit is not enforced. See [Agent Pacts](https://themarginapp.com/docs/agent-pacts). **Margin Intelligence and everything it reads.** The assistant runs on a server, so these all need a connection: - asking the assistant anything, including its web search, **Plan a goal** and the morning brief - reading the dates out of a school letter, a receipt or an email - reading the words in a picture or a scan, and the **Words in files** search results - cloud dictation (see [Talking instead of typing](https://themarginapp.com/docs/voice)) - turning a voice memo into a note - the Mind's weaving, suggestions and recall **Files.** Uploading an attachment, scanning paper into a PDF, and opening an attachment you have not opened on this device before. A picture shared from another app on the phone needs a connection too; shared words and links are kept and sync later. **Connected services.** Connecting or using Slack, GitHub, Zapier, Canva, Google Calendar and other integrations, subscribed calendars (they refresh on the server about once an hour), and any agent you connect over MCP, which reaches your workspace through the server. See [Integrations](https://themarginapp.com/docs/integrations). **Writing a note together.** Two people typing in one note share their cursors through the server. Offline you keep writing on your own, and the two versions are put together when you reconnect. See [Writing in a note together](https://themarginapp.com/docs/notes#writing-in-a-note-together). > **Known limit: Also online only** > > - The shopping list's button that pulls in this week's meals. It reads the > plan from the server, and when it cannot reach it, it says so instead of > showing you an empty week. > - Board rules run on the server. A card you move offline runs its rules a > moment after it syncs. > - The wall display, on a device that has never loaded it while online. > - The preview card for a link nobody in the workspace has looked at yet. The > link itself always opens, and a preview you have seen before is stored with > your data. See [Links and previews](https://themarginapp.com/docs/links). ## When two devices disagree The last write to reach the server wins, field by field. Conflicts are rare in practice, because the usual case is one person on one device at a time. Notes are where a clash costs the most, so notes show it. If a note changed on another device while you were writing, a bar appears above it with the first line that differs and three answers: **Keep both**, **Keep mine** and **Take theirs**. Ignoring the bar is fine too; your draft keeps saving. > **Careful: Whiteboards adopt changes on reopen** An open canvas holds its own copy of the drawing while you work. If an agent > or another device writes to that whiteboard meanwhile, the editor picks the > change up when you close and reopen it, not live. Reopen it if you know > something else touched it. ## New versions and refreshing Pull down on a phone, or press **Refresh** in the header on a computer, and the app fetches fresh data. It never reloads the page under you. While you pull, the little page in the pill lifts its corner; it lies flat again when the data is fresh. When you come back online after being offline and everything you changed has gone up, a small ink dot fills beside the sync tick, once. A new version of the app waits until you leave it for a while or follow a link, and then loads quietly. If you want it straight away, the **Refresh now** prompt takes it. ## Checking it honestly Chrome DevTools "Offline" does not simulate this correctly. The service worker keeps using the real network while the page believes it is offline, so the test passes whether or not offline works. Use airplane mode on a real device. That is how we found our own offline bug: the app cached every page except the database engine, so it loaded fine and then had nothing to read from. **Before you rely on it** 1. Install the app (see [Your first hour](https://themarginapp.com/docs/your-first-hour)). 2. Open it on a connection and let the first sync finish. 3. Turn on airplane mode and open a board, a note and the shopping list. ## Storage A local database for a heavy workspace is not small, and a workspace with many whiteboards is the heavy case. Browsers may clear storage for sites you have not visited in a long time. An installed app is far less likely to be cleared, which is the other reason to install it. **Where to next** - [Your first hour](https://themarginapp.com/docs/your-first-hour): installing it and letting the first sync finish - [Your data](https://themarginapp.com/docs/your-data): where it lives and every way to get it out - [The shopping list](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-shopping-list): the surface built for one bar of signal --- Section: Start here. Checked against the running product on October 5, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/working-offline. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Boards and cards > Board, list, calendar and timeline views, saved views across boards, what a card holds, dependencies, custom fields and rules, selecting and acting on many cards with undo, recurrence, WIP limits, sharing, and archiving without losing anything. A board is a project, a routine, or an area of life. It holds columns, and columns hold cards. New boards start with To Do, In Progress and Done, or with a five-step pipeline for design requests, and you can rename or rearrange the columns afterwards. ## Four views of the same board The view switch sits in the board's header, beside the filter and sort buttons. On a phone it is in the board's menu, under View. - **Board** is the default: columns side by side, and you drag cards between them. - **List** shows the same cards as rows you can sort by title, status, due date or priority. Press `V` then `L` to flip between Board and List. - **Calendar** puts each card on the day it is due, a month at a time. Tap a day to read its cards underneath, and tap a card to open it. - **Timeline** draws each card as a bar from its start date to its due date, six weeks at a time, grouped by column. A card with only one of the two dates is a single day. Every view reads the board's filter, so "assigned to me, urgent" narrows the calendar and the timeline the same way it narrows the columns. A board remembers the view you last used on it. Cards with no date are counted above the calendar and the timeline, so nothing goes missing without a word. All four views are on every plan, Free included. ## Saved views A saved view keeps a filter across every board in a workspace: "due this week, assigned to me", "overdue", "urgent or high". Your views sit under **Views** in the sidebar, and only you see them. To make one, press **+** beside Views in the sidebar, or open a board's filter and press **Save as a view** to keep what you have set. Each choice is a chip that reads as plain words, and the line under the name says the whole filter back with the number of cards it matches right now. A view can narrow by due date, by who it is assigned to, by priority, by label name, by board, and by whether cards are open or finished. Open cards are the default. A view's page lists its cards by when they are due (overdue, today, tomorrow, this week, later, no date), each with its board and column. Check a card to finish it, or tap its title to open it on its board. Deleting a view removes only the filter; every card stays where it is. Saved views come with Pro, Family and Team. On Free the Views section is still there and says what it would do. > **On the phone:** In the phone app, a board's title has a **Board**, **Calendar** and > **Timeline** switch under it. The timeline reads down instead of across: the > open cards grouped by the day they are due, overdue first, each naming who > holds it. **Views** is in the Plan group of the contents, with the same four > starting points as the web; a view opens to its cards, and **Edit** changes > the filter. Moving a card to another board is under its column chip, as > **Another board**, and the board's owner can delete it from the board's menu, > after a question that names how many cards go with it. A column moves one > place at a time: tap its name and choose **Move left** or **Move right**. > A card's **⋯** menu has **Save as template**. A column can carry a WIP limit, set from the column's menu. Go over it and the column header tells you. It does not stop you, because a limit that blocks work gets deleted within a week. > **On the phone:** On a phone a board shows one column at a time, with tabs across the top; > swipe sideways to change column. Swipe a card right to complete it and left > to delete it, and long-press to start selecting. ## What a card holds **The parts of a card** - **Properties**: assignees, labels, a due date, a reminder, a repeat rule and a priority. - **Body**: a markdown description and any number of checklists. - **Around it**: comments, attachments, Canva designs and the notes filed against it. From a card's actions you can also move it to another board, or keep its shape with **Save as template** for the next time you write the same thing out. See [Templates and presets](https://themarginapp.com/docs/templates). **Attach file** under Attachments takes any file up to 25 MB. A picture can be opened on a whiteboard to draw over it, and on Pro, Family and Team the words in pictures and PDFs are read so search can find them. See [Files and scans](https://themarginapp.com/docs/files-and-scans). An audio file attached to a card can become text: **Transcribe to a note** on the attachment writes a note in your Inbox, filed against the card, and counts against your cloud voice minutes. See [Talking instead of typing](https://themarginapp.com/docs/voice). ## Talking instead of typing on a card A small mic sits beside a card's title, in the box where you add a new card, beside a card's description and in a checklist's add-item field. Tap it and talk, or hold it while you talk and let go. What you say is written where the cursor was, and a small panel shows what it heard so you can check it. The mic runs no commands: what you say into the title becomes the title. Cloud dictation counts against your plan's voice minutes. The phone app has the same mics. See [Talking instead of typing](https://themarginapp.com/docs/voice). ## Waiting on another card, fields and rules These three come with the Team plan, for boards several people run together. **Waiting on.** Open a card and press **Add** under Waiting on to pick the cards on the same board that must be done first. The card's tile then says "Waiting on 2" until they are, so whether you can start is answered by looking. A card cannot wait on itself, and the picker leaves out any card that already waits on this one, because two cards waiting on each other would never be ready. **Fields.** In the board's settings, under **Fields**, add the extra facts every card on the board can carry: text, a number, a choice from a list you write, or a date. Estimate, client, size, sprint. Fill them in from the card, under Waiting on. Fields sync like everything else, so they work offline. **Rules.** In the board's settings, under **Rules**, press **New rule** and pick two things from menus: when (a card moves to a column, is completed, or is added) and then (tell someone, assign someone, set the priority, set a field, mark it done, or move it to a column). Add up to five steps. The rule reads back as one sentence before you save it, for example "When a card moves to Done, tell Sam and set priority to high." A rule runs on our server a moment after the move, whichever device made it, online or offline once it syncs. The changes a rule makes never set off another rule, so two rules cannot ping-pong a card between columns, and a card dragged back and forth runs at most 20 rules in ten minutes. Turn a rule off with its switch, or delete it; what it already did stays done. A board holds 10 rules. In the phone app, Waiting on and Fields sit on the card under the checklist, and **Fields and rules** in the board's menu adds fields and builds rules from chips. Rules need a connection to read and change, because they are kept where they run; fields work offline. ## Mentioning someone in a comment Type `@` and a name in a card's comment, or press the **@** button beside the comment box and pick a person. Anyone on the board can be mentioned. When the comment is posted, each person it names gets a notification that opens the card, and a push where they have push on. You are never notified about your own comment, and editing a comment notifies only the people it newly names. On the phone, the board's people sit as chips above the reply field. An assistant connected over MCP does the same: `add_comment` with `@Name` in the text notifies that board member. ## Typing a card in one line Type the whole thing where you add a card and the parts are read as you go: ``` dentist Tue 3pm every 6 months #family @Maya !high ``` The words it read light up in place and show as chips under the field. Here that is a date, a time, a repeat, a label, a person and a priority. The card is called "dentist". If a chip is wrong, press its x: the words go back into the title as you typed them, and stay there as you keep typing. Nothing is saved until you press Enter. ![One line becomes a card with a date, a time, a repeat, a label and a priority (15 seconds, silent).](https://themarginapp.com/docs/media/loops/dl94/dl94-poster.webp) _One line becomes a card with a date, a time, a repeat, a label and a priority (15 seconds, silent)._ | Type | And you get | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | `today`, `tomorrow`, `Fri`, `next week`, `Oct 12`, `10/12`, `in 3 days`, `end of month` | A due date | | `3pm`, `9:30am`, `at 6`, `noon`, `tonight`, `tomorrow morning` | A time on that date | | `daily`, `every weekday`, `every Mon and Thu`, `every other week`, `every 6 months`, `every 15th` | A repeat | | `#family` | A label on this board, made for you if the board has none called that | | `@Maya` | Maya assigned, when she is on the board. Nobody is messaged, and a name nobody on the board answers to is pointed out, not guessed | | `!urgent`, `!high`, `!low`, or `p1` to `p4` | A priority | Dates are read in your time zone, month first (`10/12` is October 12). A day name means the next one coming, so `Tue` typed on a Tuesday is next week's. A time with no date is today, or tomorrow once that time has passed. A repeat with no date starts at its first turn: `every Monday` starts on the coming Monday. The same reading works in the Today page's add row, in quick capture (see [the Inbox](https://themarginapp.com/docs/notes#the-inbox)), on a new event, on a new chore, and on the shopping list, where `milk x2` or `2 kg flour` fills the quantity. ## Recurring cards A repeating card makes its next copy when you complete it, not on a timer. The new copy is dated one interval on from the old due date, so a weekly card due on Monday comes back the following Monday however late in the week you check it off. That is deliberate. A timer that keeps minting copies whether or not you did the last one produces a pile of overdue duplicates, and that pile is how people give up on a task app. Here a skipped week leaves one late card. When a week genuinely is not happening, use **Skip this occurrence** under the card's repeat setting (in the phone app, under **⋯**, then **Repeats**). It marks this one done without making the next copy. > **Note:** A repeat rule needs a due date to count from. A card with no date will not > repeat. ## Selecting many cards at once **Clearing out a board** 1. Hold `⌘` and click cards to add them to a selection. `⌘`-clicking a column header selects the column instead, for deleting columns. 2. Press `Del` or `⌫` to delete what you selected. It asks first. 3. Press `Esc` to let go of the selection without doing anything. List view selects with the box at the start of each row, and `⇧`-clicking a box selects the range up to it. The bar that appears offers **Complete** and **Delete** for everything checked. | Keys | Action | | ------------ | ----------------------------------------------------- | | `V L` | Switch between kanban and list view | | `⌘` `Click` | On the board, add or remove a card from the selection | | `⇧` `Click` | In list view, select a range of rows | | `Esc` | Clear the selection | | `Del` or `⌫` | Delete what is selected | | `⌘ Z` | Undo | | `⌘ ⇧ Z` | Redo | Moving a card, editing one and deleting cards or columns all go into the undo history, batch deletes included. On a phone the same undo arrives as a toast, since there is no `⌘` to press. See [Keyboard shortcuts](https://themarginapp.com/docs/keyboard-shortcuts). ## Sharing a board Boards are shared one at a time, with editor and viewer roles alongside the owner. A board someone shares with you appears on your Boards page under **Shared with me**, even though it lives in their workspace. The phone app's Boards list has the same section at its foot. > **Known limit: Sharing outside the workspace is Family or Team** On every plan you can add the people already in your workspace to a board, and > Free and Pro hold you and one other person. Sharing a board with someone > outside the workspace, or by link, needs Family or Team. See > [Sharing and permissions](https://themarginapp.com/docs/sharing-and-permissions). To hide a board from people looking over your shoulder, and from the assistant, seal it in your Vault from the board's settings. The old per-board PIN is retired; one Vault passphrase now covers everything you seal. See [Your data](https://themarginapp.com/docs/your-data). ## Archiving, and getting it back Archiving a board takes it off the Boards page, the pinned sidebar rail, search, the workspace pulse and the team workload in one go. Nothing is thrown away. The toast that confirms it carries an **Undo** for eight seconds. After that, archived boards wait under **Archived** at the foot of the Boards page, with a count beside the heading. Each row has **Restore**, and a delete button for when you mean it. > **Careful: Deleting an archived board is final** The delete asks first, because the board, its columns and every card on it > go from every device. ## Limits **How much a board can hold** - **5** boards on Free. Pro, Family and Team do not count boards. - **200** cards in one board on Free - **2,000** cards in one board on Pro and Family - **5,000** cards in one board on Team The per-board card cap is there to stop a runaway import, and it applies on every plan. Archiving a board does not free a slot, because an archived board is still a board. Delete it if you need the room. See [Plans and limits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits). **Where to next** - [Planner, Today, and Calendar](https://themarginapp.com/docs/planner-today-and-calendar): the same cards, arranged by when they are due - [Templates and presets](https://themarginapp.com/docs/templates): card templates and the starting columns - [Sharing and permissions](https://themarginapp.com/docs/sharing-and-permissions): who can see a board and what they can change --- Section: Doing the work. Checked against the running product on October 6, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/boards-and-cards. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Planner, Today, and Calendar > A week you can drag, cards placed at a time, a priority matrix, a day you plan and close, what you finished counted, and a family calendar with events, repeats, reminders and birthdays. The Planner and Today hold nothing of their own. They show the cards already on your boards in the workspace you are in, arranged by when they are due. That is on purpose. A to-do list that lives beside your boards is a second place to keep in step with the first, and sooner or later one of them is wrong. The Calendar is different: it also holds events. A school play is not a task. It has a start and an end, a place, the people it is for and a reminder the night before, so it gets a row of its own. Cards with a due date still appear on the calendar, marked as tasks, and are never copied. **Which one to open** - **Calendar**: the household's events and your due dates, by month, week, day or as a list. - **Planner**: the week, for deciding what happens on which day. - **Today**: one day, for getting through it. ## Planner Seven days across, Monday to Sunday, with an **Unscheduled** panel beside them. Drag a card onto a day to give it that due date, drag it between days to move it, and drag it back to Unscheduled to clear the date. The Unscheduled panel is where the week actually gets planned. Everything without a date sits there in plain view until you give it a day or admit it is not happening this week. Each day also shows your habits, so you can see that Thursday carries six tasks and four habits before you add a seventh. The strip at the top counts the week: tasks, done, still open, minutes focused and habits kept. Switch the Planner to its month view to jump to a different week. > **Tip: Start from a goal** **Plan a goal** asks the assistant to break something bigger > into milestones and tasks. You edit or drop the steps first, and nothing is > created until you confirm the plan. Then it builds a board with the tasks on it. To move several cards at once, check them and use the bar that appears: **Tomorrow**, **Next week**, or a date you choose. > **On the phone:** On a phone the days stack top to bottom instead of across. ### The priority matrix The Planner's **Matrix** view sorts your open cards into four boxes: **Do now**, **Plan it**, **Hand off or batch**, and **Later, or not at all**. It reads what the cards already say, so there is nothing new to fill in: important means high or urgent priority, and urgent means due within two days (overdue included). The rule is printed above the boxes, and from a tablet up the two questions run along the edges: urgent or not across the top, important or not down the side. Drag a card to another box with a mouse, or use its menu (the three dots) on any device. Only what has to change changes: moving into Do now from Plan it sets the due date to today; moving out of the important boxes sets priority back to normal. The matrix comes with Pro, Family and Team. > **On the phone:** In the phone app, **Matrix** is the Planner's third mode beside Days and > Hours. The four boxes stack, Do now first. Tap a card, then the box it belongs > in; the toast says what changed and has **Undo**. Your finished counts sit at > the top: today, this week and days in a row. ### Placing work at a time The Planner's **Hours** view is the week as hours, 6am to 11pm. A due date says when something must be done; a time block says when you will actually do it. Cards you could do this week wait under **To place**: the ones due this week, the overdue ones and the ones with no date. Drag one onto a time to place it there for an hour, and drag a block to move it. On a phone, tap a card and then tap a time; the week's days are tabs across the top. In the phone app, switch the Planner to **Hours** under the week strip: it draws the day you picked by the hour. Tap the hours or **To place** to put a card there, hold a block and drag it to move it, and swipe to the next day. Tap a block to change how long it runs (15 minutes to 4 hours), mark it done, move it, open the card or take it off the week. Each day's header adds up the time you have planned on it. A card with no due date takes the block's day as one, so it shows up on Today and in the Days view too. A card that already has a due date keeps it: moving the block never moves a deadline. Time blocks come with Pro, Family and Team. ## Today Four sections, in the order you need them: **Overdue**, then what is due today, then **Upcoming** for the next three days, then **Completed**. Every board in the workspace feeds it, so a card from the launch board and one from the house board sit in the same list. The box at the top adds a task due today. It goes into the first column of the board you used most recently. Type a day or a time in it ("call the bank Fri 10am !high") and the task takes that instead; see [Typing a card in one line](https://themarginapp.com/docs/boards-and-cards#typing-a-card-in-one-line). Press `G` then `T` from anywhere to get here. ### Plan the day, close the day A strip under Today's heading offers the ritual that fits the hour: **Plan my day** in the morning, **Close the day** from mid-afternoon. Both are there all day; the one that fits is the bright one. Plan my day walks four short steps, top to bottom: 1. **Left from before.** Each overdue card: bring it into today, let it wait with no date, or say it is done. 2. **What matters today.** Pull in anything due in the next few days that you mean to do today. 3. **When you will do it.** Give a card a time and it holds an hour on the day, the same time block the planner's Hours view shows. Skip any you will fit in. 4. **One line for today.** What would make it a good day. Close the day shows what got done, then each card still open from today: **Tomorrow**, **Later** (no date) or **Keep**. Then one line on how it went. In the phone app the strip sits on Today under the four figures, with the same two sheets. Both lines go into that day's Journal note, as "Plan for the day:" and "Closing the day:" with a count of what got done, so the plan and the shutdown are there to read later, on any device, and the assistant can see them. Planning again the same day replaces the morning line rather than adding a second one. ### What you finished Beside Today's list (under it on a phone): how many cards you finished today and this week, the last seven days as small bars, and how many days in a row you have finished at least one (with your best run). A morning with nothing done yet does not break the run. These are counts of real work and nothing else: there are no points, levels or karma here, on purpose. The day's plan and shutdown and the counts come with Pro, Family and Team. ### Morning brief On Pro, Family and Team, Today can send you the day as a short read every morning. Press **Send me this every morning**, pick a time on the quarter hour, and choose whether it is also emailed. It is off until you turn it on. The brief covers what is due today or overdue and what is coming tomorrow. In a family workspace it also says who is where, what is for dinner, whose chores are due, and any allowance or bill that falls due. It only reads: it never changes a card, a chore or anything else. It arrives as a notification, which reaches your phone if push is on, and opens on Today. With email on, it also comes to your inbox with a link at the bottom that stops the emails in one click. **Change** moves the time, and **Pause** stops it while keeping your choices for next time. Each brief uses a few AI actions from your plan's monthly allowance. When the allowance runs out, the brief is skipped until it resets. The brief is written in your time zone at the moment you turned it on. > **For agents: For agents** `get_morning_brief` reads a person's brief (on, its time, whether it is > emailed, and the latest one) and `set_morning_brief` turns it on or off or > changes it. The feature is `morning_brief`, on Pro, Family and Team. > **On the phone:** The phone's Today has the same brief at the bottom: turn it on, move it an hour > earlier or later, switch the email on, or pause it. ## Calendar Month, Week and Day views, plus an **Agenda** list of what is coming. Weeks start on Monday, the same as the Planner, the habit grid and the money pages. On a phone the calendar opens on the day, and the month becomes a sheet of dots you jump from. Each person in the household has a color, the same on every screen and on the wall display. The row of names above the calendar filters it: tap one or more people to see only theirs. Events that are for nobody in particular, like trash night, stay visible under every filter. To change someone's color, use the menu on their name. ### Events **New event** (or `G` then `C` and a click on a day) opens the event sheet. Typing "swimming Tue 4pm every week @Maya" in the title fills the day, the time, the repeat and who it is for as you type; remove a chip and that field goes back. The sheet holds a title, the day or days, a time or **All day**, where it is, notes, who it is for, and up to three reminders. Anyone in the household can be on an event, including people without an account of their own. Tapping a time in the week or day view starts the event an hour long. The end time is optional: press **No end time** under **To** for something that is a moment and not a stretch, like a flight landing or a pickup, and the calendar shows the start alone. Times are kept in the timezone they were set in. A swimming lesson every Tuesday at 5pm stays at 5pm when the clocks change, and someone visiting from another timezone sees it at their own local time. Drag an event to move it: to another day in the month, or to another time in the week and day views, in quarter-hour steps. ### Repeating events **Repeat** offers every day, every week, weekdays, every two weeks, monthly on the same date, monthly on the same weekday ("the first Monday"), and every year. A repeat can end on a date or after a number of times. When you change, move or delete one date of a repeating event, Margin asks what you mean: **Which dates change** - **This event**: only that date. The rest of the series is untouched. - **This and following**: that date and every one after it. The earlier dates stay as they were. - **All events**: the whole series. Moving one date moves every date by the same number of days. ### Reminders and changes A reminder arrives as a notification, and on your phone too if you allow them. For an all-day event it counts back from 9:00 on the day. When someone in a family workspace adds, moves or cancels an event, the rest of the household is told once. Several quick edits to the same event arrive as one notice. ### Birthdays and anniversaries Add a birthday or anniversary from a person's card in the family hub or from a connection. It repeats every year, shows on the calendar, on the wall display and in the Daybook's coming-up row, and reminds you a week and a day before. If you know the year, it says how old someone is turning. A February 29 birthday is shown on February 28 in other years. ### Dates from a school letter **Add dates from a letter** takes a photo, an image, a PDF or pasted text, and reads out every date it finds: days off, field trips, clubs, deadlines. Each one arrives as a card you can edit before anything is saved: the title, the dates and times, the repeat, who it is for. Confirm the ones you want, skip the rest. Nothing reaches the calendar until you confirm it. A date with a start time and no end ("arrive by 8:15") is saved that way and shown as 8:15, with no end time made up for it. Each household also has a private forwarding address. Forward the school's email to it, and the letter waits under **Letters to review** with the dates already found. You can make a new address or turn it off in the calendar settings. > **Note: Plans** Reading a letter uses the household's AI actions and is part of the Family plan. > Events, repeats, reminders and birthdays work on every plan, including Free. ### In Apple Calendar or Outlook **Share and subscribe** in the calendar settings makes a private link that Apple Calendar, Outlook and Google Calendar can subscribe to: one for the whole household, or one for a single person. The link is read-only and shows repeats and times correctly. Anyone who has the link can read that calendar, so revoke it from the same place if it goes somewhere it shouldn't. The same place adds someone else's calendar to yours, such as a school's or a club's published calendar. Its events show read-only and refresh about once an hour. ## Checklists Standalone checklists sit outside boards, because not everything is a project: a packing list, a pre-flight for something you do often, steps you would otherwise retype. Start one blank, from one of the five built in (moving house, pantry staples, travel packing, weekly cleaning, a party), or from a template you saved. What the household needs to buy this week lives on the [shopping list](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-shopping-list), not in a checklist. Any checklist can be kept with **Save as template** from its menu and run fresh next time. Press `G` then `L`. > **Note: Groceries have their own place** A household shopping list needs aisles, staples and somebody to claim the > run, so it is its own surface. See [The shopping list](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-shopping-list). ## Google Calendar The sync button at the top of the Calendar opens its settings. You choose a direction (push from Margin to the calendar, pull from the calendar into Margin, or both) and how many days ahead to cover, anywhere from 1 to 365. **What travels which way** - **Push**: due-dated cards become events, and a card's repeat rule goes with it as a repeating event. - **Pull**: events in the window arrive as cards on a board called Calendar. A repeating event arrives as one card per occurrence inside that window. To see the family calendar inside Google Calendar without the two-way sync, subscribe to its private link instead (see **In Apple Calendar or Outlook** above). Setting it up is covered in [Integrations](https://themarginapp.com/docs/integrations). **Where to next** - [Boards and cards](https://themarginapp.com/docs/boards-and-cards): where every card on these pages lives - [Habits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/habits): the routines the Planner shows beside your tasks - [Keyboard shortcuts](https://themarginapp.com/docs/keyboard-shortcuts): every `G` chord and the rest --- Section: Doing the work. Checked against the running product on October 7, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/planner-today-and-calendar. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Notes > Markdown that stays markdown, folders and notes in one tree, wikilinks and backlinks, three privacy settings, and an Inbox you clear one keystroke at a time. Notes are markdown. The file is markdown, the editor edits markdown, and what you export is what you wrote, with no rich-text layer in between to translate. ## The four views A control at the top of the note switches how you see it, and your choice is remembered separately for a phone and a computer. - **Write**: live preview. A heading looks like a heading as you type it, and the markdown symbols step aside except where your cursor is. The default everywhere. - **Source**: the raw file, with every `##` and `**` in view. For fixing a broken link or checking a table. - **Write and preview**: source and rendered page side by side. Computer only. - **Read**: the rendered page and nothing else. > **On the phone:** A phone has no room for two panes, so it offers Write, Source and Read, and a > preference for side by side set on a laptop never follows you onto it. > > On a phone the note is one page: the bar with the way back, the title and the > text scroll together. Focus, the outline, and text size and width sit under > **More** (the three dots), beside the note's other actions. Long links and > code wrap to the screen, and a wide table or code block scrolls sideways on its > own without moving the rest of the note. ## What you can write Headings, bold and italic, `==highlight==`, lists, task lists, tables, code blocks with highlighting, quotes, callouts in the `> [!note]` form, images, footnotes, and math via KaTeX. Type `/` for a menu that inserts headings, lists, tables, callouts, code, images and links to other notes without leaving the keyboard. Select some text and the formatting buttons appear next to it. A note that opens with a frontmatter block, as many notes from Obsidian do, shows it as a block of properties at the top instead of a stray rule and a heading. Checking a task box in the rendered view changes the exact character in the source that produced it. The naive way counts checkboxes in render order, and it quietly checks the wrong line as soon as a note contains a code block with a `- [ ]` inside it. > **Tip: Long notes** The outline lists a note's headings so you can jump between them, and a thin > bar shows how far through you are. The foot of the note gives its word count > and reading time. The display menu sets the column width and text size. **Distraction-free mode** puts the note full screen with the same toolbar and shortcuts as the normal editor. It has no key, because the obvious key for it is the one your browser already uses for full screen. ## Folders, notes and tabs The panel on the left is one tree of folders and notes, like a file browser. Drag a note into a folder, or a folder into another folder. The tree refuses a move that would put a folder inside itself. **Right-click in the tree** - **A folder**: add a subfolder, rename it, move it, delete it, or set it to weave privately. - **A note**: pin it, move it to a folder, or delete it. Everything else a note can do (copy, export as markdown, share, pin to a family, the privacy settings) is in the note's own actions menu. Collapse the panel and the note takes the whole width. Open a second note and a strip of tabs appears above the editor, so you can move between the notes you have open. Each workspace keeps its own tabs, and a tab closes by itself when its note is deleted or no longer shared with you. > **On the phone:** Touch has no drag and drop, so on a phone each row has a move action instead. > > In the phone app, open a folder from the folder chip beside the Notes title; > the **⋯** next to it renames the folder, moves it inside another, or deletes > it. Deleting asks first, and asks which: keep the notes (they move to the top > level) or delete them with the folder. ## Linking notes together Type `[[` to link to another note by title, with suggestions as you type. `[[Title|shown text]]` changes what the link says, and `[[Title#Heading]]` points at one section. Links imported from an Obsidian vault resolve the same way. Every note lists its backlinks, the notes that point at it, so a note gathers its own context without you keeping an index. They are worked out from the database on your device, so they are right offline too. A card can have notes filed against it, and the note shows that link back. The graph in [The Mind](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-mind) reads wikilinks as well: a link says two things are related, and the Mind takes it at its word. ## The Inbox Press `⌘ ⇧ K` anywhere to capture. It works while you are typing in another field, so a thought that arrives mid-sentence does not have to wait. The capture box is one blank field with nothing to choose: the first line becomes the title, and you can rename it later. Press `Enter` and it lands in the Inbox, online or offline. Close the capture box without saving and your words are still there when you open it again. The mic in the capture box takes dictation: tap it or hold it and talk. See [Talking instead of typing](https://themarginapp.com/docs/voice). ![Capture now, file later: the shortcut, a few words, Enter, and it waits in the Inbox (14 seconds, silent).](https://themarginapp.com/docs/media/loops/dl28/dl28-poster.webp) _Capture now, file later: the shortcut, a few words, Enter, and it waits in the Inbox (14 seconds, silent)._ A short one-line capture is read as you type, the same way a board's add row reads it (see [Typing a card in one line](https://themarginapp.com/docs/boards-and-cards#typing-a-card-in-one-line)). Type "dentist Tue 3pm every 6 months" and the date, time and repeat show as chips. `Enter` still saves it to the Inbox; **Put it on this board** beside the chips puts it on a board instead, with the date set. A `#word` becomes a label on the card and `@name` assigns someone already on the board; nobody is messaged. A `#tag` that names a board picks that board. ### A list stays a list Type or say a list and it shows as a list before you save it. "milk eggs bread butter" becomes four items, and so does "milk, eggs and 2 loaves of bread", one item per line, a numbered list, or a run of dictation with "and" or "next" between the things. Common phrases stay whole ("olive oil", "ice cream", "toilet rolls", "peanut butter"), and an amount goes with the item after it: "a dozen eggs" is eggs, 12, and "2 cans tomatoes" is tomatoes, 2 cans. A sentence that is not a list, like "call mom about the trip", is left alone. ![A typed list shows as four items before you save it (14 seconds, silent, on a phone).](https://themarginapp.com/docs/media/loops/dl109/dl109-poster.webp) _A typed list shows as four items before you save it (14 seconds, silent, on a phone)._ Tap an item to edit it, split it, join it to the next one, move it or remove it. When the split rests on a word The Margin does not know, it says so, so you can check it. Then **Add 4 to Groceries** (the count and the list are yours) puts each item on your shopping list as its own line with its amount, or **Make a checklist** keeps a list that is not groceries. `Enter` still saves your words to the Inbox exactly as written, and **Keep as one note** hides the list. All of this works offline. The same list shows in the phone app's capture sheet and when you share text into The Margin from another app. In the Inbox, **Not a list** is saved with the capture, so the phone and the desktop stop offering it as a list together. Something that arrived by email, a scan or a share is offered as a list only when it plainly is one: bullets or numbers, a heading like "Packing list:", or mostly things you buy. A forwarded email, a letter or a few paragraphs of writing stay one capture, and the Inbox shows them as plain words, without the asterisks of their formatting. ### Where a capture probably goes A moment after a capture saves, The Margin suggests a short title if you left it without one (with Undo beside it) and, when it is clear, a board or a shopping list it belongs on. The suggestion is a chip under the capture and never files anything by itself. When the suggestion is a shopping list, the capture shows the items it would add, each one editable, so a list never lands on the shopping list as one long line. If the words could only be split by guessing, the same suggestion reads them as separate items too. ### Other ways in Everything below lands in the same Inbox, and all of it is set up from **Settings > Capture**. ![The capture page opens straight to a blank capture; Enter saves it to the Inbox (14 seconds, silent).](https://themarginapp.com/docs/media/loops/dl111/dl111-poster.webp) _The capture page opens straight to a blank capture; Enter saves it to the Inbox (14 seconds, silent)._ - **The capture page.** `themarginapp.com/capture` opens straight to a blank capture. Bookmark it, or give it a keyboard shortcut in your computer's settings. If you installed the app, press and hold its icon (right-click on a computer) and pick **Capture**. - **Your browser.** Drag **Save to The Margin** to your bookmarks bar. On any page, click it: a small window shows the page and any text you selected, and `Enter` saves it. On a recipe page it offers to save the recipe through the recipe importer instead. The bookmark holds no password or key; the window it opens is signed in the way this tab is. If you are signed out, the window asks you to sign in first and then shows the same page and selection, ready to save. A very long selection is dropped on that trip, so select it again if you need all of it. - **Email.** Settings > Capture, and the empty Inbox, show your private address, `in+…@themarginapp.com`. Forward or send any email to it and it becomes a capture: the subject is the title, the message is the note, and PDFs, pictures, calendar invites and office files come along (up to 5 files and 8 MB an email). In the Inbox its card opens with one line, such as "Email · Coach Dana" with her address beside it, and then the message. For a forward, that line names whoever wrote the original. Choose which workspace it lands in, or make a new address if it leaks; the old one stops at once. An address takes up to 50 emails a day, and mail that fails email authentication is turned away. In a Family workspace, an email that looks like it has dates also offers them for the calendar, the way a forwarded school letter does, and nothing is added until you confirm. - **Sharing from another app.** In the phone app, pick **Margin Share** in the iPhone share sheet, or **The Margin** in Android's share menu, from any app: a page, a link, some selected words or up to four pictures. A sheet shows what came in and which workspace it goes to, and **Save to Inbox** files it. Words and links are saved on the phone, so a share made offline is kept and syncs later; pictures need a connection. If you installed the web app instead, share to The Margin the same way and it lands in the same Inbox. A capture that is just a web address opens with a tap and shows a card with the page's title and picture, so a link saved in a hurry is recognizable later. See [Links and previews](https://themarginapp.com/docs/links). Captures are not notes yet. They stay out of your notes list, out of note search and out of memory, and they do not file themselves. An inbox that files itself is an inbox you stop trusting. Each capture has one question hanging over it, which is where it goes. There are four answers: | Key | Where it goes | | --- | --------------------------------------------------------- | | `n` | A note of its own | | `b` | A card on a board, and you can make the board on the spot | | `a` | The end of a note you already keep | | `⌫` | Gone, which is the right answer for most captures | `e` edits a capture first. `j` and `k`, or the arrow keys, move through the queue, and acting with nothing selected takes the item at the top. `q` puts you back in the capture field, and `?` opens the command panel with every key listed. Appending carries on the list you were already writing: a bullet stays a bullet, a numbered list gets the next number, and a task list gets a new unchecked box. > **Note:** None of these keys fire while you are typing in the capture field. A deleted > capture can be brought back for six seconds. > **On the phone:** On a phone the feather in the header opens capture, straight to a blank field. > In the Inbox, swipe a capture right to keep it as a note and left to delete it. ## Writing in a note together Two people can type in the same note at the same time. Each of you sees the other's cursor in their color, with their name on it, and a line under the title says who else is there ("Sara is writing here too"). Nobody is asked to choose between two versions: both people's words land where they typed them, even in the same paragraph. The note saves the way it always does, on each device, so the words are kept even if the connection drops mid-sentence. If you lose the connection you keep writing; when you are back, what you typed and what the others typed meanwhile are put together. On the phone the line under the title shows who is there, and the merging works the same; the other cursors are drawn on the web. Writing together needs a Family or Team plan, like live presence on boards (see [Sharing and permissions](https://themarginapp.com/docs/sharing-and-permissions)). It works for anyone who can edit the note: workspace members, and people the note was shared with as an editor. Someone with a view-only share watches the words arrive. A note locked with a PIN or sealed in the vault is never edited together while it is locked. ## Version history A note keeps its earlier versions, so an edit you regret, a clash between two devices or an assistant's rewrite can be undone. Open the note's menu and pick **Version history**: pick a version to read it, then **Restore this version**. The text the note has now is kept as a version first, so a restore can itself be undone. A version is kept when an edit starts, at most one every ten minutes, and the last 50 are kept. Edits made by an assistant are kept the same way. A note locked with a PIN or sealed in the vault keeps no new versions, and its older versions stay hidden until it is unlocked. Versions are never added to memory. On the phone, the same list is in the note's actions. An assistant connected over MCP can read the list with `get_note_history` and bring a version back with `restore_note_version`. ## Scanning paper, and finding the words in pictures **Scan a document** in quick capture (the scan icon beside the microphone; on the phone, the pill under Capture's title) photographs each page and keeps them together as one PDF in your Inbox. A scan needs a connection, because the PDF is made and stored online. On Pro, Family and Team, The Margin also reads the words in every picture or PDF you attach to a note, a card or a whiteboard. Search finds the file by any word in it, under **Words in files** in the command panel and on the phone's search. On Free, a scan is still kept as a PDF; its words are not read. Pasting or dropping a picture into a note stores it as an attachment on the note. Page limits, which files are read, what it costs and storage per plan are in [Files and scans](https://themarginapp.com/docs/files-and-scans). ## Keeping a note away from the assistant Three settings in the note's actions menu, from lightest to strongest: | Setting | What the assistant gets | | -------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Weave privately** | The Mind still learns from the note, but its suggestions go into a collapsed group in Organize, recall never leads with it, and a memory export leaves it out | | **Hide from memory** | Nothing. The note stays in your notes and your own search, and it is never embedded or retrieved | | **Move to Vault** | Nothing, and the note is hidden on screen too until you unlock the Vault with your passphrase | > **For agents:** Hidden and sealed notes are never retrieved at all, so they cannot be > paraphrased into an answer about something nearby. See > [Curating the Mind](https://themarginapp.com/docs/curating-the-mind) and [Your data](https://themarginapp.com/docs/your-data). ## Getting notes in and out Import a folder of markdown files and the folder structure comes with it. A zipped Obsidian vault brings its whole tree. Importing the same vault a second time updates the notes already there instead of duplicating them, so you can move over in stages. Notion exports work too. See [Importing from other tools](https://themarginapp.com/docs/importing-your-life). Export one note from its actions menu, or all of them, as markdown. The folders and the wikilinks survive the round trip. > **Known limit:** Free holds 100 notes. Pro, Family and Team do not count them. **Where to next** - [Importing from other tools](https://themarginapp.com/docs/importing-your-life): Obsidian, Notion and plain markdown - [The Mind](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-mind): what it does with your notes and links - [Keyboard shortcuts](https://themarginapp.com/docs/keyboard-shortcuts): capture, the Inbox keys and the rest --- Section: Doing the work. Checked against the running product on October 5, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/notes. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Whiteboards and Canva > An infinite canvas for sketches, diagrams and ideas that do not fit in a list, and a place to keep the Canva designs you already have. Some thinking is not a list. A system diagram, a seating plan, the shape of an argument, the room you are about to rearrange. Whiteboards are for that. ## Draw on the canvas The canvas is Excalidraw: shapes, arrows, freehand, text, images and frames, drawn in its rough, hand-drawn style. The rough look is deliberate. People edit a diagram that looks provisional, and they defend one that looks finished. - **Light or dark canvas.** Each board keeps its own, whichever theme the app is in. The switch is in the board's top bar. - **Your shape library is kept.** Add a selection to the library and it is still there tomorrow, on every board you open from that workspace, including boards other people have shared with you. - **Public shape collections.** **Browse libraries** opens the public Excalidraw collections inside the app, searchable, and adds the one you pick. - **Thumbnails.** The whiteboard list shows each board's drawing, so you can find one by its shape rather than its name. - **Draw over a picture.** On a card, **Annotate in a whiteboard** beside an attached picture opens a new board with the picture already on it. See [Files and scans](https://themarginapp.com/docs/files-and-scans). > **Note: Nothing wipes a board in one gesture** Excalidraw's own "Reset the canvas" and "Open" are switched off. Deleting a > board takes two presses of Delete in the top bar, and the second one says > **Delete?** first. ## Get a board out, or share it Excalidraw's export saves a board as a PNG or SVG image, or as an `.excalidraw` file you can open elsewhere. To show a board to someone without handing over the workspace, use Share in the top bar and pick the people. It works the way sharing a note does, and only the board's owner sees the button. See [Sharing and permissions](https://themarginapp.com/docs/sharing-and-permissions). A board can also go in your Vault. While it is sealed, opening it shows the unlock panel, and the canvas and title stay hidden until you unlock. ## When a board changes while you have it open An open board does not redraw itself when something else writes to it, whether that is the assistant, an agent over MCP, or you on another device. Close it and open it again. On open, the app asks the server for the latest version and adopts it if it is newer than your copy, so the other change is not lost under yours. On a phone or tablet, sync also pauses while a board is open, which keeps drawing smooth on modest hardware. Your strokes are saved on the device as you go and upload when you close the board. > **Tip: Before deciding the agent ignored you** If you asked the assistant to add something to a board that is open in front > of you, close the board and reopen it. > **For agents:** The assistant and MCP clients can create a whiteboard, add shapes and text > to one (`add_whiteboard_elements`), place Canva pages on it and export it as > a PNG. Importing a Canva link (`import_canva_design`) gets the full pages when > the person has connected their Canva account, and says how to get them when > they have not. They can also look at a board as a picture, when the model behind > them can read images. ## Canva designs on a whiteboard If your visual work already lives in Canva, you can put a design's pages on a whiteboard and draw around them. You keep editing the design in Canva. On a computer, press **Canva** (with Canva's logo) in the board's top bar. In a phone's browser, open the board's menu (the three dots) and pick **Bring in a Canva design**. The dialog offers three ways in: | Way in | What lands on the board | | ------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Upload a PDF or image** | Every page, from an export up to 50 MB. The pages and text are read in your browser, so this always works | | **Paste link** | The cover and title are kept with the board. Nothing is placed on the canvas until the pages arrive, and the dialog says so | | **Your Canva designs** | With a connected Canva account, pick or search your own designs and Canva renders every page at full quality | A pasted link becomes pages on the canvas with **Render from Canva**, once your account is connected. Designs you bring in also sit in their own section of the Whiteboards page, where you can place one on another board. Connecting your Canva account, the design detail view (open in Canva, refresh, download a PDF) and what the connection can and cannot do are in [Integrations](https://themarginapp.com/docs/integrations#canva). > **On the phone:** The phone app draws whiteboards with a finger and opens them the same way, > taking any newer version first. The tool rail opens the shape library: your > kept shapes and the public libraries, previewed before you place one. An open > picture on a card or note has **Annotate**, which starts a whiteboard with the > picture already on it. A board you draw on gets a fresh gallery picture once > you pause. Canva designs are not in the phone app yet; > open the board in your phone's browser or the installed web app and use > **Bring in a Canva design** from its menu. ## What your plan includes - **Whiteboards:** on every plan. Free holds 3 per workspace; the paid plans do not count them. - **The Canva design hub:** a paid capability, off on Free. - **Sharing one whiteboard with a person:** needs a Family or Team plan. The full table is in [Plans and limits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits). **Where to next** - [Notes](https://themarginapp.com/docs/notes): where the words around a diagram usually go - [Integrations](https://themarginapp.com/docs/integrations): Canva and the other outside services - [Plans and limits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits): what each plan holds --- Section: Doing the work. Checked against the running product on October 5, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/whiteboards-and-canvases. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Templates and presets > Write a shape once and use it as a note, a checklist, a card, a whiteboard or a set of habits, and start boards from column presets. A template in Margin is a shape. You write it once, and decide what it becomes each time you use it: a note, a card, a checklist, a whiteboard or a set of habits. ## What a template is made of Open **Templates** in the sidebar and choose **New template**. The form has five parts: - **Name**, which becomes the title of whatever you make from it. - **Body**, in markdown. - **Steps**, one per line. A line that starts with a hash, like `# Before`, is a section heading. - **Labels**, one per line. - **Priority**, used when the template becomes a card. Anything in double braces, like `{{client}}`, becomes a question you answer when you use the template. A few fill themselves in: `{{date}}`, `{{today}}`, `{{time}}`, `{{weekday}}`, `{{month}}`, `{{year}}`, `{{me}}` and `{{workspace}}`. > **Tip: Sections carry across every target** A `# heading` in the steps groups a checklist, becomes a bold sub-heading in > a note, and becomes a column of sticky notes on a whiteboard. Use sections > and one template reads well on all of them. ## Use one Pick a template on the Templates page and choose what to make from it. Margin only offers the targets the template has material for. | Target | What you get | Needs | | ---------- | ------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------- | | Note | A note, with the steps as checkboxes inside it | Nothing extra | | Card | A card on a board you choose, with the steps as its checklist | A board and a column | | Checklist | A standalone checklist, grouped by section | At least one step | | Whiteboard | A canvas with a column of sticky notes per section | Steps, or `##` headings in the body | | Habits | One habit per step, ready to track daily | At least one step | A new checklist can also start from a template: the create dialog lists your templates under Your templates, beside the built-in ones. > **Note: There is no journal target** A journal entry is one note per day, found by its date. A template that wrote > itself in as a day's entry would hide the reflection you actually wrote. > Journal-shaped templates, such as Weekly review, apply as notes instead. ## The starter set There are 23 starters covering what the app is for: a weekly review, meeting notes, a one-to-one, a project kickoff, a decision record, a bug report, a retro, a packing list, a house move, the family week ahead and more. Your first workspace comes with them. In any other workspace the empty Templates page offers **Load 23 starter templates**, and pressing it twice does not make duplicates. With enough templates on the page, a search box and label filters appear. Your own templates join a filter by carrying the label. ## Save a checklist as a template Refined a checklist until it is right? Open its menu and choose **Save as template**. It lands on the Templates page and can then become a note, a card or a checklist again, which suits packing lists and pre-flight routines. ## Board presets The new-board dialog offers column presets. There are two today: - **New Board**: To Do, In Progress, Done. - **Design Requests**: Inbox, Clarify, In build, Review, Shipped. It is shaped for a request pipeline an agent can pull work from. A preset only sets the starting columns. Rename and rearrange them afterwards as much as you like. > **Known limit:** Templates belong to one workspace. There is no shared library across > workspaces yet, so a template you need in two places has to be made in both. > **On the phone:** On the phone, a checklist's **Manage** sheet and a card's > **⋯** menu both have **Save as template**, and ask what to call > it. Swipe a template left for **Edit** to change its name, body > and steps. Applying a template opens a sheet that shows what will be created > before it is. Writing a template from scratch is on the web. > **For agents:** The assistant and MCP clients can list, create, edit and apply templates, and > save a checklist as one (`apply_template`, `create_template`, > `save_checklist_as_template`). **Where to next** - [Boards and cards](https://themarginapp.com/docs/boards-and-cards): where card templates land - [Planner, Today, and Calendar](https://themarginapp.com/docs/planner-today-and-calendar): checklists and the daily routine - [Whiteboards and Canva](https://themarginapp.com/docs/whiteboards-and-canvases): what a whiteboard template becomes --- Section: Doing the work. Checked against the running product on October 5, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/templates. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Talking instead of typing > Dictate into quick capture and the fields you write in, talk to the assistant, turn a voice memo on a card into a note, and what a minute of cloud voice costs on each plan. Anywhere The Margin has a mic button, you can say it instead of typing it. Your words land in the field as text you can still edit, so nothing is saved until you have seen it. ## Tap or hold The mic in quick capture (`⌘ ⇧ K`, or the feather on a phone) works two ways. - **Tap**: starts dictation. Speak, then tap the mic again to finish. - **Hold**: is hold to talk. Speak while you hold it and let go when you are done. ![Hold the mic, talk, let go: the words come back cleaned up for you to check (14 seconds, silent, on a phone).](https://themarginapp.com/docs/media/loops/dl30/dl30-poster.webp) _Hold the mic, talk, let go: the words come back cleaned up for you to check (14 seconds, silent, on a phone)._ While you speak, the words your device hears appear as you go. When you finish, the recording is cleaned up in one pass: fillers and false starts come out, and "no wait" or "scratch that" do what they say. If there is already text in the field, you can talk to it: "change Sara to Sarah" edits the draft rather than adding to it. ## Checking what it heard After each clip a small review sits under the field. - **Undo** puts the field back exactly as it was. - **Cleaned** and **What I said** switch between the tidied text and your words as spoken. - Words it was unsure of are marked. Tap one to see what else it might have been, hear that stretch of the recording, or type the right spelling. - Check **Always spell it this way** and the word joins your dictionary. Your dictionary lives in **Settings → Voice**. It follows your account to every device, and the newest entries go with each recording as spelling hints, which is how names stop coming back wrong. A list said into capture ("milk, bread, next a dozen eggs and peanut butter") shows as separate items before you save, the same as a typed one. A pause the transcript writes as a full stop, "and", "next" or "then" all separate items. See [A list stays a list](https://themarginapp.com/docs/notes#a-list-stays-a-list). ## A mic in the fields you write in The same mic sits in the fields where talking is quicker than typing, on the web and on the phone: - cards: the title, a new card, the description, comments and checklist items - notes, the journal's reflection, and the line you write when you plan and close the day - chat messages (and editing one), replies in a pact, and search - the calendar: an event's title and notes - habits, chores, rewards and the checklists you make - the kitchen: a recipe's name and steps, and what you are having in a meal slot - money: an expense's note, where income comes from, and what a debt was for - the shopping list's add bar and editing an item - the Inbox when you edit a capture, the facts on About you, and Report a problem In a short field the mic sits inside the field's right edge, so it never takes room from the row on a narrow phone. On a touch screen it is a full fingertip wide. What you say is typed where the cursor was, cleaned the same way as in capture, and a short review opens beside the mic so you can fix a word before anything is saved. On the web the words go in as one edit, so `Ctrl Z` (`⌘ Z` on a Mac) takes them back out like anything you typed, and the review's Undo does the same. It is typed exactly as text: saying "add milk to the list" into a card's title makes that the title, it does not add milk anywhere. With the keyboard, move to the mic and press `Enter` or `Space` to start and again to finish. A screen reader names the field it writes into, such as "Dictate a comment". Voice is on every plan. The mic is hidden only in a browser that cannot record sound, or if voice has been switched off for your workspace. ## Talking to the assistant The assistant's message box has the same mic, on the web and on the phone. - **Tap** it to dictate a message, read it, and send it yourself. - **Hold** it to talk. When you let go and the words come back, they are sent after a three-second countdown that shows what is about to go. Undo in that time keeps the words in the box so you can edit them. There are no command shortcuts here, because the assistant is the one who acts on what you say. "Add milk to the list" is just a message to it. ## Siri, Google Assistant and Alexa "Add milk and eggs to the shopping list", said to the assistant on your phone or speaker, puts the items on your household's list the same as typing them. An item already on the list is not added twice. > **Known limit: Still being set up** These three are built and are on their way to you. Siri and Google Assistant > arrive with an update of the phone app, and the Alexa skill goes live once > Amazon has approved it. Until then, use quick capture's mic, described below. - **Siri** (iPhone on iOS 17 or later, also from the Shortcuts app and the Action button): "Hey Siri, add to my shopping list in The Margin". Siri asks "What should I add?", says "Adding" and the items, and The Margin opens on the list with them on it. - **Google Assistant** (Android): "Hey Google, add milk to my shopping list in The Margin". "Put milk on the shopping list" and "we need milk" work too. - **Alexa**: enable The Margin skill in the Alexa app and link your Margin account once, choosing the household it adds to. Then "Alexa, ask The Margin to add milk and eggs", or "tell The Margin we are out of milk". Alexa says what it added and to which list. Up to 20 items go in at once. - **Any shortcut or automation** on a phone can open `themargin://shopping?add=milk%20and%20eggs`. Items land on the list you name, or the household's first list. If the household has no shopping list yet, the assistant says so; make one in the app first. On the web and in the installed web app, say the same sentence into quick capture's mic: it is offered as a shopping command before anything is filed. The shopping list is on every plan; Free holds 30 items on it at a time. When this workspace's list has no room and another of your workspaces does, the offer names that one ("Add milk and eggs to Groceries in Rivera Family?") and the items go there. See [The shopping list](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-shopping-list). ## A voice memo on a card An audio file attached to a card has a **Transcribe to a note** button in the card's attachments. It uses the same engine as dictation, saves the cleaned text as a note in your Inbox linked to the card, and counts against the same minutes. ## What it costs **Cloud voice minutes a month** - **120** while a trial runs, unless your paid plan already gives more - **60** on Free - **500** on Pro - **1,200** on Family, pooled across the household - **500** per seat on Team Minutes are their own allowance, so talking does not eat into the assistant's actions. Past them, cloud voice uses one AI action for every two minutes, so a top-up of AI actions in **Settings → Billing** also buys more voice. There is no separate voice top-up. When both are gone, the mic falls back to your device's own recognition, which is free and never counted. What you have left is shown in **Settings → Voice**. > **Note: Keeping it on your device** Turn on **Keep dictation on the device** in > **Settings → Voice** and nothing is sent for cleanup. It is > free, but you get exactly what was heard, fillers included, and some browsers > cannot do it at all. Recordings are not kept once your words are saved. Cleanup needs a connection; typing, and your device's own dictation where it has one, do not. **Where to next** - [Notes](https://themarginapp.com/docs/notes): where captures land and how the Inbox works - [Margin Intelligence](https://themarginapp.com/docs/margin-ai): the assistant you are talking to - [Plans and limits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits): every allowance, plan by plan --- Section: Doing the work. Checked against the running product on October 6, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/voice. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Links and previews > Any web address you save opens with a tap, and a saved link shows a small card with the page's title and picture. What gets fetched, by whom, and how to turn it off. If you save a web address anywhere in The Margin, you can open it from where you saved it. A link pasted into quick capture, typed into a card title, left in a shopping item or sent in a message is a link, not a string you have to select and copy. ## Where links open Everywhere text you wrote is shown back to you: - captures in the Inbox - notes, in Read view and in the note list - card titles, descriptions and comments - checklist items, on cards and in standalone checklists - shopping items and their notes - an event's place and notes - chore descriptions and the notes left when one is sent back - the note on a debt - chat messages, and both sides of a conversation with Margin Intelligence An address counts as a link when it starts with `https://` or `http://`, starts with `www.`, or is a plain domain with a common ending such as `example.com/page`. Email addresses open your mail app. The period or bracket that ends your sentence is left out of the link. Anything inside backticks is treated as code and left alone. A link shows where it really goes. A link can be written with a label, and a label can say anything. If the label names one site and the address behind it belongs to another (a label reading paypal.com over an address at a different site, say), The Margin shows the real address instead of the label. An address with a username in front of the site name, such as `https://paypal.com@example.net`, is not made into a link at all, because the part before the `@` is not where it goes. A link opens in a new browser tab on the web, and in your phone's browser from the installed app or the phone app. ### Links inside rows Most of these sentences sit in something that already does a job when you press it: a card opens, a shopping item is checked off, a checklist line starts editing. Pressing the link opens the link. Pressing anywhere else on the row does what the row always did. ### Links while you are editing In an editor your text stays text, so a click places the cursor. To follow a link without leaving the editor, hold `Ctrl` (or `⌘` on a Mac) and click it. That works in notes, card descriptions, comments and the journal. Fields that are always a form, such as an event's place and notes, list the links they contain right under the field. The phone app does the same under a card's description. ### Copying a link Right-click a link on a computer, or press and hold it on a phone, to copy it. In the phone app, press and hold opens the share sheet, which has Copy in it. ## Preview cards When an item is mainly a link, it shows a card: the site's name, the page's title, up to two lines of description and a small picture. Two kinds of item cause a preview to be made: - a capture that is just an address - a note whose first line is an address Two more show a preview that already exists, and never cause one: - a card with an address in its description (the first one) - a chat message with exactly one link The difference is who can see the item. A stored preview, address included, syncs to every member of the workspace. Captures and notes are already visible to the whole workspace, so their previews tell nobody anything new. A chat thread is only seen by the people in it and a board only by its members, so a link in a direct message or on a restricted board never creates a preview. If the same address was already previewed from a capture or a note, the card shows there too. In the notes list, a note that opens with a link shows the picture as a small thumbnail. The picture is the one the page offers for sharing. If it has none, the card shows the site's icon, and if it has neither, the card has no picture. A page that gives no title and no description gets no card, because a card that only repeats the address adds nothing. > **Note: Offline** A link always opens the browser, with or without a preview. A preview you have > seen before is stored on your device with the rest of your data, picture > included, so it is still there with no connection. A preview for a link nobody > in the workspace has looked at yet appears the next time you are online. Everyone in a workspace sees the same preview. The first person to look at a capture or a note causes it to be made, and it then syncs to the others. Each workspace makes its own: a preview is never copied from, or checked against, another workspace. ## What gets fetched, and what the site sees To make a preview, Margin's server reads the page once. Your device never contacts the site: the picture on the card is a small copy Margin made and stored with your data, not an image loaded from the site. This means: - The site sees one request from Margin's server. It does not see your device, your address or your account. - The site does learn that someone saved its address. For a long, unguessable address (a private share link, for example) that request is the first time anyone other than you has visited it. - Margin sends no cookies and no sign-in with the request, so it only ever sees what a signed-out stranger would see. - A preview is kept for 30 days and then refreshed the next time someone looks at the item. A link that failed is not tried again for a few hours. A preview nobody has looked at for a week after it expired is deleted. - For each page Margin makes at most three requests: the page, and up to two tries at its picture. ## What is never previewed Links in these still open. They never cause a fetch: - a chat message or a board card (see above) - a note behind a PIN, whether or not you have it unlocked - anything in your Vault - anything you have hidden from memory - anything in the "Try it now" sandbox If an item like this contains a link that a capture or an ordinary note already has a preview for, that stored preview can still be shown. Nothing new is requested. ### Links that do something when opened Fetching a page is the same as visiting it. Some links act the moment they are visited, and most of them work once: a sign-in link from an email, a link that confirms an address, a password reset, an invitation, an unsubscribe link. If Margin fetched one to draw a card, it would use the link up before you did. So an address that looks like one of these gets no preview. That covers addresses with words such as `token`, `verify`, `confirm`, `reset`, `unsubscribe`, `invite` or `callback` next to a code, sign-in addresses that carry a long code, and any address with a long string of random-looking characters in it. The check leans toward caution, so now and then an ordinary page with a long code in its address (some shared playlists and documents) has no card. The link itself always opens when you press it. ### Limits Each person can cause up to 300 new previews a day, and a workspace keeps up to 5,000. Past either, links still open but have no card until older previews expire. Nobody saving links by hand gets near these; they are there so the feature cannot be used to make Margin's server fetch pages in bulk. ## Turning previews off **Settings → Profile → Link previews** on the web, or **Settings → Data** in the phone app. It applies to your account on every device. With it off, nothing is fetched on your behalf and the cards are hidden for you. Other people in a shared workspace keep their own setting. **Where to next** - [Notes](https://themarginapp.com/docs/notes): the Inbox and quick capture - [Working offline](https://themarginapp.com/docs/working-offline): what works with no connection - [Your data](https://themarginapp.com/docs/your-data): the Vault and Hide from memory --- Section: Doing the work. Checked against the running product on October 5, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/links. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Files and scans > Attach files to cards and notes, scan paper into a searchable PDF, find a picture or a file by a word inside it, and how much storage each plan holds. A file in The Margin always belongs to something: a card, a note, a whiteboard, a chat, a receipt on an expense. It is kept at its original quality, with no recompression, and it goes wherever the thing it is attached to goes. ## Attach a file to a card Open the card and find **Attachments**. **Attach file** takes any kind of file up to 25 MB. Pictures show a small preview; everything else shows its name and size. Each row has a download button and a delete button. Two more buttons appear on the right kind of file: - On a picture, **Annotate in a whiteboard** opens a new whiteboard with the picture already on it, so you can draw arrows and circles over a screenshot or a floor plan. See [Whiteboards and canvases](https://themarginapp.com/docs/whiteboards-and-canvases). - On a sound file, **Transcribe to a note** writes what was said into a note in your Inbox, filed against the card. See [Talking instead of typing](https://themarginapp.com/docs/voice). When a card has two or more pictures, the oldest and the newest sit side by side under **Before / After**, which is how a design request and the finished work end up next to each other. Anyone who can edit the card can attach and delete. Someone with a view-only share can view and download them. > **On the phone:** On the phone, a card's Attachments has a button that takes a picture: > **Take a photo** or **Choose a photo** from your library. Swipe a file to the > left to remove it. ## Pictures in a note Paste a screenshot into a note, drag a picture onto it, or type `/` and pick the image entry. The picture is stored as an attachment on the note and linked into the markdown at the cursor, so the note stays plain markdown and the link does not go stale. See [Notes](https://themarginapp.com/docs/notes). Files also arrive on their own: an email sent to your capture address brings its PDFs, pictures and office files into the Inbox with it, and a picture shared from another app on your phone lands there too. See [The Inbox](https://themarginapp.com/docs/notes#the-inbox). ## Scan paper into a PDF **Scanning a letter or a form** 1. Open quick capture (`⌘ ⇧ K`) and press the scan icon beside the microphone, **Scan a document**. On the phone, tap **Scan a document** under Capture's title. 2. Take a photo of the first page, flat and in good light. Keep taking the next page until you have them all. Remove any page that came out badly. 3. Press **Save as a PDF**. The pages become one PDF, in the order you took them, saved in your Inbox as a capture called "Scan" and the day's date. From there you file it like any other capture: keep it as a note, put it on a card, or add it to a note you already have. A scan holds up to 20 pages. Each page is a JPEG or PNG photo of up to 8 MB, and the finished PDF has to fit the 25 MB file limit. On the phone you can also pick a page you already photographed with **Choose a photo**. > **Known limit: Scanning needs a connection** The PDF is made and stored on our server, so a scan waits for signal. The > camera works offline; saving does not. ## Find a picture or a file by a word in it On Pro, Family and Team, The Margin reads the words in every picture and PDF attached to a note, a card or a whiteboard, scans included. A school letter, a prescription, a photo of the whiteboard after a meeting: once it is read, you can find it by any word in it. - **Search.** Type the word in the command panel (`⌘ K`) or on the phone's search. Files whose words match show under **Words in files**, with a line of the matching text, and open on the note, card or whiteboard they belong to. - **The Mind.** What a file says is remembered beside its name, so [the Mind](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-mind) and Margin Intelligence can find it when you ask about the thing it mentions. - **Outside The Margin.** A scan's PDF gets its words written into it as an invisible layer. Download it and any PDF viewer can search it and copy text from it. Reading happens a moment after the upload, so the file is there at once and its words follow. It reads JPEG, PNG, WebP and GIF pictures and PDFs up to 8 MB. Pictures in chat and receipts on expenses are left out: a chat is a conversation, and a receipt has its own reader in [Expenses and money](https://themarginapp.com/docs/expenses-and-money). Each file read uses a little of your plan's Margin Intelligence allowance. When the allowance has run out, the file is kept but not read. > **Note: Sealed things stay sealed** A file attached to a note locked with a PIN, or to anything sealed in your > Vault, never shows up in search, for you or for the assistant, while it is > sealed. Search also keeps to the boards you are on: a file on a board you > cannot open is not found. See [Your data](https://themarginapp.com/docs/your-data). On Free, a scan is still kept as a PDF and attachments work the same way; the words inside them are not read. ## How much you can store Every file counts toward the workspace's storage, whatever it is attached to. | Plan | Storage per workspace | | ------ | --------------------- | | Free | 25 MB | | Pro | 10 GB | | Family | 25 GB | | Team | 50 GB | A trial gives 2 GB, unless a plan you already pay for gives more. One file can be up to 25 MB on every plan. When the storage is full, the upload is refused with a message that says so, and nothing you already stored is touched. Deleting files frees the space. See [Plans and limits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits). ## Offline Uploading a file needs a connection, because files are kept on our server and not in the database on your device. A file you have opened on a device before usually opens again there without signal. Everything else about the card or note works offline as normal. See [Working offline](https://themarginapp.com/docs/working-offline). > **For agents:** An assistant connected over MCP can list, read, attach and delete files with > `list_attachments`, `get_attachment`, `upload_attachment` and > `delete_attachment`. `search_attachment_text` finds a file by a word inside it, > and `get_attachment` returns the whole text that was read. **Where to next** - [Notes](https://themarginapp.com/docs/notes): the Inbox where scans and shared files land - [Boards and cards](https://themarginapp.com/docs/boards-and-cards): what else a card holds - [Plans and limits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits): storage and the AI allowance by plan --- Section: Doing the work. Checked against the running product on October 5, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/files-and-scans. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Habits > Check-ins, streaks, six months of history at a glance, and a partner in the household who can see whether you actually did it. A habit is something you mean to do again and again. Margin tracks whether you did it, and leaves how you felt about it to you. ## Set one up A habit has a name, an icon and a color, then two settings that decide how it is counted: how often, and a target. The icon is one of The Margin's own drawings, with a target as the default, or an emoji you type yourself. | Frequency | The target is | The period counts as done when | | --------- | ----------------------------- | ------------------------------------ | | Daily | Times a day | Every rep for that day is in | | Weekly | Days a week, Monday to Sunday | That many different days are checked | So "Every day" is daily with a target of one, "3× a day" wants three check-ins before the day fills in, and "3× a week" is kept by any three days that week. > **Known limit:** A habit cannot be pinned to particular weekdays, such as Monday, Wednesday > and Friday only. Weekly with a target of three is the nearest shape. ## Check in Check off the habit on the Habits page. Under the list, the This week grid shows every habit against Monday to Sunday, and you can tap any day in it to log it, which covers the evening you did it and forgot to say so. The dashboard shows how many of today's habits are done. > **On the phone:** On the phone, a check-in is a swipe along the habit's row. ## A daily reminder Press the bell on a habit and pick a time. Every day at that time The Margin sends you a reminder: a notification in the app and, where push is on, on your phone, whichever device you set it on. A day you have already checked in is skipped. The time is kept in the time zone you set it in, so 8:00 AM stays 8:00 AM across daylight saving. Pick the time again, or **No reminder**, to change or stop it. On the phone, open the habit and choose a time under **Remind me**. An assistant connected over MCP can set one with `update_habit` (`reminder_time`, `reminder_timezone`) or stop it with `clear_reminder`. ## Reading the history **Three readings of the same check-ins** - **Streak**: the current run and your longest, counted in the habit's own unit, days or weeks. Today, or the week in progress, never breaks it. Only a missed day or week that is already over does. - **Last fourteen days**: a row of bars on each habit card on wider screens. A bar's height shows partial progress, so "2 of 3" looks different from nothing. - **Activity**: open a habit for 26 weeks of squares, one per day, with the completion rate beside it and its working shown ("3/7 weeks"). The squares are the view worth opening. A streak turns one missed Tuesday into a zero. Six months of squares shows a half-year that is mostly filled in, which is closer to what happened. ## Accountability partners Partners are set per habit. Open the habit and choose **Add Partners** under Accountability. A partner sees how that one habit is going. They see nothing else in your workspace. It is scoped to the habit on purpose. Handing someone your whole workspace so they can check you went running would be surveillance with a friendly name. ### What a partner hears Each partner has two switches for each habit, and both start on. - **Celebrate streaks.** When your run reaches the milestone they picked (every 3, 7, 14, 21 or 30 days), they get a note such as "Sam hit a 14-day streak on Read". A run of 30, 100 or 365 days is always marked, whatever the setting. For a weekly habit the run counts in weeks, so "every 7 days" means every week and "every 21 days" means every third week. - **Notify on missed days.** When a daily habit's previous day ended without its target, they hear about it the next morning, with what did get logged ("ended at 1 of 2"). A weekly habit is judged once the Monday-to-Sunday week is over. In the phone app, the switches and the milestone are in the habit's share sheet, under each person it is shared with. These arrive in the bell and, where push is on, on their phone. A few rules keep them fair: - Days are your days. "Yesterday" is counted in your time zone: the one set in Settings, else the one your reminder was set in, else UTC. - Nothing arrives while your partner is likely asleep. Notes wait for 8 AM to 9 PM in their time zone. - Each one is sent once, however many times the check runs. - Missed-day notes stop when the habit has had nothing logged for a week (four weeks for a weekly habit), so a habit you have put down does not nag anyone. They start again with your next check-in. - A partner hears nothing about days before they were added, and nothing at all about an archived habit. The habits you are a partner on are listed under **You're a partner on** at the foot of the Habits page, each with the owner's last seven days and their current streak, in the phone app as well as on the web. Tapping a streak or missed-day note opens that list with its habit first. Only the owner can tick their habit. > **Note: Who can be a partner** Partners come from the family workspace the habit lives in: anyone there > with Share Habits switched on. It is on by default, and each person can turn > it off in **Family → People**, under "You in this family". A personal workspace has nobody to pick. ## In a family workspace The family page has a Habits together card. It lists the habits the household shares and how many people have done each one today, so "everyone reads before bed" is tracked as one thing rather than five private streaks. See [Family](https://themarginapp.com/docs/family). ## Limits Free allows 10 habits per workspace. The paid plans do not cap them. > **Known limit:** An archived habit still counts toward Free's ten. Deleting one frees the > slot. A new account starts with two sample habits, Read 30 Minutes and > Weekly Review, which also count and can be renamed or deleted like any other. > **For agents:** The assistant and MCP clients can create and edit habits, log or remove a > check-in, and read a habit's history (`create_habit`, `log_habit_entry`, > `remove_habit_entry`, `get_habit`, `list_habits`). **Where to next** - [Focus and Journal](https://themarginapp.com/docs/focus-and-journal): the other half of the daily loop - [Family](https://themarginapp.com/docs/family): where partners and shared habits come from - [Plans and limits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits): what Free holds and what it does not --- Section: The rest of life. Checked against the running product on October 5, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/habits. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Expenses and money > What went out, what came in, what is owed either way, and budgets that mean something because they sit next to your income. The money pages keep enough of a record to answer the questions people actually ask: where did the money go, what is left this month, am I over on groceries, and who owes whom. Your accountant will still want a spreadsheet. Money out, money in and money owed are all on every plan, Free included. ## The tabs Open **Expenses** from the sidebar (on the phone the screen is called **Money**). Everything lives on that page, in tabs. The month you are looking at sits beside the page title, and every tab follows it. The page opens on the tabs themselves, so Income, Owed and Budget are one tap away rather than below the expense form. | Tab | What it holds | Plan | | --------- | ---------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------- | | Expenses | Everything spent, grouped by day, with this week's summary | Every plan | | Budget | This month against your income, the caps, and the trends | Paid plans | | Income | Money coming in, one-off and repeating | Every plan | | Owed | Money lent or borrowed, in either direction | Every plan | | Recurring | Subscriptions and repeat charges found in your spending | Every plan | | Balances | Who owes whom inside the household, and settling up | Family plan, in a family workspace | On Free, the Budget tab stays visible and explains what the paid plans add. ## Record an expense An expense has an amount, a currency, a category, a date and an optional note. The form is on the Expenses tab, under the month's numbers. Press **Receipt** in the form to attach a photo or PDF of the receipt (up to 5 MB), or open an expense afterwards to add one. ### Fill it in from the receipt With a receipt attached, press **Fill in from it**. Margin Intelligence reads the photo and fills in the total, the store's name, the date, the currency and a category that matches what was bought. Nothing is saved until you press Add, so check the figures first. When the total was hard to read, the form says so. Reading a receipt uses one AI action, the same as a short question. When your workspace has used its actions for the month, type the amount in as usual. The receipt itself is stored as an attachment on the expense, readable only by people who can see that expense. The amount is always more than zero, because an expense is money spent. The forms, an import and a connected assistant all hold to that. Money that comes back, such as a refund, goes on the Income tab as a refund, so spending and income each stay honest. A CSV import works out which sign is spending in your file, a bank's negative or a tracker's positive, and leaves the other rows out and tells you how many. ### Import a bank statement We do not connect to your bank, so the statement file is how a month of spending arrives. Press **Import statement** beside the page title (it is there on every tab), or search the command menu for "Import a bank statement", and drop the CSV your bank exports. - **Most bank layouts are read for you.** One signed Amount column, or a Debit and Credit pair (Money Out and Money In), a Posting or Transaction Date, and a file with no header row or a summary block above the columns all come in as expenses with the money and the date already matched. - **The columns are remembered.** Match the date, amount and description columns once and name the account ("Chase checking"). The next statement from the same bank lands already matched. - **Transfers stay out of spending.** Moving money to savings, paying off a credit card and other transfers between your own accounts are left out, and the preview says how many. A matching amount going out of one account and into another within three days counts as a transfer too. Switch off **Keep transfers out of spending** to import them anyway. - **Importing twice adds nothing twice.** A row with the same description, date and amount as one already in the workspace is skipped, so overlapping statements are safe. Two identical purchases on the same day are still two. The import button counts only the rows that are new, so it never promises more than it adds. On the phone, a statement comes in through **Import your data** in **Settings → Data**: choose the CSV from a folder on Android, or paste its text on any phone. It reads the same way, uses the layout you remembered for that bank on either device, and keeps transfers out the same way. A workspace gets eight categories once, created by the server: Food & Dining, Transport, Bills & Utilities, Shopping, Entertainment, Health, Education and Other. Because the server makes them, two devices opening Expenses for the first time at the same moment do not each add a set. > **Known limit:** There is no screen for adding or renaming categories yet. The assistant can > add one for you (`create_expense_category`). ## More than one currency Every amount keeps the currency it was spent in, so a trip does not have to be converted at the register and remembered wrongly later. Exchange rates refresh four times a day. The month's total is priced at the current rates, and the card can show the same month priced at each entry's own day beside it, with the age of the rates it used. The amount you typed is never overwritten. Pick the currency you want totals in from the same card. > **On the phone:** The phone takes the amount on a keypad. Its month picture reports one > currency and names any others, rather than adding different currencies > together. **Spending over time**, in the Money screen's **⋯** menu, shows this > week day by day and the last six months, one set of bars per currency. The > same menu's **Totals in** row changes the currency the workspace totals in, > and **Refresh exchange rates** asks for a new set when the stored ones are > old. It says when the last set was fetched; a set less than an hour old is > kept as it is. ## Money coming in Spending alone cannot answer "what is left". Add what arrives on the Income tab: salary, freelance work, business, a benefit, investments, a gift, a refund. Anything that repeats is recorded once. Check **This repeats** and choose how often, from every week to every year, and it counts toward a normal month without being retyped. On each payday a row for it lands by itself and you get a notification saying so. When a job ends, delete the standing arrangement. The paydays that already landed stay where they are, so past months keep their numbers. > **Note: Private income in a household** Each person's income is their own. Check > **Keep this off other members' devices** and that entry never > reaches anyone else's phone or laptop. The server does not send it to them at > all. Expenses can be kept private the same way. ## Budgets, next to what you earn A cap of 400 a month says nothing on its own. Against 3,200 coming in it says quite a lot, so the Budget tab opens with the month set against your income. **The month at the top of the Budget tab** - **Still due out** money you owe that falls due this month, when there is any - **Came in** income that has landed this month - **Went out** what was spent - **Left** what remains after all of that Under it, a line says what share of a normal month's income your budgets have already spoken for. A normal month is worked out from your repeating income, not from whatever has landed so far. Otherwise a salary paid on the 28th would make every budget look like the whole of your income for most of the month. Budgets are set per category, weekly, monthly or yearly. The trend and category charts on the same tab are where a slow drift shows up. ### Carry what is left to next month A monthly budget can roll over. Turn on **Carry over** on its card, or **Carry what's left to next month** when you set it, and whatever was not spent adds to next month's cap. An overspend comes off next month instead. The card says how much was carried in. The carry is worked out from your expenses every time, counted from the month the budget started and at most twelve months back, so editing an old expense moves it straight away. It is shown beside the share of income your budgets commit, never inside it: money saved last month was earned last month. > **On the phone:** The phone's budget sheet has the same **Carry what's left to next > month** switch. The phone app reads a receipt too: in the expense > form, press **Take a photo** or **From photos** > under the amount, check what it filled in, then save. The photo goes up as the > expense's receipt once the expense has synced. Importing a statement is on the > web; a receipt attached anywhere shows as a mark on the phone's list. ## Subscriptions and repeat charges The Recurring tab answers "what am I paying for every month?". It finds the same store charging about the same amount on a steady rhythm, weekly, every two weeks, monthly, every three months or yearly. Two monthly charges are enough to show one. Each line gives the typical amount, what it costs a month and when the next one should land. - **Mark as recurring** confirms it, and the expenses behind it are flagged as repeating. - **Not a subscription** hides a pattern that is just a store you go to often. That choice is yours and holds in this workspace only. A charge that has not come for longer than its own rhythm is treated as canceled and drops off the list. Import a bank statement to fill this in quickly. Margin Intelligence reads the same list (`list_recurring_charges`). > **On the phone:** On the phone, the same list sits under the month's expenses on the Money > screen, with the same two buttons. ## Money owed, in both directions The Owed tab records money you have lent or borrowed, whether or not the other person uses The Margin. A landlord, a brother, a store: a name is enough. Give it a due date if there is one. - **Payments.** Open the record and use **Record payment** as money moves, and the balance follows. A negative payment is a further advance on the same arrangement rather than a new debt. - **Due dates.** You get a reminder three days before a debt falls due, and one a day once it is overdue. If the other person is on Margin, they are reminded from their side too. - **One person, one picture.** The same person is added up across every workspace you belong to, so a loan you tracked personally and one in the family space stop being two half-answers. - **Lookalikes.** If two records look alike (same person, same amount, close together), the app says so and leaves them alone. A second loan of the same size is as likely as a double entry, and it cannot tell which. ### When they are on Margin too If the other person is a connection, or shares a workspace with you, you can send them the record. Nothing is sent to anyone outside those two groups, so guessing an email address never puts a claim about money in front of a stranger. 1. You send it. They see what you recorded. 2. They answer **That is right** or **I disagree**, with a reason if they like. 3. A disagreement is not the end. **Send it again** with more detail, as many times as it takes. Every round is kept with its reasons. 4. When it is paid, either side says **This is paid off** and the other side confirms. Settled means both of you agreed. **Discuss this** opens a chat about that one arrangement with just the two of you in it. It is the same thread every time either of you presses it, so the reasons behind a claim have somewhere to live. See [Chat](https://themarginapp.com/docs/chat). ### When they are not Then it is your own record, and the honest thing is to hand it over. **Copy statement** gives you a plain account of what was agreed, what has been paid and what is left, ready to paste into a message. **Download** saves the same thing as a file. The other person needs no account to read it. ## Splitting and settling up In a family workspace on the Family plan, an expense can be split between members: evenly, by percentage or by exact amounts. Only members who have Share Expenses turned on in **Family → People**, under "You in this family", appear in the split. The Balances tab keeps the running totals, so nobody has to. Its settlement suggestions net the balances out so fewer payments clear everyone. In a household of four that is usually fewer transfers than everyone paying everyone. Recording a settlement, cash or a transfer, takes it off the balance straight away, on the web and the phone alike, and paying the whole amount clears it. ## In a family workspace A family workspace's budgets and month picture belong to the household, so "are we over on groceries" is about the household rather than whichever adult happened to pay. The family page's Money card shows who is up and who is down, the one payment that squares it, and when the next allowance lands. Finishing a shopping run can log what it cost straight into Expenses, with the list and the item count already filled in. See [The shopping list](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-shopping-list). > **Note: Pocket money is a separate ledger** Expenses answer "where did the money go, and who owes whom between adults". > The family ledger answers "how much does this child have". They share no > rows and no balances. See [Pocket money and points](https://themarginapp.com/docs/pocket-money-and-points). > **For agents:** `get_money_summary` does the same month arithmetic as the Budget tab, so the > assistant and the screen give the same answer. The assistant can also record > expenses, income and debts, and summarize spending across currencies. **Where to next** - [Pocket money and points](https://themarginapp.com/docs/pocket-money-and-points): the children's side of household money - [Family](https://themarginapp.com/docs/family): what a family workspace adds - [Plans and limits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits): which money features each plan includes --- Section: The rest of life. Checked against the running product on October 7, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/expenses-and-money. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Recipes and the meal plan > A recipe register on every plan, import from a link or a paste, cook one step at a time, and a weekly grid that knows who is cooking and what needs buying. Two things live here, and they sit on different plans, so it helps to tell them apart before anything else. - **The recipe register**: a database of what you cook, on every plan including Free, searchable offline. One person cooking for themselves is reason enough to keep one. - **The weekly meal plan**: the household half. Which dish on which night, who is cooking, and what that means for the shopping list. It is part of the Family plan and lives in family workspaces. ## Keep a recipe Open **Recipes** from the sidebar. A recipe holds a name, an icon, a description, how many it serves, prep and cook minutes, ingredients, steps, tags, a photo link and the page you got it from. Favorites sort to the top. Each ingredient has a name, an amount and an aisle, rather than sitting in one block of text. The aisle is what turns a week of meals into a shopping list sorted the way you walk around a supermarket. Leave it blank and Margin fills it in from the ingredient's name. The search box on the page looks through titles, descriptions and tags in the local database, so it works in the store with no signal. ## Read and cook a recipe Tapping a recipe opens it as a page to read. The photo sits at the top, and the ingredients are grouped by aisle with a checkbox on each line, so you can lay everything out before you start. The checks are for this cook only and are not saved. The servings stepper beside the ingredients rescales every amount on screen. Nothing is saved when you change it, and the recipe keeps the number it was written for. ### US or metric Under the ingredients, pick **As written**, **US** or **Metric**. Amounts change to cups and ounces or to milliliters and grams, rounded the way a kitchen measures: 240 ml rather than 236.59, 3/4 cup rather than 0.74. Teaspoons and tablespoons stay as they are, because metric kitchens use the same spoons, and counts like "2 eggs" never change. Oven temperatures in the steps follow too (180°C reads as 350°F). Conversion works together with the servings stepper, so six servings of a recipe written in grams can be read in cups. The choice is yours, not the recipe's: it follows you to every device and to cook mode, and the recipe itself is never rewritten. ### Nutrition **Nutrition per serving** under the ingredients shows calories, protein, carbs, fat, saturated fat, fiber, sugar and sodium for the servings on screen. Open it to see the figures and which ingredients were counted ("from 8 of 10 ingredients, not counted: dragon fruit glaze"). It is an estimate: The Margin matches each ingredient to a food in USDA FoodData Central (public domain data we keep on the device), turns the amount into grams, and adds them up. A pinch of salt counts as nothing, and a line it cannot place is left out and named rather than guessed. **Cook this** opens cook mode: one step fills the screen, in type big enough to read from across the counter. - Swipe, tap either half of the screen, or use the arrow keys to move between steps. - A step that says "simmer for 20 minutes" offers a 20 minute timer. It keeps counting when the screen locks or you switch tabs, and chimes when it ends. - The screen stays awake while cook mode is open. - **Done cooking** adds one to the recipe's count ("Cooked 3 times, last on Tuesday"). If tonight's plan named this recipe, it checks that meal off too. Cook mode needs steps. A recipe saved without them shows a line saying so, and **Edit** is where you add them. > **Side note:** The checks on the ingredient list are deliberately forgotten. A recipe is not > a checklist, and next week's cook starts from nothing laid out. ## Get recipes in None of the ways in asks you to retype anything. **Find one online.** **Find a recipe online** searches a catalog and saves any result into your register with one tap on **Save to my box**. More on where those recipes come from below. **From a link.** Paste a recipe page's address. The page is fetched on the server and read in the cheapest way that works: 1. A TheMealDB link comes straight from their API. 2. A Margin recipe file sitting at a web address is read back exactly. 3. A page that publishes structured recipe data, as most recipe sites do, is read directly, for free. 4. Otherwise the page's text goes to the assistant, which pulls out what it can and marks the result for you to check. Only that last route uses an AI action. If the site answers with an error, sits behind a login, or has nothing on it that looks like a recipe, you are told which, and pointed at pasting the text instead. **From a paste or a file.** Paste text or drop in markdown, plain text or a Margin recipe JSON file, up to 1 MB. A structured file is read with no AI at all. Free text is checked first. Something with a title, ingredients and steps goes through as it is. A list of items with no cooking verbs is refused, since it is usually a shopping list. Only the unclear cases in between use an AI action, and the assistant works through those ten recipes at a time. **By hand**, which is still the quickest way to save the family dish nobody ever wrote down. Every import stops at a review screen before anything is saved. Recipes that passed cleanly arrive selected. Anything the check was unsure of arrives unselected and opened out, so you choose it after reading it. > **Known limit:** One import takes up to 50 recipes. For a bigger file, split it and run a > second import. ## Where the online catalog gets its recipes A catalog search asks two kinds of source at once. - **Live sources**, asked the moment you type: TheMealDB and the Wikibooks Cookbook. - **Margin's own collection**: recipes gathered and kept from sources whose licenses allow it. It answers faster, keeps working when a source is down, and finds dishes no single source knows. It is filled from the Wikibooks cookbooks in English, German and French, the Recipes Wiki and TheMealDB, with Wikidata adding where a dish is from and a picture. Every kept recipe carries its source, its license and the credit line that license asks for. **Save to my box** copies all three into your register. Each one also has a completeness score out of 100. It counts amounts on the ingredients, a real method, times, a serving count, a description, a picture, a named cuisine and nutrition. Fuller recipes rank above thinner ones, so a one-line page from a rare cuisine can still be found but never outranks a complete recipe for the same dish. ## Take them with you **Export all recipes**, in the menu beside **New recipe**, downloads every recipe as one JSON file named for the date. A single recipe exports from the menu on its own page. The file is built in your browser with no server involved, so it works offline and on a lapsed plan. The file imports straight back into this workspace or any other, with nothing lost. It opens with a plain sentence saying what it is and how to read it back in, so a person who has never heard of Margin can still use it. The same menu has two fill-in templates, one JSON and one markdown, for typing a batch of recipes instead of clicking through the form. > **On the phone:** The phone app has the register, cook mode, the catalog search and imports > from a link or a paste. Importing a file, exporting and the templates are on > the web. ## Plan the week **Meals** in the sidebar appears in family workspaces. On a laptop it is a grid: seven days across from Monday, and breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack down the side. On a phone it is one day at a time under a strip of the week. Drag a dish to another slot to move it, and put more than one dish in a slot when you need to. Tap a slot to pick a saved recipe or type anything you like. "Leftovers" and "Eat out" are real answers to what is for dinner, and typing them is how the week gets recorded honestly. Each planned meal can also carry: - **Servings**, which override the recipe's own and scale its amounts. - **Who's cooking**, picked from the household. - **Notes** for whoever that is. A recipe page in a family workspace has **Plan it**, which puts that recipe on a day and slot from where you are reading. Under the week, a line adds up the plan: about how many calories, and how much protein, carbs and fat, one person gets a day from the planned recipes (one serving of each). Meals typed as words, and recipes with nothing it can count, are left out and the line says how many. Deleting a recipe leaves your week alone. The plan keeps the dish's name as text, so losing the recipe does not lose the record of what you ate. ### Food rules **Food rules**, at the top of **Meals**, are set once for the household: dietary rules, things the family avoids, how many you usually cook for, and anything else the cook should know. The assistant reads them before it plans a week. > **Note: When the plan lapses** If the household's plan ends, the week stays on every device and stays > readable. Adding, moving and checking off meals stop until the plan is back. > The recipe register and the food rules keep working. ## The pantry and what you can cook **Pantry** is a tab beside **Recipes** (on /recipes in every workspace, and in **Meals** in a family). On the phone it is **Pantry and what can I cook**, under the recipe search. Add what is in the cupboard, fridge or freezer, with a use-by date when it has one; on the phone you pick the date as days from today. - **Use soon** at the top lists what has gone bad or goes bad within three days. - **What can I cook** ranks your saved recipes by how much of each is already in the house: everything there first, then fewest missing, then the ones that use up what is about to go bad. Salt, pepper, water and oil are assumed, a recipe missing more than half its ingredients is left out, and anything past its date does not count. - Press the trash can (or **Used up** on the phone) when something is finished. Each morning, every grown-up in the household gets one notification when something goes bad within three days ("2 things in the pantry to use soon: spinach (today), milk (tomorrow)"). Children are not nudged. The pantry is on every plan, Free included, like the recipe register, and Margin Intelligence can read and change it (`list_pantry_items`, `add_pantry_item`, `update_pantry_item`, `remove_pantry_item`, `what_can_i_cook`). ## From the plan to the store With **Add ingredients to the shopping list** switched on in **Food rules** (it starts on), planning a meal for this week or next puts what it needs on the list a few seconds after it syncs. If another planned meal already put lemons there, the new meal adds only what the two now need beyond them, as its own line. Taking the meal off the plan takes its lines back off, unless someone has already checked them off in the store. You can also do it by hand. **Add this week's meals** on the shopping list reads every planned meal that points at a saved recipe, scales each ingredient to the servings you planned, and combines them. - The same ingredient across three dinners becomes one line. - Amounts in the same unit are added, and singular and plural count as one unit ("1 can" and "2 cans" make 3 cans). Different units are joined, so you get "2 lb + a pinch" instead of a quietly wrong number. - Free-text meals add nothing, because "Eat out" has no ingredients. - Pressing it again tops up amounts the plan has outgrown: double a dinner and its 8 chicken thighs become 16. A line you edited or already checked off is left as it is, and the difference goes on as its own line. - Pressing it twice with nothing changed does not double your shopping. A recipe page also has **Add to the shopping list**, on every plan, which puts that recipe's ingredients, scaled to the servings on screen, on the workspace's first list. On Free it shows only when the ingredients fit on the list (30 items at a time). Press it again at more servings and the lines it added go up to match. A line someone typed, or one the week's plan added, is never changed: if it holds less than the recipe needs, the difference goes on beside it, marked "Top-up for a recipe". A checked line is treated as a shopping trip that is over, so that ingredient comes back. That one works offline. > **Known limit:** **Add this week's meals** needs a connection, because it asks > the server for the week's totals. Everything else here works offline. See [The shopping list](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-shopping-list) for the rest of the trip. ## What each plan gives you The register is on every plan, with a cap per workspace. The **Recipes** page shows how many you have used ("12 of 25") and says so when you reach it. | Plan | Recipes per workspace | Weekly meal plan | | ------ | --------------------- | -------------------------- | | Free | 25 | No | | Pro | 200 | No | | Team | 200 | No | | Family | 500 | Yes, in a family workspace | An import that would go over the cap saves up to it and tells you how many did not fit. A recipe already saved from the same page is skipped, so it does not use up room twice. Nothing you have already saved is ever removed. See [Plans and limits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits). > **For agents:** The assistant and MCP clients can search the catalog > (`search_recipe_catalog`), import from a link (`import_recipe_from_url`), > save and edit recipes, plan a week around the food rules (`plan_week`, > `get_meal_preferences`), send a week's ingredients to the list > (`add_meals_to_list`) and export the register (`export_recipes`). **Where to next** - [The shopping list](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-shopping-list): what happens to the ingredients next - [Family](https://themarginapp.com/docs/family): the rest of the household suite - [Importing from other tools](https://themarginapp.com/docs/importing-your-life): bringing recipes and everything else across --- Section: The rest of life. Checked against the running product on October 6, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/recipes-and-meals. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Focus and Journal > A focus timer that keeps running when you leave the page, and a journal that gathers each day for you and leaves room to write. ## Focus A Pomodoro timer: work, a short break, and a longer break every few rounds. The defaults are 25, 5 and 15 minutes, with the long break every fourth round. Those are the defaults everywhere, which does not make them right for you, so change them. **The timer's settings** - **Work duration, Short break, Long break**: the three lengths, in minutes. - **Long break every**: how many work rounds before the long break. - **Auto-start Breaks, Auto-start Pomodoros**: whether the next block starts on its own or waits for you. - **Chime, Desktop notification**: how you are told a block has ended. ### It keeps running while you work Start a session and a small timer sits in the header on every page, so you can go and work in a board and still see how long is left. The time is worked out from the clock rather than counted tick by tick, so a background tab the browser has slowed down is still right when you come back to it. Reload the page, or close the tab and reopen it, and the session you were in picks up where it was. Attach a card to a session and the time lands against the thing it was spent on. Pick the card on the Focus page before you press start. ### What the history says The Focus page reads the last 90 days of sessions. - **Days running:** consecutive days with at least one finished session. - **Your best hour:** the time of day where most of your focused minutes land. It fills in after three sessions. - **Typical session:** the median length, so one marathon does not skew it, with your longest beside it. - **Recent sessions:** each one with the card it was for, if any. > **Note: Mistaken starts do not count** A session you end inside its first minute is kept in the history as "ended > early" and counts toward none of the totals. Pressing Start and then End by > accident never adds focus that did not happen. ### In a family workspace Your sessions are shared with the household unless you turn off **Share Focus Status** in your family settings. Turned off, they never reach anyone else's device and the assistant keeps them to you. Nobody else can end, edit or delete your sessions. See [Family](https://themarginapp.com/docs/family). > **On the phone:** On an iPhone a running session is a Live Activity, so the countdown shows in > the Dynamic Island and on the lock screen. The phone can sit face down and > still be the timer. > **For agents:** The assistant can start and end a session, tell you whether one is running, > and summarize your focus time (`start_focus_session`, `end_focus_session`, > `get_active_session`, `get_focus_summary`). ## Journal The Journal opens on today. Use the date bar to move to any other day; days you wrote something are marked on it. Each day has two parts: 1. **The day, gathered for you.** Focus minutes, habits kept, tasks finished and things captured, then the day's activity in order. Nothing to fill in. 2. **Your reflection.** A blank page in the same markdown editor as [Notes](https://themarginapp.com/docs/notes). Below that, the archive lists every entry you have written, newest first. If you plan or close the day from Today, those lines land in the same entry, as "Plan for the day:" and "Closing the day:". See [Plan the day, close the day](https://themarginapp.com/docs/planner-today-and-calendar#plan-the-day-close-the-day). An entry is a real note, filed in a Journal folder that also appears in your notes list. The difference from an ordinary note is intent. A note is about a subject, and you go back to it. A journal entry is about a day, and mostly you do not. Its value is in having written it, and occasionally in the assistant spotting a pattern across months of them that rereading would never show you. The assistant menu at the top of the Journal offers prompts such as "Reflect on this week", "Mood & theme patterns" and "What did I commit to?". Each is anchored on the day you are looking at, not on today, so browsing back to March and asking about "this week" means that week in March. > **Tip: Decide about privacy before you start** Entries use the same controls as notes. **Hide from memory** keeps an entry > out of the assistant's reach, and the Vault seals it behind your code. Both > work one entry at a time. Given what people put in journals, it is easier to > settle this on day one than on day ninety. See [Your data](https://themarginapp.com/docs/your-data). > **On the phone:** The phone's journal opens straight into today's page, with the archive one > tap away. **Where to next** - [Habits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/habits): the check-ins the day's summary reads from - [Notes](https://themarginapp.com/docs/notes): the editor, folders and privacy controls entries share - [The Mind](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-mind): how patterns across entries get noticed --- Section: The rest of life. Checked against the running product on October 5, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/focus-and-journal. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Take a break > A shelf of small games for a five-minute break: a week to fill, a table to seat, a paper plane, a board of tangled threads, and the classics, volleyball included. Play calm or competitive, and each keeps your best score. The gamepad icon in the header opens the break room. It always opens on the shelf of games, and a ribbon marks the one you played last, so one press takes you back into it in the way you last played. **All games** takes you back to the shelf. Every game takes about five minutes and one thumb or one mouse, and each one has a number to beat. You pick how you want to play: every game has a calm way, with no way to fail and no clock, and a competitive way, with a clock, a few misses to spend or a tower that ends on the first slip. Nothing competitive is forced on you, and a game remembers the way you last played it. ## What every game has - **A Tutorial row** on the start menu that never goes away. It plays the lesson from the start whenever you ask, and a tutorial round keeps no score, so replaying it cannot earn anything twice. **How to play** has the same button, with pictures from the game itself and the controls for touch, mouse and keyboard. - **Restart** in the bar at the top during a level. It asks for a second press so a stray tap never throws a round away. - **Play it again** beside **Next** when a level ends, if you want another go at the same one. - **A place and a time of day.** Each game has a few places to play in, and the sky can follow your clock or stay at dawn, day, dusk or night. You set both from the start menu, and they follow you to your other devices. - **Welcome back.** Leave in the middle of a round and the game keeps it. Next time you open it, a card asks whether to carry on. - **A place that notices you.** The room answers what you do. A ball or a card that lands kicks up whatever the season has on the ground: snow, leaves, petals, dust, or a splash when it is raining. A big hit or a win sends the birds up, and you hear their wings. A combo turns the lamps up for a moment. Something fast pushes the falling snow aside, and when the wind gets up, the trees, the hanging lamps and the weather all move with it. Rain darkens the ground the longer it falls. The characters feel the weather too: they squint in summer sun, shiver in the snow, hunch in the rain and yawn late at night. With reduced motion turned on, the room keeps still. ## The Week A planner grid and a tray of tasks. Drag a task into the week; fill a whole day, or the same hour across every day, and it clears. The week fills up the way real ones do, and the score is how much you fit. Tap a task (or twist two fingers) to turn it, and drop one on **Hold** to keep it for later. It plays all seven days, with a lighter weekend. **Workweek (Mon to Fri)** is there if you would rather keep to the office week. ## Table for Six A family dinner and a list of wishes: who wants to sit by whom, who needs the end of the table. Each wish sits beside the guest who made it, and the places it names light up. Pick a guest up and put them in a seat, or tap a guest and then a seat, until every wish holds. Fewer moves is better. Each table allows a few undos, and an undone move still counts. A hint explains the reasoning rather than just making the move. The dinners get harder a step at a time, with one new kind of wish at once and an easier table now and then. The room is laid out for the screen you play on. On a phone, each wish sits in a small bubble by the guest, and a tap on a guest shows the whole card. If you turn the phone on its side, Undo and Hint move into the corner so the table keeps the full height. On a tablet or a laptop the cards sit beside the guests. On a large monitor the wishes, the hints and what the guests say get bigger with the screen, so you can read them from your chair. The same layout can look different from one dinner to the next: the room may be turned around and the tablecloth changes, but every left and right still means what it says. ## Paper Plane Press and hold to throw, and keep holding to lift the nose. Let go to glide. To put the nose down, slide the held finger (or the held mouse) down, and slide it back up to lift again; on a keyboard it is Down or S. The plane rides the warm air rising where the pages turn. Land on the red line, and the distance is the number to beat. ## Loose Ends A cork board of pins and threads. Drag the pins until no two threads cross. Each board is a little bigger than the last. ## The classics ### Stack A crane, a pile of cards and your character at the foot of it. The crane swings a card over the pile and one press drops it straight down. If it hangs over the edge, the overhang is trimmed off and the next card is only as wide as what is left. Land it right on top and it stays whole, and a few perfect drops in a row grow a narrowed card back. The ruler down the side marks your best height. **Five ways to play Stack** - **Zen**: a miss only costs the card. - **Blueprint**: match a drawing by dropping off-center on purpose. - **Tower**: ends on the first miss. - **Tall order**: a height to reach before your third miss. - **Against the clock**: ninety seconds, with a second back for every perfect drop. Index cards come first, then sticky notes and books as your towers grow. The first time you play, the game shows you how as you go. ### Catch the Tasks The room that was here first, rebuilt. Tasks fall from the top of the page and you catch them in a board column: plain tasks, priority ones worth more, sticky notes that flutter, meetings that drop fast, and the odd notification ping you are better off letting fall. **Three powers that turn up now and then** - **Focus**: slows everything down. - **Inbox zero**: drops every task on the page into your column. - **Delegate**: brings a second column to help. Calm ways to play include **A day** (sixty tasks, catch what you can), **Rain**, **Sort** and **Two baskets**; **Against the clock** and **Three misses** are the competitive ones. It follows your theme, like every other game. Steer with the arrow keys on a keyboard or a drag on a phone. > **On the phone:** On the phone app you can also tilt to steer. See [Extras on the phone](#extras-on-the-phone). ### Volley Two of the cast on a court with a net, playing real volleyball. The ball is in play until it touches the floor. If it lands in a court, the other side scores; if it lands out, or hits a wall, the ceiling or anything off the court, the side that touched it last loses the point. Each side gets up to three touches, so you can pass it to yourself, set it and hit it over, and you can run off your own court to save a ball that is still in the air. The shot the game thinks is right is written over your character: a bump, a set, a spike by the net, a block at their hit. One press plays it. Add a direction to pick another shot. | Playing on | Run | Play the ball | | ---------- | --------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | Touch | Drag anywhere | Tap for the written shot. Flick up to set it high (a lob on your last touch), toward the net to attack, down to tip it over or dig, back to keep it. Tap to serve. Hold a little to float it short, longer to drive it deep. Steering with one thumb, tap with the other | | Keyboard | Left and Right, or `A` and `D` | `Space` for the written shot. Hold Up, Down or a direction as you press for the others; `X` attacks. Hold `Space` to serve: a little floats it short, longer drives it deep | | Mouse | The character follows the pointer | Click for the written shot. Point high above your character to set it high, at the floor to tip or dig, and Shift and click to attack. Hold the click to serve: a little floats it, longer drives it | Every touch is graded Perfect, Early or Late, so you can see your timing improve. On a phone held upright, the court is framed for portrait, and the camera eases across the court as the ball crosses rather than cutting. **Serving.** A tap is the safe serve, high to the middle of their court. Hold it and a meter fills over your character, naming the serve you would get if you let go now: a **float serve** that drops short, a **serve** to the middle, then a **drive serve**, flat, fast and deep. **Blocking.** When their spiker goes up at the net and you are close to it, the line over the court says their spike is coming. Press then and your character steps to the tape and jumps with their hit, hands up. A press after the ball is already struck is usually too late, as it is in real volleyball. **Help on the way.** You always do the steering, but when you take your character close to a ball it could reach, it steps in under it instead of letting it drop behind. Easy helps from furthest away and Hard not at all. When a match ends, both players stop where they are and the result is marked on your character. **Three levels** - **Easy**: your character runs to the ball, steps in under one you steer close to, and keeps up one you miss, against a relaxed opponent. A beginner can win here. - **Normal**: you do the running and every touch is yours, with a small step in under a ball you steer close to. - **Hard**: you have to be closer to the ball, and the opponent reads you. Every character has the same body and plays as well as the others; they differ in how they like to play and in what they say. **Ways to play Volley** - **Lesson**: (calm): five short steps, serve, pass and spike with one press, then a high set and a tip. `N` skips a step. - **Rally**: (calm): you and a partner keep it going together. - **Spike practice**: (calm): fifteen easy feeds to put on chalk circles. - **Match**: the quick game, one set to 11, won by two, with a count of your wins in a row. - **Official**: beach volleyball as it is refereed. Best of three sets to 21, 21 and 15, each won by two, and the players change ends every 7 points (every 5 in the third set), with the court turning around and each score staying over its player. - **King of the court**: short games to 5 against the rest of the cast, one after another. - **Two players**: both of you on one screen, left side against right, first to 9. On a keyboard the left player has `A`, `D`, `W`, `S` and `Space`, the right the arrows and `Enter`. - **Today's court**: the same match for everyone today. In Match and Official, the side that wins a rally serves the next, a block counts as one of your three touches, and a serve that clips the net and carries over is in play. Double contact on a set is too fine to judge in the game, so it is never called. King of the court, Two players and Today's court keep their first-to-9 (or 5) games with the rally winner serving and a block as a free touch. Each way of playing shows its rules in one line on the card where you pick it. There are five courts: the paper court, a school gym, a beach, a rooftop and a park. ## How the characters play The characters in the games think for themselves. Each one has a personality drawn from its own temperament, so one likes to attack and another plays it safe, and each makes the kind of small mistakes a person makes rather than playing perfectly. They also learn how you play: where you like to hit, whether a deep ball or a short one gives you trouble, which days of The Week you fill first. What they learn is a few dozen numbers per game, kept with your games settings on your account, so the characters on your phone know what the ones on your laptop picked up. Older habits fade, so last week counts for more than three months ago. Within the level you pick, a game keeps the contest close. If you are winning every point it leans a little harder, and if you are losing every point it eases off. It only moves inside a narrow band around your level: Easy stays easy and Hard stays hard. Modes that promise a fair fight, where a best score is at stake, play exactly at the level you chose. When you are online, a character's lines and its plan for a match can come from Margin Intelligence. Those answers are shared and reused for everyone, never built from anything you typed, and they do not count against your AI actions. Offline, or if that is slow, the characters think on the device and the game plays the same. ## Extras on the phone The phone app adds a few things on top of the touch controls, never in place of them. Each one has its own switch in the game's settings sheet, and every game plays fully by touch with all of them off. - **Tilt** steers by tilting the phone. - **Shake** does the game's shake, where it has one. - **Paper that moves** shifts the page a little as you tilt the phone. - **Haptics** gives a small tap in your hand on every snap and landing. - **Two fingers** lets you twist or pinch. With Reduce Motion on, the motion extras stay still. When a round ends, **Share** on the result card sends the result as a picture. ## Your best, everywhere Every game keeps your best scores and stars on your account, so a best you set on your phone is the one to beat on your laptop. Each way of playing has a best of its own. Two devices never lower each other's score: the higher one always wins. No game has a leaderboard, and nobody else can see your scores. ## Sound The games have their own sounds, and they follow your sound setting in **Settings → Notifications**. If sounds are off for your account, the games are quiet too. Each game also has its own sound switch, which mutes only the device you are on. A game's sounds download the first time you play it, and after that it plays with sound offline. Most sounds have several takes that take turns, so a hit you hear forty times a round rarely sounds the same twice. ### Music Each game has its own music, written for it: two to four longer pieces that change with where you play and the time of day. Volley's rooftop gets a relaxed groove under string lights, the café in The Week gets evening jazz, and Loose Ends turns quieter after dark. When a piece has played through, the next one in the set takes over, so you rarely hear the same one twice in a row. A shared library of other pieces comes around now and then too, for variety. Between rounds, on the start card, the level picker and the result, a short piece of the game's own plays instead, and the longer music comes back when the round starts. The music sits under the room and the game's own sounds, and it drops back and softens while a menu is open. The music also follows the match. As a rally gets longer, a clock runs down, a stack gets taller or a flight goes on, the piece opens up and gets a little brighter and a little louder. It never cuts to another piece in the middle of a round. When a round ends, the music rises into the moment and then settles back down. On the phone the music gets a little louder but its tone stays the same. The shelf, where you pick a game, has quiet music of its own. It only starts after you tap or press something there. It changes with the time of day. When you open a game it keeps playing, softly, under the game's menu, and fades out once the game's own music has started, so there is no silent gap between them. The **Music** switch next to **Skip openings** turns it off. In the browser it is the same switch as the one in each game, so turning it off on the shelf turns game music off on that device too. On the phone each game keeps its own music switch, and the shelf has its own as well. To choose, open the pause menu (or the game's place settings) and pick under **Music**: - **Adaptive** follows the place, the hour and the season. This is the default. - **A named piece** plays that one for as long as you play, menus included. Every piece in every game is on the list, not only the game's own. - **Off** plays no music in this game. The other games keep theirs. Your pick is saved for each game on your account, so your phone and your laptop play the same thing. On the phone the same choice is in the game's settings sheet, under Sound. A piece downloads the first time it plays. The music switch beside the sound switch still turns music off in every game on the device you are on. ## Five minutes A break is five minutes, and that is not a setting. The room counts down and tells you where you came from, so the way out is the way back to the thing you were doing rather than a decision you have to make again. ## Why a productivity app ships games Because breaks are part of work, and a break that stays inside the app is one you actually come back from. Five minutes with a small puzzle resets your head better than five minutes of a feed designed to keep you. Nothing is wired to them. No reward, no daily streak to protect, no notifications, and no effect on your data at all. ## Where it lives The gamepad icon in the top bar, on every surface, or **Take a break** from the command palette. In the phone app, **Take a break** is in the Margin Intelligence sheet and on the Focus screen. In a phone browser the games play in portrait with touch controls, fit the screen without scrolling, and a drag in a game never scrolls or refreshes the page. On a large monitor every game grows with the screen: the board, the characters, the room around them and every word get bigger together, so a 1440p or 4K screen is filled the way a laptop's is and everything reads from your chair. Every game also works with a keyboard. **Where to next** - [Focus and Journal](https://themarginapp.com/docs/focus-and-journal): the timer that tells you when a break is due - [Themes and appearance](https://themarginapp.com/docs/themes-and-appearance): the theme every game follows - [Working offline](https://themarginapp.com/docs/working-offline): what else keeps working with no signal --- Section: The rest of life. Checked against the running product on October 7, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/take-a-break. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # The Mind > What your workspace remembers about your work and the people in it, where that memory comes from, and how to correct or delete any of it. Most tools file what you write and never read it again. The Mind is the part of The Margin that reads it back. From the notes, cards and conversations you were already making, it works out who and what keeps coming up, and it uses that to answer questions no single note could. ## What it holds - **Hubs**: the people, projects, organizations and agents that keep turning up. Mention Sarah in a note and again on a card, and both lead to the same Sarah. **Names**, under Mind in the sidebar, lists them. - **Memories**: durable facts about you, each with an importance and each traceable to the note, card or conversation it came from. "I do not eat meat" is kept. "Can you make me a board for the trip" is a request, and is not. - **Connections**: links between things. This note is about that project; these two cards describe the same work under different names. The **Mind** page draws all of it as a map. A `[[wikilink]]` you type yourself draws a line on that map straight away, because a link you made on purpose is better evidence than one the engine inferred. ![The Mind map: each note is a star, a wikilink is a line, and a star opens on what it connects to (15 seconds, silent).](https://themarginapp.com/docs/media/loops/dl132/dl132-poster.webp) _The Mind map: each note is a star, a wikilink is a line, and a star opens on what it connects to (15 seconds, silent)._ The button at the top of the Mind page, **Connect ideas** (or a count such as **3 to connect**), opens **Possible links**: pairs of things that look related, each with a line on why. **Connect** draws the link and **Not now** sets the pair aside, so nothing is linked until you say so. Opening the list costs nothing; **Find more** looks again and uses a weave credit. ## How it learns - New and edited content is picked up in the background, in batches, about every fifteen minutes. - An edit is read again, so the Mind does not keep a stale copy. A memory that was true in March and wrong by August does more harm than a gap. - Recall matches on meaning as well as on the words. Ask "did anyone say anything about the wedding" and it finds the note that discussed the ceremony without using the word. > **Note: Suggestions wait for you** What the engine infers about tags, links and who is who lands in a review > queue on **Organize**. By default nothing there applies itself. If you switch > the weave to Auto, only confident, additive changes apply, and a merge never > does. See [Curating the Mind](https://themarginapp.com/docs/curating-the-mind). ## Reading and correcting what it remembers Everything the Mind durably believes about you is listed in **Settings → Your Brain**, under "What your Margin remembers about you". It is written as plain sentences, grouped as things you have shared, how you work, and patterns it has noticed. Any line can be edited, or forgotten. Forgetting deletes it, and recall stops using it at once. That list is the whole of it. A wrong entry you cannot see misleads every answer that touches it, which is why the list is there to read. ## Whose memory it is Memory belongs to the workspace it was learned in. What Margin learns in the family workspace stays in the family workspace, and every member can read it on **Settings → Your Brain**, because the household's assistant answers all of them from it. Your personal workspace's memory is yours alone. In a shared workspace each fact keeps who taught it, shown under it as "Taught by" and their name. Only that person, or an owner or admin of the workspace, can edit or forget it; everyone else sees whose it is and has nothing to press. ## About you Some facts are about you rather than about any workspace: you like short answers, you are vegetarian, you do not take calls before ten. Those live in **About you** (**Mind → About you**, also linked from **Settings → Your Brain**). About you follows you into every workspace, Margin Intelligence reads it in each one, and nobody else can see it, a workspace owner included. - Add, reword or remove lines yourself, up to 100 of them, each one short sentence (500 characters at most). Each line says where it came from: added by you, saved by Margin Intelligence, or saved by a connected assistant. - Tell Margin Intelligence in your own workspace and it keeps the fact in About you. In a shared workspace it asks once, with two buttons: **For the household** (or **For the team**) keeps it in that workspace's memory, and **Just for me** keeps it in About you. - It holds facts about you and nothing else. A workspace's notes, cards and lists never go into it. - Workspace exports leave it out. **Download** on the About you page gives you your own copy. - Assistants you connect over MCP can read and change it, for you only (`list_about_me`, `add_about_me_fact`, `update_about_me_fact`, `forget_about_me_fact`). - On the phone app, About you is in the Mind's menu. For a person or a project, open it on **Names**, the middle tab at the top of the sidebar (**Mind → Names**), which lists the names the Mind has noticed in your writing. It is not the list of people in your workspace, which is [People](https://themarginapp.com/docs/people-and-roles). A name's sheet shows the short profile Margin keeps, where it appears and what it connects to, and a field to teach Margin about it directly. What you write there is treated as fact, and only the workspace owner and admins can change it. ## Keeping things out of it Four controls, lightest first. | Control | Where it is | What the Mind does with the item | | -------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Weave privately** | A note's or folder's menu; **Private weaving** in a board's settings | Still learns from it, but files its suggestions in a collapsed Private group, never leads recall with it, and leaves it out of every export and memory pack | | **Hide from memory** | A note's menu | Never embeds or recalls it. The note stays in your notes and your own search | | **Move to Vault** | A note's menu, a board's settings, a checklist, a whiteboard | Seals it: hidden on screen and from the assistant while your Vault is locked | | **Put away** | A learned star on the **Mind** map | Seals everything that star was learned from, takes it out of memory, and deletes what was learned from it on the spot | Weaving privately is a curtain. The Vault is the lock, and [Your data](https://themarginapp.com/docs/your-data) says exactly what it does and does not encrypt. Put away is undone from the Vault panel in **Settings → Your Brain**, one **Bring back** per item. See [Curating the Mind](https://themarginapp.com/docs/curating-the-mind). > **Side note:** It will not tell you that Tuesday's breakfast looked like Wednesday's. > Repetition and meaning are different things, and the engine had to be taught > that. In a shared workspace the Mind is scoped the way your data is. Each person's recall reads only what that person can open, so a card on a board you are not on never reaches your answers, whether it comes up in the background or when Margin Intelligence looks something up in memory. The Mind cannot become a way to learn things about the people you live with that they never told you. ## Bringing your memory from another assistant If another assistant, such as ChatGPT, already knows you, you can bring that over. **Mind → Bring your memory** (also in Settings → Your Brain) gives you a prompt to paste into the assistant you use. Paste its answer back and each fact is listed with its kind: a preference, a person, a project, a routine or a fact. Uncheck or fix anything, then save. Nothing is kept until you do. Facts Margin already knows start unchecked, and anything that names something you hid from memory stays out. Saved facts go into this workspace's memory, so in a shared workspace the other members can see them; a personal workspace is the best place for them. Each import is listed on the same page with **Undo this import**, which removes exactly what it added. A ChatGPT data export does not include what ChatGPT remembers about you, only your chats, so the prompt is the way in. If your export does carry a memory file, the page reads it. ## Taking it with you **Settings → Your Brain** exports everything the Mind has learned about you, as JSON to import into another Margin or as Markdown to read. The same page brings a JSON file back: near-matches update in place, so importing your own file twice does not duplicate anything. A memory pack is a frozen copy of your file that you share with one person, who imports it into their own workspace. Anything sealed in your Vault stays out of every file and pack, and so does anything woven privately. More on exports in [Your data](https://themarginapp.com/docs/your-data). > **On the phone:** The phone app saves both files itself, as "Portable brain" and "Portable > brain, as prose", straight to your share sheet or a folder. ## What it costs The Mind is on every plan, and so is exporting it. What varies is how much background work it does for you each month. Weaving has its own allowance, separate from the assistant's, so indexing your writing never eats the budget you wanted for questions. **Weave credits a month** - **25** on Free, plus a one-time 25 when the account is new - **150** on Pro - **300** on Family, pooled across the household - **150** per seat on Team - **50** while a trial runs, unless your paid plan already gives more Both allowances and what is left of them are in **Settings → Billing**. Reading and correcting the Mind in the app are yours on every plan. The paid part is letting an agent you connect from outside write to it, which comes with the plans that allow outside agents at all. See [Plans and limits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits). > **For agents:** An agent you connect reads the review queue with `weave_list_suggestions` and > acts on one row with `accept_suggestion` or `dismiss_suggestion`. Sealed items > never appear to it. Those writes, and `hide_from_memory`, need Pro, Family or > Team. **Where to next** - [Curating the Mind](https://themarginapp.com/docs/curating-the-mind): the review queue, the people directory and Put away - [Margin Intelligence](https://themarginapp.com/docs/margin-ai): the assistant that answers from all of this - [Your data](https://themarginapp.com/docs/your-data): exports, the Vault and what deleting deletes --- Section: The Mind. Checked against the running product on October 5, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-mind. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Margin Intelligence > An assistant that operates the product through the same tools you do, what one action costs against your allowance, and where it is not allowed to look. Margin Intelligence is the assistant built into The Margin. Press `⌘ J` anywhere in the app to open it, or `Ctrl J` on Windows and Linux. You can also talk to it. Tap the mic in the message box to dictate, or hold it to talk and let go: the words are sent after a short countdown you can undo. It works the same on the phone. See [Talking instead of typing](https://themarginapp.com/docs/voice). ## What it can do It reads and writes your workspace for you. A few of the things people ask it for: - Make a board, add and move cards, complete them, lay out a week. - Write, edit and search notes, or add to one you already have. - Log a habit, record an expense, some income or money someone owes. - Add shapes and text to a whiteboard. - Save a recipe from a link. In a family workspace, put dinner on Thursday, send the ingredients to the shopping list, and run chores and pocket money. - Read and reply in chat threads you are in. - Answer questions from what the Mind remembers. - Tell you what your week looks like, in a few lines. See [Your week, across workspaces](#your-week-across-workspaces). - Explain how any part of The Margin works. It looks the answer up in these docs and gives you the link to the page, so "how do I add someone to the family?" gets the same answer the docs give. It gets there with the tools an agent you connect over MCP gets, with a few of its own on top: searching the web, handing work to a specialist, and asking where to keep something you told it about yourself. It acts as you, with your role, so it cannot do anything you could not do yourself in the app. See [Agents and MCP](https://themarginapp.com/docs/agents-and-mcp). > **Known limit: What it is not given** > > - It cannot unlock a PIN-locked item or your Vault, and it cannot seal anything > into the Vault. (It can hide an item from memory when you ask, and bring it > back the same way.) A lock the assistant could open would not be a lock. > - It cannot export your whole memory. That is your call, in > **Settings → Your Brain**. > - It cannot switch workspace mid-conversation. It works in the one you asked > from, and can tell you which others you have. The week overview and memory > recall below are the only things it reads from the others, and it only > reads. > - It cannot see an item sealed in a Vault through any of its tools, even while > the Vault is unlocked. Unlocking lets its memory recall the item; nothing > else. ## Your week, across workspaces Most people's week does not live in one workspace. The pitch is in your own, the school run and the grocery list are in the household's. Ask "what does my week look like?" and Margin Intelligence answers from all of them at once: tasks that are due, what is on the calendar, the dinners that are planned, chores and whose turn each one is, what is still on the shopping lists, your habits and your own journal lines. The answer is short, grouped by day: the workspace you asked from in full, and each other workspace as what is yours this week plus one line for the rest ("Studio North: 8 tasks overdue"). Ask about that workspace and it opens the line up. Two workspaces' shopping lists are reported separately, never as one count. If you would rather keep them apart, open **Settings → Your Brain** on the web, or **Settings → Data** in the phone app, and set **Answer from** to **This workspace**. The choice follows your account to every device. It appears only if you belong to more than one workspace. A few things hold whichever you choose: - Across workspaces it only reads. Anything it adds or changes still goes into the workspace you are in. - What it reads in another workspace is not remembered in this one. A conversation that looked across workspaces teaches the Mind nothing, so a housemate's pet or a team's client never turns up as a fact about you in your personal workspace. - Each workspace keeps its own rules. It reads boards you are a member of, leaves out locked notes and boards, your Vault and anything hidden from memory, and shows only your own habits and journal, never a housemate's. - Each workspace keeps its own plan. Chores, meals and the shopping list are read where that workspace's plan includes them. - The setting covers memory too. With **All my workspaces**, when it looks something up in memory it searches the Mind of each workspace you belong to, under that workspace's rules, and says where a fact came from ("from Home: the dentist is Dr. Lee"). With **This workspace**, only the one you are in. - A chore is reported as done only when it has been checked off. On a chore that takes turns it names whose turn it is now and who did it last time. Assistants you connect yourself (Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and others) follow this setting too, inside the workspaces you granted when you connected them. **This workspace** narrows them to the workspace they are working in; **All my workspaces** never reaches past what you granted. See [Agents and MCP](https://themarginapp.com/docs/agents-and-mcp). Wherever you ask, it also reads [About you](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-mind#about-you): the few facts about yourself that you keep for every workspace and nobody else sees. Tell it something about yourself in your own workspace and it keeps it there. In a household or team workspace it first asks **Where should I keep this?**, with **For the household** (or **For the team**) and **Just for me**, and nothing is saved until you choose. ## Specialist agents The assistant hands a week's planning to a planner, and a question that needs digging to a research agent that searches the web. That works on every plan and needs nothing from you. On the Team plan a team can also make agents of its own: a name, instructions and a set of tools, run by hand or on a schedule, with every result kept for the team to read. See [Team agents](https://themarginapp.com/docs/team-agents). To work with an assistant you already use, connect it over MCP: see [Agents and MCP](https://themarginapp.com/docs/agents-and-mcp). When several agents work in one workspace, the rules they work under are a written pact. See [Agent Pacts](https://themarginapp.com/docs/agent-pacts). ## What an action costs **AI actions a month** - **100** while a trial runs, unless your paid plan already gives more - **75** on Free - **600** on Pro - **1,200** on Family, pooled across the household - **600** per seat on Team One action is a typical request. A turn that calls several tools is a loop of calls, so a longer piece of work counts as several actions. What you have used this month is in **Settings → Billing**. When the allowance runs out, the assistant says so and stops. Everything else in the app keeps working. From there you can: - top up in **Settings → Billing**: $5 for 150 actions or $20 for 800, and top-ups never expire; - connect an MCP client of your own, which never draws on this allowance (Pro and up); - or wait for the count to start again on the 1st. The Mind's background work has a separate allowance and never touches this one. See [The Mind](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-mind). ## When it says it is paused The service has a daily limit on what the assistant can spend, everyone together. Free plans pause first, once the day's spending reaches their share of that limit (half of it), and everyone pauses only if the whole limit is reached. On Free your message then gets this answer in place of a reply: "Margin Intelligence is paused for free plans for the rest of today, because free plans have used their share of what the service can spend in a day. Paid plans keep working. It is back when the day resets at midnight UTC, or right away on a paid plan. Nothing you did is lost." If the whole limit is reached, everyone sees: "Margin Intelligence is paused for the rest of today, because the whole service hit its daily limit. It is back when the day resets at midnight UTC. Nothing you did is lost." The pause uses none of your own allowance. See [Plans and limits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits#a-pause-on-a-very-busy-day). ## What it is not allowed to see Your Vault while it is locked (and, through its tools, even while it is open), and anything marked **Hide from memory**. Both are kept out of retrieval itself, so they never reach an answer to be filtered out at the end. Something woven privately is recalled only when it is directly relevant, and never leads. In a shared workspace the assistant sees what you can see. It cannot be used to read a household member's private material, or a board you are not on. ## Where it runs The assistant runs as its own service, apart from the web app, so the rest of the product stays quick while a long task is in flight. It also means the assistant needs a connection. Everything else in the app works offline; this does not. > **Note: Your words and the model** To answer, the relevant content is sent to the model provider for that > request. Requests only go to hosts whose terms forbid training on what you > send and that keep none of it. The [privacy page](https://themarginapp.com/privacy) names every > provider. ## When it gets something wrong It will. If it keeps believing something untrue about you, find the line in **Settings → Your Brain** and edit or forget it. If it has a person or a project wrong, open them on **Names** in the Mind and teach it there. Telling it in the chat may or may not be remembered; a line you add to **About you** always is, in every workspace. An edit to the memory is read by every answer after it. **Where to next** - [The Mind](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-mind): what it remembers and how to correct it - [Agents and MCP](https://themarginapp.com/docs/agents-and-mcp): the same tools, from a client of your own - [Plans and limits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits): allowances on every plan --- Section: The Mind. Checked against the running product on October 5, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/margin-ai. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Curating the Mind > The review queue at Organize, the Names directory, Put away, and why the workspace asks before it believes anything. The Mind proposes and you decide. What the engine infers waits in a review queue, and everything it applies is written to a log you can undo from. Tags, connections and links can all be taken back. A merge cannot, so the engine never merges anything on its own. ## Choose how much it does alone At the top of **Organize** is the weave setting, with three positions. Only the workspace owner and admins can change it. - **Off**: Margin weaves only when you run Organize yourself. Nothing happens in the background. - **Suggest**: the default. As you add things, Margin proposes tags, hubs and connections, and they wait for you. Nothing applies itself. - **Auto**: everything in Suggest, plus Margin applies the confident threads as it goes. Only high-confidence ones, and only ever additive: it adds a tag or draws a link, and never deletes or moves anything. Merges and "who is this" questions still wait for you. Below the setting, Organize has three panels: Review, Guide and Activity. ## Review: the queue Proposals are grouped by kind. Each group collapses and shows a count. - **Who's who**: a role it met and cannot place. "Who is your 'sister'?" Type a name or tap one of the hubs it offers. Offers are sorted by kind, so a question about a person shows people first, and anything of another kind says what it is on the chip. Answering with a project or an agent is allowed and asks first, because binding a role to a different kind of thing is a decision. Once answered, that word resolves to that hub everywhere, and you are asked once. - **People & aliases**: two names that look like one real thing. "Sam looks like shorthand for Samuel, same person?" This includes the same thing filed once as a person and once as a project. - **People & projects**: items that mention a person or project, to be threaded through that hub. - **Connections**: this note and that card are about the same work. - **Tags**: themes to file notes under, drawn from labels you already use. > **Careful: A merge is permanent** Accepting under People & aliases folds the two hubs into one and keeps every > mention. It cannot be undone, so read the reason before you accept. The > engine is cautious here on purpose: a wrong merge is worse than a missed one, > so pairs it is unsure of stay questions. Accept a row and it becomes part of the graph. Dismiss it and it moves to a collapsed Dismissed section, where you can restore it. Give a reason when you dismiss and that reason steers the next pass. **Accept all** handles a whole group at once, which is the sane way through a backlog. A "who is this?" question has a quiet third answer, **Don't track**: Margin keeps what you wrote but stops treating that role as a person to follow. > **On the phone:** In the phone app's Review, **Accept all** sits in the top bar and asks which > group: tags, connections, or people and project links, each with how many are > waiting. Questions about who someone is and merges stay one at a time. A > "who is this?" sheet has **Don't track** under Save. Anything from a board, note or folder you weave privately files into its own collapsed Private group instead of mixing with the rest. ## Guide: tell it once When the same wrong suggestion keeps coming back, write a plain sentence in Guide: "Alex and Alexander are the same person", or "Don't connect workout cards to work projects". The next pass reads it. **Weave these in now** runs that pass straight away. > **Note:** A guidance line is an instruction for the next pass, and it retires after > that pass has used it. A line that names a person or project already in your > graph is kept for good, copied into what Margin has been taught about that > hub. Guide also explains the weave setting at length, with the same switch. ## Activity: what changed Activity lists what was applied and when, with the links that came from it. Each row can be undone, and after an Auto pass **Undo last run** reverses the whole batch. ## Names: the directory the graph built **Names** (**Mind → Names**, the middle of the three tabs at the top of the sidebar) shows every person, project, organization and agent the Mind has found in your writing, as a grid with a tab for each kind. It is not the list of people who share the workspace; that is [People](https://themarginapp.com/docs/people-and-roles). Open a name and its sheet holds: - a short profile Margin keeps of who they are to you; - **Teach Margin about this person** (or project, or organization): a field treated as fact, shaping the profile and every connection Margin reasons about. Only the workspace owner and admins can write it, and it shows who taught it; - the name, which you can change (the old one stays as an alias), and its other aliases under **Also known as**; - **Appears in**: every item that mentions it, each one a link; - **Connected to**: what it links to and why, and a way to draw a link by hand; - merging it into another hub, and hiding it from the graph. Teaching is the fastest way to correct the record, and the assistant reads it too. A hidden hub leaves the graph along with its connections and questions, while everything you wrote stays; **Hidden from graph** at the foot of Names brings it back. Merges survive re-indexing. > **On the phone:** In the phone app, **Names in your notes** is at the foot of **Memory** and in > the Mind's menu, and **Open in Names** on a hub star goes straight to that > name. The kinds are chips above a list, and a name opens as a sheet with the > same profile, teaching, aliases, mentions and links. Connect, merge and hide > each ask before they change anything, and **Find new connections** and > **Hidden from graph** work the same as on the web. ## Putting something away Sometimes the answer is "this should not be here at all". Open a learned star on the **Mind** map (a hub, a fact, a pattern) and choose **Put away**. It does three things to the notes and cards that star was learned from. **What Put away does** 1. Seals them in your Vault. They stay yours to read once you unlock it, and stay invisible to the assistant until you do. 2. Takes them out of memory, so no later pass learns them again. Sealing alone would not stop that, because a Vault item is private but still woven. 3. Deletes what was already learned from them: the connections, the mentions, the embeddings. At once, without waiting for a pass. The notes and cards themselves are untouched, and it only reaches items you can already open. A star that threads through a board you are not on leaves that board alone. Your Vault needs to be set up and unlocked, because sealing needs the key; if it is locked, Put away asks you to unlock instead of doing half the job. Everything put away is listed under Put away in the Vault panel, in **Settings → Your Brain**, with one **Bring back** per item. That unseals it and lets Margin learn from it again on the next pass. A privacy control you cannot undo is one you learn not to touch, so both directions take one action. > **For agents:** The assistant has no tool to seal, unseal or put away, for the same reason it > has none to unlock a PIN. An agent you connect over MCP can read the queue > with `weave_list_suggestions` and act with `accept_suggestion` and > `dismiss_suggestion`, but sealed items never appear to it, and a Who's who > question is answered in the app. ## A weekly five minutes **Once a week is plenty** 1. Open **Organize** and collapse every group, then scan the counts. 2. Accept the People & aliases questions that are plainly right. 3. Dismiss the noise, with a reason if it keeps coming back. 4. Add one line in Guide if something keeps recurring wrongly. The assistant's recall reads this same graph, so a cleanup shows up in its next answer. **Where to next** - [The Mind](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-mind): what it holds, About you, and the controls that keep things out - [Your data](https://themarginapp.com/docs/your-data): the Vault, and what it does and does not encrypt - [Agents and MCP](https://themarginapp.com/docs/agents-and-mcp): working the queue from a client of your own --- Section: The Mind. Checked against the running product on October 5, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/curating-the-mind. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Family workspaces > Roles that actually restrict, chores that can be checked and approved, and the household pages a family workspace turns on. A family workspace is a workspace with a household in it. Create one from the workspace switcher and add the people you live with. The Family plan holds six people, and children count. A bigger household can add people past six; see [More than six](#more-than-six). It does everything a personal workspace does. On top of that it adds chores, pocket money, the week's meals, the shopping list, a points game if you want one, and a screen for the hall. ## Adding the people you live with There are two ways in, and most households use both. - **Invite someone with an email.** You say who they are to the house (parent, partner, caretaker, roommate, or child for a child or a teenager), and that role is theirs the moment they accept. They sign in as themselves and see the family from their own phone or laptop. - **Add a household profile.** A name, a role and, if you want them, a face and a PIN of four to six digits. Someone with no face shows their initial. No email, no account and no waiting. This is the door for a five-year-old, who needs chores but not a mailbox. ### Faces: a photo, a portrait, a drawing or an emoji Everyone can pick how they look beside their name, and a grown-up can pick for a child's profile. There are four kinds, and the picker has a tab for each: - **Drawn.** Two dozen characters drawn in The Margin's own pen: a fox, an owl, a robot, a dragon, a ghost, a wizard, a cupcake and more, each on its own color. - **Portraits.** 64 round watercolor faces, from a laughing baby to a grandfather with a white beard, on four shelves: Kids, Younger adults, Older adults and Elders. Pick the shelf, then the face. - **Emoji.** Any emoji, one shelf at a time, with search ("cat", "star", "pizza"). Search also knows each emoji's official name, so "slightly smiling" finds the slight smile. - **Photo.** Take a selfie or choose a photo, then drag and zoom to frame it in the circle. Not sure what one is? Point at it, tab to it or press and hold it, and its name shows ("Fox", "Little monster", "Portrait 12: a kid with curly light brown hair"). Holding only names it; it doesn't pick it. The one you have chosen is marked, and a screen reader says "selected" after its name. A photo shows first, then a portrait or a drawing, then an emoji, then the initial. Portraits are part of the app, so they show with no signal too. A choice you made is never replaced by something the app or your sign-in provider picked. Photos stay private. The location, the time and the camera details are taken out before anything is kept. A photo is shown only to people who already see that person in The Margin: the household for a child, and your workspaces, chats and connections for you. Nobody else can open it, even with the link. A child's photo is set by the household's owner or an admin, and it shows on the wall display and the phone even with no signal. On the web, open a profile from **Family → People**. In the phone app, **Settings**, then **People**: open a profile to change its face, or use **Your avatar** for your own (**Your photo** in a workspace that is not a family). Choosing your initial again clears a portrait, a drawing or an emoji, and **Remove the photo** clears a photo. Photos are not in the sandbox, because it keeps everything on your device and has nowhere to store pictures. Margin Intelligence and connected assistants can set an emoji or a portrait for someone ("give Maya portrait 12"). They pass it to `add_family_member` or `update_family_settings` as `portrait:p12`. Drawings and photos are picked in the app. **Add someone** on the People card of the family hub opens the profile form. Open invitations and profiles both count toward the six. > **Note: Kids are people** A profile takes a seat like anyone else, so a household of two adults and > four children is full. The limit counts heads, not accounts. ## More than six The owner adds people past six in **Settings → Billing**, one at a time. Each extra person costs $3 a month on annual billing ($36 a year) or $4 a month on monthly, up to six more, so twelve people in all. Founding Family members pay the same. When the household is full, the refusal carries an **Add a person** button that opens Billing with one more filled in. A change is prorated: people you add are charged for the rest of the billing period on your next invoice, and ones you remove come back as a credit on it. You can't go below the people already in the household, open invitations included. A free trial stays at six, because there is nothing to add the extra people to until you subscribe. ## A child with two homes When parents live apart and each runs a household in The Margin, the child can belong to both. The household that added the child shares them; the other parent accepts into their own family workspace. 1. In **Family → People**, under **A child with two homes**, an owner or admin picks **Share a child**, chooses the child and the other household's owner, and sends the offer. The other parent has to be one of your connections, or someone you already share a workspace with. 2. The other parent gets a notification and sees the offer on their own **People** page, picks which of their family workspaces the child joins, and presses **Accept** or declines. Until then you can withdraw the offer. Each home keeps its own chores, points, pocket money and rewards. Three switches under **The two homes show each other** decide what each home can read about the child in the other, and nothing else in either household is shared. They start on, each one covers both directions, and an owner or admin in either home can turn one off. | Switch | What the other home can read | | ------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Chores | The child's chores there that are not paused: the title, how often, when each is due and whether it is done | | Pocket money | The allowance set up for the child there: amount, currency, how often, the next payday and whether it is paused | | Calendar | That home's events involving the child over the next 60 days | **Pocket money** shares only the allowance setup. The child's balance, their statement, savings goals and points stay in the home that holds them. See [Pocket money and points](https://themarginapp.com/docs/pocket-money-and-points#a-child-with-two-homes). **See Sam's other home** (with your child's name) opens that read-only view, and a switch that is off shows as "Not shared." **Add their other home's calendar** puts the other home's events for the child into your calendar as a subscribed calendar; it needs the Calendar switch on. It carries only events assigned to the child or about them, with their times but not where they are or their notes. Turning the Calendar switch off, or ending the share, cuts that link at once; turning it back on means adding the calendar again. The child's birthday shows in both homes by itself; the copy in the second home is read-only and follows the original. On the web, a child signed in as themselves does not see this section. A shared child takes a seat only in the household that created their profile. The other home sees them, assigns them chores and puts them on the calendar without using one of its own places, whether you ask Margin Intelligence, an outside assistant or the People page. Either home's owner or an admin can end the share. Ending it takes the child out of the other home only. Nothing is deleted: the profile and each home's chores and history stay where they are. > **For agents:** The assistant and MCP clients can do the same: `share_child_with_household`, > `respond_child_share`, `list_child_shares`, `update_child_share`, > `get_child_other_home`, `subscribe_child_calendar` and `end_child_share`. > **On the phone:** The phone app has the same section in **Settings → People**: > answer an offer, change the switches, look at the other home, add its calendar > and end a share. ## Roles There are five: parent, partner, caretaker, roommate and child. The first four are names for how a household describes itself, and all four carry the same grown-up controls. Child is the one that changes what a person can do. The child role restricts for real. A child cannot manage members or billing, approve a chore, award or deduct points, or credit or debit anyone's balance, including their own. The one thing a child can do with money is move it between their spendable balance and their own savings goals. Roles are per workspace. The same person can be a parent in their own household and an ordinary member of a friend's workspace. Who can change a role: - A parent, a partner, or the workspace's owner or an admin can change anyone's. - Nobody can raise their own. You can keep your role or step down, and that is all. A child who asks the assistant to make them a parent gets a polite no. The same rule holds everywhere a role can be written: the web, the phone, the assistant and any app connected to your account. In the phone app, **Who's who** in the family section lists everyone with their role. A parent or partner taps a person to change it. Everyone, children included, can set their own nickname and choose whether their expenses, habits and focus time are shared. **Connections** in the same place shows who is whose (parent of, sibling of and so on). A grown-up can add or remove one there; a child sees the map but cannot change it, here, on the web or through the assistant. Everyone in a family workspace has a role. The person who makes the workspace a family is its first parent, and an invitation carries the role you picked when you sent it. An invitation sent without one arrives as a child, and a parent can raise it in one tap. ## Chores A chore has a title, an optional icon and description, a reward, a person and a due date. It happens once, or repeats daily, weekly or monthly. Assign it and it shows up in that person's Today next to everything else they have on. You can say most of that in the title. "Trash every week @Sam Tue" fills in the repeat, the person and the first due day as you type, and each one shows as a chip you can remove. A repeat a chore cannot hold, like every two weeks, is pointed out instead of being rounded to weekly. The icon is one of The Margin's own drawings: a broom, a trash can, a paw, a plate and about twenty more, in your theme's ink. Pick one when you make the chore. If you leave it alone, the chore takes its mark from its title, so "Litter duty" gets the paw and "Take out the trash" gets the trash can. A chore an assistant made with an emoji shows the nearest drawing instead. A repeating chore can also: - rotate between several people, so the trash moves down the list fairly instead of landing on whoever complained least, - stop on an end date, - be paused without losing its history. The chore board has four columns: **Unassigned**, **To do**, **Needs approval** and **Done**. ### This week, as a list The switch above the chores reads **Board** and **List**. The List shows this week as one table, a row per chore: its mark and name, who has it, when it is due (Today, Tomorrow, or the day of the week) and its status, in the same four words the board uses. Rows run in due order, and anything past its day sits at the top marked late. A chore that takes turns says whose turn it is under its name. The week is today and the six days after it, plus anything late and anything with no date. Approved chores stay on it for a week. A chore due later than that stays on the board, and the list tells you how many there are. Each row's **...** menu holds what you can do to it: mark it done, approve it, give an open chore to someone, edit it, undo an approval or delete it. On a laptop the page opens on the Board and on a phone on the List, until you pick one. Your pick is remembered on that device, so the laptop and the phone can each keep their own. The phone app has the same switch at the top of its chores screen. ### Taking turns Pick two or more people under **Take turns** and the chore takes turns. The first person you pick has the first turn, and the form spells out the order before you save. Every card on a rotation says where it stands: - **Whose turn it is.** "Sam's turn", or "Your turn" when it is yours. - **Who did it last time and who is up next.** With two people, a card that is Sam's turn reads "Alex did it last time and goes again after Sam". A longer rotation names them separately: "Alex did it last time. Jo is up after Sam". The first card of a new rotation has no last turn, so it only says who is up next. - **Where a finished turn went.** A card in Done reads "Alex's turn, done" and "Passed to Sam" once Sam's card exists. The next turn is made the moment a grown-up marks the current one done or approves it, and the message that confirms it names the person: "Sam has the next turn, Thursday, Oct 1". If nobody finishes a turn, the next one still arrives on its due date, overnight. When a new turn lands while you are looking at the board, its card opens on "Passed from Alex" and settles on "Sam's turn". With reduced motion turned on, it just says whose turn it is. A card's "late" label counts whole days from that card's own due date. A weekly turn that was due last Thursday and never checked off reads "7 days late" this Thursday, which is also the day the next person's turn is due. Once a chore is done, the count stops at the day it was done: a chore finished a day late and waiting for a grown-up's yes says "1 day late" however long the approval takes, and one finished on its day or before says "On time". ### When a week goes badly A repeating chore keeps only its latest occurrence open. If a newer one arrives while an older one is still not done, the older one counts as missed. It leaves the board and the count of what is due, and comes back as a single line on the chore: | Repeats | What the line says | | ------- | ----------------------------- | | Daily | Missed 2 of the last 7 days | | Weekly | Missed 1 of the last 4 weeks | | Monthly | Missed 1 of the last 3 months | Nothing is deleted. A family back from a busy two weeks finds one open trash chore with a line saying how many were missed. ### Two people, one chore Some jobs are done together: the laundry, the yard, the car. Pick the person under **Assign to**, then pick everyone doing it with them under **Doing it with**. The card reads "Laundry: Jordan & Sam", with both faces. From three people on it reads "Jordan +2", and holding the pointer over the names shows all of them. - **Any of them can tick it.** The chore is done once, whoever presses **Done**. - **Each of them earns the full reward.** A 20-point chore gives Jordan 20 and Sam 20 when it is approved, each with the same early or late bonus, as their own entries. A money chore puts the full amount on each balance. Undo takes back each person's share. - **It shows up for each of them.** In a child's own view, on the wall display and in **Just mine** on the phone, a shared chore is on every one of its people's lists, with "With Sam" under the title. - **A repeating shared chore comes back shared,** with the same people. A chore that takes turns stays one person a turn, so the form does not offer **Doing it with** once you pick people under **Take turns**. Nobody on a shared chore can approve it at the wall, the same rule as for their own chores. The phone app has the same row when you make or change a chore, and Margin Intelligence and connected assistants can share a chore too ("put Jordan and Sam on the laundry"). ### Morning and bedtime routines A routine is a few daily chores that belong to one part of the day. When you make or edit a chore, pick **Morning**, **After school** or **Bedtime** under **Part of a routine**. Picking one makes the chore daily if it was a one-off. | Routine | When it leads | | ------------ | ------------- | | Morning | 5 am to 11 am | | After school | 2 pm to 6 pm | | Bedtime | 6 pm to 11 pm | While a routine is on, the wall display shows it at the top of the chores panel as one checklist per child, and the steps of the other routines stay off the wall until their hour, so "pajamas on" is not on the kitchen screen at breakfast. In a child's own view the routine that is on now comes first, with a count of what is left, then the next routine, then their other jobs. A routine step is an ordinary chore in every other way: the child presses Done, a grown-up approves it, and the reward you set (points, for most routines) lands on approval. Each day's step comes back the next morning in the same routine. Margin Intelligence and connected assistants can set it too ("make brushing teeth part of Sam's bedtime routine"). ## Approving a chore When a child marks a chore done, nothing pays out yet. It moves to **Needs approval** on the chore board and into **Waiting for you**, a list on the chores page and on the family hub's Today card. Each row shows, newest first, who did it, when they finished, when it was due, and what that timing does to the reward, with **Approve** and **Review** at the end of the row. In a narrow browser window it collapses to one button, "3 waiting for you", that opens the same list as a sheet. 1. Press **Approve**. The chore moves to Done and the reward is credited. There is no confirmation step. 2. Changed your mind? The toast offers **Undo**, which reverses the points and the money with opposite entries. Nothing is edited in place. 3. For anything that needs a word, press **Review** instead. From there you can adjust the reward, reject it with a note, or ask for a redo. When a grown-up who can approve marks their own chore done, that counts as the approval. It goes straight to Done instead of waiting in their own queue. > **On the phone:** On the phone, the approval sheet has **Approve**, **Send back** and > **Reject**. Reject needs a note and puts the chore back in To > do with nobody on it. A long press on any chore lets a grown-up edit it or give > it to someone else. ### Pressed Done on the wrong chore? Every **Done** shows a message with **Undo**, on the chore board, the kid view, the wall display and the phone. - A child's Done goes back to To do, and the "finished" line it added to the family feed is removed. If a grown-up has already approved it, the approval's own Undo is the way back. - A grown-up's Done (done and approved in one tap) goes back to where the chore was before the tap. The points and money are reversed with opposite entries, the streak goes back to what it was, and the next turn of a repeating chore is taken off the board if nobody has touched it yet. The feed keeps an "Approval undone" line, so the record stays honest. Pressing Undo twice does nothing the second time. > **Tip: Check what can be checked** Use approval where the result is visible: the trash is out or it is not. > An approval step on "tidied your room" mostly teaches negotiation. ## What a reward is worth A chore pays money or points, never both. **Money** goes onto the person's balance in the family ledger when the chore is approved. See [Pocket money and points](https://themarginapp.com/docs/pocket-money-and-points). **Points** move with timing: | Finished | Points | | ----------------------- | ----------------------- | | Two or more days early | a quarter more | | One day early | a tenth more | | On the day | as set | | One day late | a quarter less | | Two days late | half | | Three or more days late | a quarter of the reward | A chore never pays less than one point. Streaks add a bonus at 3, 5, 7, 10, 15, 20, 30, 50 and 100 chores in a row. Anything else a chore offers (a gift, a snack, screen time, an outing, or whatever you type) is a description. It moves no balance, and the household settles it the way households always have. ## The family hub **Family** in the sidebar opens the hub. **Today** runs across the top: what needs a person today, including chores waiting for approval. Under it the page is two columns, the day's work on the left and the household on the right. | Column | What it holds | | ------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | The work | Chores and stars, Meals & shopping, then **Activity**: the family's day, told back | | The household | **People** (who lives here and their roles), the House Cup, money, habits together, **Pinned here** when anything is pinned, and **More** | **Everyone, their roles and PINs** on the People card opens the full [People page](https://themarginapp.com/docs/people-and-roles). **More** is a short list of the doors no card already opens: the calendar, pocket money, family stats, the wall display and Family settings. On a phone the two columns stack into one, in that order. Each person on the People card can have a birthday or an anniversary. It goes on the family calendar, on the wall display and in the Daybook, with a reminder a week and a day before. See [the Calendar](https://themarginapp.com/docs/planner-today-and-calendar). The House Cup card shows which house leads the season and how long is left. Start a season, change its end or prize, or end it early from the card. The full chart and past seasons stay on the points page. To pin something, open a board or note in any of your other workspaces, choose **Pin to a family** from its menu, and it appears under Pinned here, live, until you unpin it. ## Family settings Every setting the household has sits on one page, reached from **More → Family settings**. - **Meals**: dietary rules, dislikes, default servings, and whether planned meals add to the shopping list. - **People and roles**: a door to the [People page](https://themarginapp.com/docs/people-and-roles): roles, profiles, PINs and the history of who changed them. - **Sounds and notices**: which chime plays for chat, approvals and reminders. - **The workspace itself**: name, currency, plan and who can join. - **House Cup**: the houses and the current season. - **Wall display**: the town the weather comes from. - **Pocket money**: allowances and payday. ## What else a family workspace gives you - [Recipes and the meal plan](https://themarginapp.com/docs/recipes-and-meals): the weekly plan, and the shopping it generates. - [The shopping list](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-shopping-list): one list, shared, that works in a basement with no signal. - [Pocket money and points](https://themarginapp.com/docs/pocket-money-and-points): the ledger, allowances, savings goals, houses and the House Cup. - [The wall display](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-wall-display) for a tablet in the hall. - [A family calendar](https://themarginapp.com/docs/planner-today-and-calendar): a color per person, repeating events, reminders, birthdays, and the dates out of a school letter by photo, PDF or a forwarded email. - Shared budgets and a household expense report. See [Expenses and money](https://themarginapp.com/docs/expenses-and-money). - Family stats: chores done, points earned and money moved, per person. [Chat](https://themarginapp.com/docs/chat) is on every plan, and the household is part of it. A child with a profile and no email is a full member of the family thread. ## Notifications from the family You have one inbox, whichever workspace you are in. A notification about the family (a chore waiting for approval, a message in the family thread, an event someone added or moved, a letter whose dates are ready to confirm) says which workspace it came from. Open it and the app switches to the family first, so the chore is there when you land. Push notifications name the workspace too, if you belong to more than one. ## Privacy inside a household Sharing a workspace does not mean sharing everything in it. Boards are visible by board membership. Notes and whiteboards can go to one person at a time. The Vault and **Hide from memory** work exactly as they do in a personal workspace. What Margin Intelligence learns here is the household's memory, and every member can read it. Each fact keeps who taught it, and only that person or a grown-up who is an owner or admin can edit or forget it. When you tell it something about yourself, it asks once whether to keep it **For the household** or **Just for me**. "Just for me" goes to [About you](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-mind#about-you), which nobody else in the family can see. Focus sessions follow your own switch. With **Share focus status** off (on the phone, **Show when I'm focusing**), your sessions never reach anyone else's device, and the assistant will not show them to anyone else either. You still see all of them yourself. Turning the switch back on shares your past sessions in that workspace again. The assistant is scoped the same way. Nobody can use a family workspace to ask the assistant what the teenager has been writing. > **For agents:** The family tools cover chores (`create_chore`, `assign_chore`, > `complete_chore`, `verify_chore`), points and houses, the shopping list, the > meal plan and the ledger. `get_family_daily_summary` and > `get_family_activity_feed` answer "what happened at home today". ## Availability The family suite needs a Family plan and a workspace of the family type. Pro does not include it. Neither does Team, and that is the one capability the two group plans do not share. The trial covers it if you start the trial in the family workspace. See [Plans and limits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits). > **Note: If the plan ends** The family pages stay readable. Each one shows "Your Family plan has ended" > with a **See plans** link, and the buttons that would write are switched off. > Your chores, balances and history are all still there. **Where to next** - [Pocket money and points](https://themarginapp.com/docs/pocket-money-and-points): the ledger behind every money reward - [The wall display](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-wall-display): put the household on a spare tablet - [Sharing and permissions](https://themarginapp.com/docs/sharing-and-permissions): what the rest of the household can see --- Section: Together. Checked against the running product on October 7, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/family. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Pocket money and points > A running balance per person that nobody can quietly edit, allowances that credit themselves on payday, one pot shared between children, savings goals that hold real money back, a points game that is never money, and a rewards shelf to spend points on. Every household already keeps a ledger. It lives in one parent's head, it gets argued about on Saturdays, and the child always remembers a different number. The family ledger writes it down. Each money event is one signed row, and a person's balance is the sum of their rows. **The pieces** - **Allowance**: a regular amount added to a child's balance on payday. - **Savings goal**: money a person sets aside from their own balance. - **Rewards shelf**: things a grown-up prices in points, which a child can ask to spend points on. - **Houses and the House Cup**: teams, and the season they compete in. - **Ledger**: every money event for every person, never edited. - **Points**: a score for chores and habits. Never money. ## The ledger Each row records what happened, how much, in which currency, who entered it and what caused it: an approved chore, an allowance that ran, money moved into a savings goal, cash handed over. Most rows start with a chore. When a grown-up presses **Approve** on a chore's row in **Waiting for you** (on the chores page, the family hub and the [wall display](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-wall-display)), a chore that pays money adds a row to the child's ledger, and one that pays points adds to their score. See [Family](https://themarginapp.com/docs/family) for chores and approvals. Rows cannot be edited. A correction is a new row going the other way, with a reason on it. That is what makes the ledger worth keeping, because a record anyone can quietly rewrite settles no arguments. Balances are never added up across currencies. A household that holds money in two shows two balances, instead of a conversion nobody agreed to. ## Reading a statement Open **Pocket money** from the family hub (the page itself is headed **Allowances**). Under **Balances & savings**, pick a person from the row of faces. Their savings goals come first, then their statement, which splits their money four ways, and Earned minus Paid out minus In goals always equals Still owed: - **Earned**: everything credited to them, from chores, allowances and bonuses. - **Paid out**: cash or transfers you have recorded handing over. - **In goals**: money set aside in their savings goals. - **Still owed**: what they are owed and have not been given yet. Margin holds no money and moves none. There are no payment rails and no card. An allowance records what a child is owed. Handing it over is still you, in a kitchen, with a note or a bank transfer. When you do hand money over, press **Record cash handed over** on the child's statement and it comes off Still owed. It cannot record more than is owed, because that would turn into the child owing you. When the number is plain wrong (you counted the jar, a grandparent handed over birthday money, a chore got paid twice), press **Correct the balance**. Pick add or take off, type the amount and say why. It lands as a new line with your reason on it, and nothing earlier is edited. Only a grown-up sees either button. ## Allowances Each child has one allowance per workspace. It is paid **Weekly**, **Every 2 weeks** or **Monthly**, on a payday you pick. Allowances are unconditional. Nothing ties one to whether the chores got done. Linking the two turns every Saturday into a negotiation, and a household that wants to pay for work already has chore rewards. ### On payday With **Add to balance on payday** switched on, a daily job adds the amount on payday without anyone opening the app, and the statement notes it as added automatically. With it off, nothing happens until someone taps **\[Add to balance]**. A payday that passed with nothing added shows as overdue. > **Note: Missed paydays still count** Come back after three weeks away and three allowances land, each dated to the > payday it belonged to. Payday stays on the schedule too: adding Saturday's > allowance on a Monday does not move payday to Mondays. > **Known limit: Eight at a time** The job catches up at most eight paydays in one go. An allowance further > behind than that gets the first eight, and its schedule moves on to the > present. Anything older has to be added by hand. Pausing an allowance stops it adding anything and keeps the schedule. Deleting one leaves everything it already added on the statement. ### One pot, shared Plenty of households say "the children get 30 a week between them", and that can be set up as it is said. 1. Press **Add allowance** and choose **One pot, shared**. 2. Check the children it covers. 3. Choose how it divides: **Equal**, **By percent** (shares that add to 100) or **Exact** (amounts that add up to the pot). 4. Check what each child will get, shown before you save, and save. The form refuses a split that does not add up, so the pot lands to the cent instead of being rounded somewhere quietly. Each child still gets their own line with their own amount, and that line is what pays on payday. The pot is the rule behind them. A child who already had their own allowance moves into the pot when you check them. ### A child with two homes When a child lives in two households, each home keeps its own allowance, ledger and points. If you share the child with the other home (on **Family → People**, see [Family](https://themarginapp.com/docs/family)), the **Pocket money** switch on that share lets the other home see this home's allowance setup for the child: the amount, the currency, how often it is paid, when it is next paid and whether it is paused. It is read-only, and it shares nothing else: no balance, no statement, no savings goals and no points. Switch it off and the other home sees none of it. ## Savings goals A goal has a name, an emoji and a target. Anyone in the household can make one for themselves, children included, and a child stays in charge of their own. Other people's goals are read-only. - Putting money in moves money that already sits in that person's balance. It cannot create any, and a contribution bigger than the balance is refused. - Saved money leaves the spendable balance and sits against the goal until it is used. - When the total reaches the target, the goal is marked achieved and the family feed says so. Nothing pays out on its own: what happens next is a conversation. - Deleting a goal with money in it gives the money back as a new entry. The contributions that built it stay on the record. > **On the phone:** The phone app does the money side too. **Family money** shows the overview, > and each row opens the screen that changes it. **Allowances** sets one up, > shares a pot (split equally; percent and exact splits are set up on the web), > pays a payday early, undoes the last payout, pauses, changes or stops one, and > shows each allowance's payouts. A child sees their own allowance at the top > and nothing that changes anyone's. Tap a person to open their statement, where > a grown-up records cash handed over or corrects the balance, and where goals > are added, filled and removed under the same rules as the web. A shared bill > between two people is settled from **Shared bills** on the same screen. ## Points Points are a score. They are never money and do not convert. A chore pays either money or points, never both. Points can be spent on the [rewards shelf](#the-rewards-shelf), and spending never lowers the score. | Level | From | | ----------- | ----- | | Apprentice | 0 | | Helper | 50 | | Star | 150 | | Champion | 350 | | Legend | 700 | | Wizard | 1,200 | | Grandmaster | 2,000 | Points can be taken away as well as given. A deduction stops at zero, so no child ends up in debt for a score. ## Houses and the House Cup Houses are teams. Four come ready (Phoenix, Dragon, Griffin and Serpent), each with its own drawn crest, and you can rename them, change their emoji or make your own. People join a house one at a time, by hand, and someone can be in no house at all. Every award and deduction moves the person's total and their house's total together. A season is the House Cup. It has a start, an end, and a finish line that is either a date or a points total. 1. When the finish line arrives, the app says the season is ready to finish. 2. A grown-up presses the button. Nothing ends by itself, because every open tab in the house would otherwise race to write the winner. 3. Finishing stores the final standings and names the winning house. If the leading house has no points, no winner is recorded, since "nobody won" is an honest result. Canceling a season closes it with no standings and no winner. > **On the phone:** The phone app does all of this too. Open **Points** from the family hub. A > grown-up taps a person to give or take points or move them to another house, > taps a house to rename it, change its crest or color, or remove it, and starts, > changes, ends or calls off a season from the buttons under the cup. A child > sees the same page with the scores, the houses and the latest points, and none > of the buttons. ## The rewards shelf The shelf turns points into things a child actually wants: a movie night, a later bedtime, a trip for ice cream. A grown-up puts each one on the shelf with a price in points, and a child asks for it. Each person has two numbers, shown side by side: - **Score**: every point they have earned, less any taken away. Levels, houses and the House Cup read this, and spending never lowers it. - **To spend**: the score, less the price of every reward a grown-up has said yes to. So a child who trades sixty points for a movie night keeps their level and their house keeps its standing. Only what is left to spend goes down. 1. A grown-up opens **Rewards** (from the **Points** page) and presses **Add a reward**: a name, a price and a mark. 2. A child presses **Ask for it** on anything they have enough points for. The price is held while they wait, so the same points cannot be asked for twice, and every grown-up in the household gets a notification. 3. A grown-up says yes or no. A yes checks the balance again and records the spend. Either way, the child is told. A child can withdraw a request while it waits. Nobody can approve their own request, and a child cannot approve anyone's or change the shelf. A request keeps the price it was asked at, even if a grown-up reprices the reward later. Taking a reward off the shelf keeps its history, and it can be put back. The shelf is on in every household to start with. A grown-up can switch **Let points be spent** off on the Rewards page, which hides the shelf from the children and stops new requests. Scores are not affected either way. > **On the phone:** The phone app has the same shelf. Open **Rewards** from **Points**. A child > sees their score and what they have to spend, asks for a reward and withdraws > a request. A grown-up answers the queue, adds, edits and takes rewards off the > shelf, and turns the shelf on or off. > **Known limit: Bonuses** A statement has **Record cash handed over** and > **Correct the balance** on the web and the phone. A one-off > bonus has no button yet; ask the assistant, and the statement shows it properly > once it is recorded. > **For agents:** `record_ledger_entry` and `record_ledger_adjustment` write ledger rows. > `create_allowance` and `create_allowance_pool` set up pocket money, and > `contribute_to_savings_goal`, `award_points` and `deduct_points` do what their > names say. The shelf has `list_rewards`, `create_reward`, `update_reward` and > `archive_reward`; requests have `request_reward`, `list_reward_requests`, > `decide_reward_request`, which refuses a child, and `withdraw_reward_request`, > which takes back a request still waiting. The person who asked can withdraw > their own; withdrawing anyone else's takes a grown-up. ## Availability All of this is the family suite, so it needs a Family plan and a family workspace. If the plan ends, every balance and statement stays readable, and the buttons that would change them are switched off. Money owed between adults lives in [Expenses and money](https://themarginapp.com/docs/expenses-and-money) and is on every plan. **Where to next** - [Family workspaces](https://themarginapp.com/docs/family): chores, roles and approvals, where most money rewards start - [The wall display](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-wall-display): points and standings on a screen in the hall - [Expenses and money](https://themarginapp.com/docs/expenses-and-money): household spending, budgets and money owed --- Section: Together. Checked against the running product on October 5, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/pocket-money-and-points. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # The shopping list > One list the household shares, sorted by aisle, that works in a supermarket basement with no signal and tells everyone when somebody is already at the store. The shopping list gets used in the worst signal of anything in the app: a parent, a cart, a supermarket basement, one bar. It is built for that moment. Every workspace has one, on every plan. Open **Shopping** in the sidebar (on the phone, from the contents list), **The list** on the family hub's Meals & shopping card, or type "Shopping list" into the command palette. The first time, **\[Start your grocery list]** makes the list. In your own workspace you share it with the one other person you invited. ## Adding things Type the item and press enter. As you type, the aisle it belongs in appears as a chip you can tap to change. Put the amount in with the name if that is quicker: `milk x2`, `2x bread`, `3 avocados` or `2 kg flour` fill the quantity for you, shown as a chip you can remove. `2% milk` stays milk. A whole list can come in at once from capture. Type or say "milk eggs bread butter" or "a dozen eggs, 2 cans tomatoes and peanut butter" into capture and it shows as separate items before you save, and one tap on the add button under them puts each one on the list as its own line, amount included. See [A list stays a list](https://themarginapp.com/docs/notes#a-list-stays-a-list). If this workspace's list can't take them (it is full on Free) and another of your workspaces can, capture and voice offer that one by name, "Add 4 to Groceries in Rivera Family", and the items go there. The line that confirms it, on the web and the phone, has an Open link that switches to that workspace and shows the list. Items are grouped into 13 aisles, and the aisles run in the order you walk a store: Produce, Bakery, Meat & Seafood, Dairy & Eggs, Pantry, Snacks, Drinks, Frozen, Household, Personal Care, Baby, Pets, and Other last. Reading the list top to bottom is the route. The aisle guess comes from a plain list of keywords, with no network call, so it works in airplane mode. Longer phrases win over single words, which is why "ice cream" lands in Frozen and not in Dairy. An item it does not recognize gets no aisle and sits under Other, because a wrong guess saved to the list is harder to spot than a blank one. Margin Intelligence can add to the list too, and so can any assistant you have [connected](https://themarginapp.com/docs/agents-and-mcp). Its items look like anyone else's, with one small mark beside them. Hover over it, or tap it on a phone, to see who asked and through which connection: "Added by Alex through" and the name you gave that connection. It reads offline like the rest of the list. Adding by voice from Siri, Google Assistant or Alexa ("add milk to the shopping list") is built and still being set up, so it is not on your phone or speaker yet. Zapier, Make and n8n can add items today. See [Voice](https://themarginapp.com/docs/voice#siri-google-assistant-and-alexa) and [Integrations](https://themarginapp.com/docs/integrations#zapier-make-and-n8n). ## When something new arrives A row that turns up while the list is open grows into its place in line, and the rows below it move down to make room. That covers an item your partner adds from another phone, the ingredients a planned dinner drops in, and anything an assistant adds. Several at once step in a moment apart, so six ingredients read as six rows joining rather than the page jumping. Opening the list never animates, and neither does the first sync on a new device: those rows were already yours. With reduced motion turned on, new rows appear in place with no movement. Each aisle heading carries a small drawn mark (a leaf for Produce, a loaf for Bakery, a snowflake for Frozen) in your theme's ink. ## At the store 1. Tap **I'm at the store**. Everyone else sees your name and that you are there, which saves the second trip and the duplicate milk. 2. Tap each thing as it goes in the cart. The whole row is the target, sized for a thumb, and the list records who checked it off and when. 3. Checked items collect under **In the cart**, with a count. 4. Tap **Finish run**. Type what you spent if you want it logged to Expenses and press **Log & finish**, or leave the amount blank and finish. Either way the run ends and the checked items clear. ## Prices and a running total Tap an item and give it a price, what you expect that line to cost as written ("2 packs" means both packs). Prices are in the workspace's own currency. As soon as one item has a price, a line above the list shows the running total and what is already in the cart, and says how many items have no price yet, so the figure never pretends they were free. When the checked items carry prices, **Finish run** offers their sum as the amount. The receipt is still the truth, so change it if the register said otherwise. In a household you can check **Split equally with** to share the cost between everyone, the same split the Expenses page makes, and it shows up under Balances. > **On the phone:** On the phone the price is in the item's edit sheet, and the running total > sits under the store banner with a **Record as expense** > button for what is in the cart. **Clear checked** empties the cart at any time without ending a run. Not going after all? Tap **Not going** on your own banner. The run is released and nobody is shown at the store. If someone else is out and you are taking over, tap **Take over**. ## Undoing a mistap Claiming the run, taking it over, letting it go, checking off an item, removing one and clearing the cart each show a short message with **Undo**. Undo puts the list back exactly as it was. An undone claim leaves no name on the banner and no "claimed a minute ago", and an undone check goes back to whoever checked it before, at the same time. It works with no signal, like everything else here. Undo does nothing if someone has changed the same thing since. If a partner took over the run after your mistap, Undo leaves their claim alone and says so. Once the message is gone, the banner's **Not going** still releases your claim. > **On the phone:** In the phone app you check off an item by swiping its row. The banner and its > **I'm at the store**, **Not going** and **Take over** buttons sit > above the list, and the same Undo shows above the add bar. A long press on an > item opens it to change the name, amount, aisle or whether it is a staple, and > to remove it. ## Staples Mark the things you buy every week with **Make a staple** on the row. A staple you check during a shop goes in the cart like anything else. When the shop ends, with **Clear checked** or **Finish run**, a staple is never deleted. It parks with the usual things, and one tap puts it back on. ## Items from the meal plan **Add this week's meals** puts the ingredients of the week's planned meals on the list. They carry a small "This week's meals" line, so you can tell what the plan added from what people typed. See [Recipes and the meal plan](https://themarginapp.com/docs/recipes-and-meals). Press it again and the amounts are topped up to what the week now needs. If you doubled Thursday's dinner, the 8 chicken thighs the plan put there become 16, and the message says which amounts went up. Nothing is ever lowered, and a press with nothing changed adds nothing. A line you typed or edited yourself is never overwritten, and neither is one you already checked off. What it holds still counts, and anything the plan needs beyond it goes on as its own line, marked "Top-up for the meal plan". When the two amounts are in different units ("2" and "500 g"), both lines stay so you can decide in the store. Singular and plural count as one unit, so "1 can" on the list and "3 cans" in the plan become one line of 3 cans. The same rule runs when a planned meal adds itself to the list, and when you press **Add to the shopping list** on a recipe page: amounts go up, nothing you wrote is overwritten, and a second press with nothing changed adds nothing. The household can also have planned meals add themselves to the list, from **Family settings → Meals**. ## With no signal Adding, checking off, editing, claiming the run and finishing it all work with no connection. They write to the database on your phone and sync when signal returns, so there is never a spinner to wait on. ![Use your shopping list with no signal (24 seconds, filmed in the Try it sandbox).](https://themarginapp.com/docs/media/ep03/list-no-signal.webp) _Use your shopping list with no signal (24 seconds, filmed in the Try it sandbox)._ **Shopping with no bars** 1. Open the list before you lose signal, or any time after: it is already on your phone, so it opens in a basement aisle too. 2. Tap each thing as it goes in the cart. It moves to **In the cart** straight away, with nothing to wait for. 3. Keep going: add, edit and check off as usual. 4. When you are back online the changes sync on their own, and everyone at home sees what you bought. ![The Groceries list with Lemons checked off while the device had no connection](https://themarginapp.com/docs/media/ep03/list-ticked-offline.webp) _Lemons checked off with the connection turned off. The line under the title is the list's own reminder that it works with no signal._ ![The same list on a phone, with Lemons checked off offline](https://themarginapp.com/docs/media/ep03/list-ticked-offline-mobile.webp) _The same list on a phone._ > **Known limit: The meals button needs signal** **Add this week's meals** reads the plan from the server. > Offline it says "Couldn't reach the meal planner" and leaves the list alone, > rather than showing you an empty week. ## Send the list to a delivery app On a laptop, press **Delivery** beside the list's name. On the phone, open **This list** and choose **Send to a delivery app**. - **Copy the list** (or **Share** it) as plain text, grouped by aisle, with only what is still to get. Paste it into Instacart, Walmart, Kroger or any other app's search, or into a message. - **Find each item at** Instacart, Walmart or Kroger turns every line into a link to that store's own search, one tap per item. The Margin does not fill a delivery cart for you. Each of those stores only lets an app add to your cart under a partner agreement, and we would rather say so than pretend. Margin Intelligence and connected assistants can hand over the same list with `export_shopping_list`. To show the list to someone who is not on The Margin, press **Link** beside the list's name for a view-only link. See [Sharing and permissions](https://themarginapp.com/docs/sharing-and-permissions#a-view-only-link-for-someone-not-on-the-margin). ## Store reminders (phone app) The phone app can remind you of the list when you walk into a store. Open **This list**, choose **Remind me near a store**, switch it on, and add a store where you are standing or by its address. When you next arrive, the phone shows "You're near Trader Joe's: 6 things on Groceries: milk, eggs, bread and 3 more." - It needs location set to **Always** (iPhone) or **Allow all the time** (Android), asked only when you switch it on, because the phone has to notice the store while the app is closed. - Everything stays on the phone. Your stores and your location are never sent to The Margin, and the reminder is built from the list the phone already holds. - One reminder per store every two hours, and none when the list is empty. A browser cannot watch for a place in the background, so this lives only in the phone app. On the web and the installed web app, the list is the same list. ## What it does not do yet > **Known limit: One list, in practice** The app makes one list per household and has no rename or delete. The > assistant can make more, and when there are several the app shows them as > tabs across the top. > **Known limit: Notes on items** An item's note shows on its row, and the assistant can write one. The edit > dialog covers the name, amount, price, aisle and staple, but not the note. > **For agents:** `add_shopping_item`, `check_shopping_item`, `list_shopping_items`, > `claim_shopping_run` and `finish_shopping_run` do what the buttons do. > Items take a `price`, `list_shopping_items` returns the running total, and > `finish_shopping_run` with `use_item_prices` logs the priced total. > `add_meals_to_list` is the meal-plan button. A `name` that is a list > ("milk, eggs and 2 loaves of bread", or one per line) is added as one line per > item, and the answer lists them under `items`. Spaces alone never split it, so > "chocolate milk" stays one item. With no `quantity`, an amount at the front of > the name is read into it: "2 cans tomatoes" is tomatoes, 2 cans. ## Availability The shopping list is on every plan. Free keeps one list with up to 30 items on it at a time; ticked-off items don't count, so finishing a run makes room. Near the limit the add field says how many items are on the list before you type, and at 30 it says so instead of taking a letter it can't keep. Pro, Family and Team have no limit and as many lists as you like. Pulling in the week's meals needs the meal plan, which is Family. See [Plans and limits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits). **Where to next** - [Recipes and the meal plan](https://themarginapp.com/docs/recipes-and-meals): where the week's ingredients come from - [Working offline](https://themarginapp.com/docs/working-offline): what a basement with no signal can and cannot do - [The wall display](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-wall-display): the list on a screen in the hall --- Section: Together. Checked against the running product on October 6, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-shopping-list. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # The wall display > Turn a spare tablet into the household's shared screen: today's meals, chores, the shopping list and the standings across the room, and a name to tap when you want to check something off. The wall display is a web address and a screen in the phone and tablet app. Open `/family/kiosk` in a browser, or **Wall display** in the app's Family tab, on a tablet, phone or old laptop. Stand it somewhere the household walks past and leave it running. There is no device to buy. If typing a path into a tablet screwed to the wall does not appeal, **Wall display** is also in the command palette and under **More** on the family hub. ## Set up a device Sign the device in with any account in the household. Then: 1. **Every grown-up sets their own wall PIN** on their row in **Family**, **People**. Approving a chore at the wall always asks for the approver's PIN, so a child who taps "Mom" meets Mom's keypad, not her approval queue. 2. **Pin the browser to the page** in the operating system: Guided Access on iPadOS, screen pinning on Android, or a kiosk-mode browser profile. The app is a tab and cannot lock the device it runs in. 3. **Open the display once while you have signal**, so it has something to show when the network drops. 4. Tap **Enter wall mode**. The display goes fullscreen, the address bar and tabs disappear, and on a phone or tablet it asks to stay in landscape. While wall mode is on, the same control reads **Exit wall mode**. On browsers with no fullscreen of their own (iPhones and iPads, mostly) the button is not shown at all. > **On the phone:** In the phone and tablet app, open **Family**, then **Wall display**. It keeps > the screen on for as long as it is open, and on a wide screen the chores take > the left half while meals, the list and points share the right. Prop the > tablet on a stand and turn on Guided Access (iPadOS) or screen pinning > (Android) so the wall stays put. To leave, press and hold > **Hold to leave the wall** at the bottom, or use the back > gesture. The names, PINs, panels and approvals work the same way as in the > browser, offline approvals included: the app takes the PIN, holds the approval > and checks it once the signal is back. The wall is the one screen in the app > that turns with the device, so a tablet on its side shows it sideways; leave it > and the app is upright again. ## What it shows - **The time and date**, and a greeting that changes with the hour. - **Weather**, once you give it a town. Tap the corner, type a town and pick it from the list. Every screen in the house then uses the same town. The degrees follow your browser's region. - **Tonight's meals**, with who is cooking. - **Chores**, grouped by person, each marked done, open or late, plus an "up for grabs" section for anything unassigned. In the morning, after school and at bedtime, that part of the day's routine leads the panel as one checklist per child (see [routines](https://themarginapp.com/docs/family#morning-and-bedtime-routines)). - **The shopping list**: how many items, the first few, and a note when someone is already at the store. - **Points**: the house standings, and each person's total and level. - **The week**: seven days of family events and birthdays, each in its person's color, so "who has swimming on Thursday" can be read from across the kitchen. Nothing on the wall can edit an event. It never guesses your location from your network. If the forecast cannot be fetched, the weather chip is left off rather than showing an error on a wall. > **Note: What it never shows** Notes, money balances and anything in the Vault. A wall display is a public > screen in a private house, and the list of what it can draw is kept short on > purpose. ## Photo frame A wall can show the family's own photos when nobody is using it. Open **Family settings**, find **Wall display**, turn on **Show photos when the wall is quiet** and press **Add photos**. On the phone or tablet wall, press **Photo frame** at the bottom of the screen. - After two quiet minutes the wall fades into the photos, one every ten seconds, with the time in the corner. - Every forty seconds it gives the day back for twenty, so the chores and dinner still get read from across the room. - Any tap brings the wall straight back. The frame stays off while someone's panel is open and at night. Only a grown-up adds or removes photos. Children see the album but cannot change it. The photos are seen only by people in the household, on the wall and in settings. They are never in a share link or a public page, and Margin Intelligence and connected assistants cannot open them. Photos count toward your plan's storage. ## Tap a name The row of names along the top is the whole interface. Tap a name and that person's panel opens. - **A grown-up's panel** has their jobs with a Done button on each, the chores waiting to be checked, tonight's dinner, and the shopping list with a tap target on every line. A job that rotates says "Your turn", who did it last time and who is up after you. - **A child's panel** is the same page they get on a phone, with the app chrome removed and the type big enough to read standing up. **Everyone** stays a pill of its own, because clearing the filter is not a person. The row is always there, Everyone included, even in a house of one or on a display that has only just been switched on. Names come from two places: the accounts in the workspace, and the nicknames, emoji and roles the family has set. The display uses both, so nobody drops off the wall for being known in only one. A household nickname wins over the name on the account. A chore can belong to someone the screen cannot name, such as a member who has left or one whose details have not arrived yet. It still shows, under **Someone**, so work never disappears because a name is missing. ### Show one person's day Inside a panel, **Show only Maya on the wall** (with that person's name) filters the wall to that person and closes the panel in one tap. Tap **Everyone** to go back. The choice is remembered on that device, so the screen in a child's room can stay on their name while the kitchen shows the whole house. ## The PIN If a person has a PIN, a keypad stands in front of their panel. A child's PIN is set by a grown-up from the child's row in **Family**, **People**. A grown-up sets their own there, and an owner or admin can clear a grown-up's forgotten PIN so they can choose a new one. **How the PIN works** - **4 to 6** digits, checked on the server against a stored hash - **5** wrong tries in a minute locks that name - **5** minutes before that name can try again Nothing about the answer is kept. Close the panel and the next person starts at the keypad again, on this device and every other. > **Known limit: PINs need the internet** Checking a PIN is a call to the server. A display with no connection opens > panels without asking. Chores and the shopping list work as usual. An approval > asks for the grown-up's PIN and then waits for the internet to check it; > nothing is approved until the server says yes. A wrong PIN drops the approval > and the screen says so. The PIN is held in memory only, never saved on the > device, so reloading the page or closing the app forgets approvals still > waiting; press Approve again. ## Back to the wall Press **Done** in the panel's header, or walk away. After 90 seconds with nobody touching the screen, the panel says "Back to the wall in 10s, tap to stay", counts down, and closes. Any touch starts the 90 seconds again. Closing a panel forgets who was using it. ## What the wall can change Anyone at the wall can do two things: mark a chore done, and check items off the shopping list. Both are saved under the name that was tapped, so the family feed says who did the work and the approval queue names the right person. A grown-up's panel also has the queue of chores waiting to be checked. Each approval is checked against that grown-up's own wall PIN and recorded under their name. Nobody approves their own chore at the wall. A grown-up with no wall PIN sees the queue but cannot approve from it. Everything else stays off the wall: notes, the Vault, settings, allowances, anybody's balance, and moving money into a savings goal. A child's panel shows their points and their money and gives them nothing to move. > **Side note:** A test reads the source of every kiosk file. Wall files fail it if they import > anything that writes, and panel files fail if a write forgets whose it is. ## Living on a wall It keeps the screen awake while it is visible, so no timeout blanks it mid-week. **What it does to last** - **4** minutes between tiny layout shifts that stop a static clock burning into a cheap panel - **10pm to 6am** , a 60% dark layer goes over the screen - **2** minutes at full brightness after someone touches it at night It rolls over at midnight by itself. A display left running for a month never needs reloading. ## Leave the display There is one control at the bottom, **Leave the display**, and you have to hold it for a second and a half while a ring fills. A tap only says "Hold to leave", which is what a toddler walking past gets. After the hold it still asks, because behind it is the full app for whoever the device is signed in as. That sheet also spells out the screen's rule: work done on the wall is saved under the name that was tapped, and what the screen can write depends on the account it is signed in to. Confirming also leaves wall mode. ## With no connection The panels read the local database, so a display that has been running keeps showing meals, chores, shopping and points with no connection. Checking off a chore and checking off shopping work offline too, and sync when signal returns. Weather keeps its last reading. Approvals wait for the internet to check the PIN. > **Careful: Load it once first** A tablet that has never opened the display and then loses signal shows the > clock and "Catching up with the family", because it has nothing saved to > draw. The way out is on that screen too, so it is never a dead end. ## Availability The wall display is part of the family suite, so it needs a Family plan and a family workspace. See [Plans and limits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits). > **Note: If the plan ends** The rest of the family pages stay readable after a Family plan ends. The wall > display does not: it shows the plan notice instead. It is a screen made of > buttons for whoever walks past, and one that silently refuses every tap would > be worse than a clear sentence. **Where to next** - [Family workspaces](https://themarginapp.com/docs/family): roles, chores and approvals behind the panels - [The shopping list](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-shopping-list): the list the wall checks off - [Working offline](https://themarginapp.com/docs/working-offline): what keeps running with no signal --- Section: Together. Checked against the running product on October 5, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-wall-display. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Sharing and permissions > Boards are shared by membership, single items can go to a single person, and connections let you find and talk to people outside your workspaces. There are three ways to share, and they answer different questions. | You want to | Use | | ------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------ | | Work on a board together | Board sharing, with a role for each person | | Show one person one note, whiteboard or checklist | Per-item sharing | | Reach someone who is in none of your workspaces | A connection | ## Share a board Who can see a board is decided by who is on it. Creating a board puts one person on it, the creator. Until you share it, nobody else in the workspace can open it, even in a team or family workspace. The share icon in a board's header opens the **Share board** dialog, which has two tabs: **Members** and **Share links**. **Board roles** - **Owner**: everything, including who is on the board, its settings, archiving and deleting it. - **Editor**: adds, edits, moves, completes and assigns cards, and changes columns. - **Viewer**: opens the board, reads its cards and comments on them. No edits. Everything else follows from the board. A card is visible if its board is, and a comment is visible if its card is. Only a board's owners can change who is on it. Being an editor lets you do the work, not hand the board to someone else. ### Invite links Share links makes a link that puts whoever opens it on the board. 1. Pick the role the link grants, editor or viewer. 2. Pick when it expires: 7 days, 30 days or never. 3. Optionally cap how many people can use it. 4. Create it. The link is copied for you. The person opening it has to sign in first, so a link never gives access to someone anonymous. An owner can revoke a link from the same tab, and it stops working at once. > **Tip: In a team workspace** Owners and admins can see every board in a team workspace, including the ones > only one person can open, under **Team → Access**, and fix access from there. > See [Team hub](https://themarginapp.com/docs/team-hub). ## Share one thing with one person Sometimes one person needs to see one thing without it moving into a shared space. Notes, whiteboards, checklists and imported designs can each be shared on their own, as viewer or editor. **Share note** is in a note's menu. The person picker suggests people you already know: members of your workspaces and your connections, found by name. Anyone else on Margin can be reached by typing their exact email. The person you share with gets a notification that opens the item, and finds it afterwards under **Shared with me** on the notes, checklists or whiteboards list, on the web and in the phone app. A share never hands over ownership. As an editor you can change the content. You cannot share it on, move it into your folders, delete it, or change its privacy settings. Those stay with the owner. ## A view-only link for someone not on The Margin A shopping list, a recipe or a note can go to someone who will never sign up: the babysitter, a grandparent. Open the list's **Link**, the recipe's **Share a view-only link**, or a note's share dialog, and press **Make a view-only link**. The link is copied for you. On the phone it opens the share sheet, so you can text it straight away. Whoever opens the link sees the list's items and what is checked off, the recipe's ingredients and steps, or the note's words. Never a person's name, a picture or an attachment, so a child's details cannot leave through it. The page is not shown to search engines. It is read-only and updates as the list changes. **Stop the link** closes it at once: anyone holding it then sees "This link is not available". A note that is locked with a PIN or sealed in the vault cannot be shared this way, and locking a note later closes its link too. Only the person who wrote a note, or a workspace owner or admin, can share it by link. Links work on every plan, Free included. An assistant connected over MCP can do the same with `create_public_link`, `get_public_link` and `revoke_public_link`. ## Connections A connection is two people who have agreed to know each other on Margin, whatever workspaces they are in. Send a request by email from **Settings → Connections**, and it becomes a connection when the other person accepts. **What a connection gives you** - **Finding by name**: they show up by name when you share, instead of you having to know their email. - **Chat**: you can start a direct thread with them. See [Chat](https://themarginapp.com/docs/chat). - **Money owed**: a debt can name them, and they are asked to confirm it. See [Expenses and money](https://themarginapp.com/docs/expenses-and-money). Neither of you joins the other's workspace. Removing a connection is on the same page. ## Who can manage sharing | What | Who decides who else sees it | | --------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------ | | A board | The board's owners | | A note, whiteboard, checklist or design | Whoever made it, and the workspace's owners and admins | Being given editor access to something never lets you pass it on. ## What sharing does not do It does not share your assistant. Shared content is readable by the people you shared it with, and the assistant works per person: yours answers from what you can see, and theirs from what they can see. It does not open the Vault either. A Vault belongs to one person in one workspace, and someone else unlocking their own Vault never shows them yours. > **For agents:** `share_resource`, `unshare_resource` and `list_resource_shares` handle > per-item sharing, and refuse on the same plans the app does. > `send_connection_request` and `list_connections` cover connections. ## Share your workspace with one other person Every plan, Free included, lets you invite one other person into your own workspace. From **Settings**, **People**, choose **Invite** and enter their email. Once they accept, you both see the workspace's notes, checklists, whiteboards, expenses and habits, and you can chat. Boards still go one at a time: open a board's **Share** dialog and add them from the list of people in the workspace. A personal workspace holds two people in all, you and them, and an invitation nobody has answered yet holds the second place. The person you invite keeps their own free workspace too, with its own invite. Inviting a third person is refused with what each plan adds. A household goes in a family workspace on Family (up to 6 people, with chores, allowances, points, the meal plan, the shopping list and the wall display). People you work with go in a team workspace on Team. On Family you can also bring people already in your household into your other workspaces without using the second place. ## Availability | | Free | Pro | Family | Team | | ------------------------------------------------------- | ---- | ---- | ---------------------- | ------------ | | People in your own workspace (you included) | 2 | 2 | 2, plus your household | one per seat | | Adding people in the workspace to a board | yes | yes | yes | yes | | Sharing a board with people outside it, and share links | no | no | yes | yes | | Sharing single items with people outside the workspace | no | no | yes | yes | | Live cursors and presence | no | no | yes | yes | | Writing in one note together | no | no | yes | yes | | Guests (outside people per workspace) | none | none | 10 | 50 | | Connections | yes | yes | yes | yes | | Chat | yes | yes | yes | yes | Free and Pro hold you and one other person. Family is for one household: you can invite your household into your workspaces and share a single board or note with up to 10 people outside it. Bringing a group of people you work with into a workspace is Team's, and on Team the people you share with from outside are guests, who never take a seat. On Free and Pro the share dialogs offer the people already in the workspace and show what a plan adds for anyone else, rather than an invite that would be refused. See [Plans and limits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits). **Where to next** - [Team hub](https://themarginapp.com/docs/team-hub): roles, seats and who can open which board - [Family workspaces](https://themarginapp.com/docs/family): what the household sees of each other - [Chat](https://themarginapp.com/docs/chat): talking to the people you share with --- Section: Together. Checked against the running product on October 6, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/sharing-and-permissions. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Team hub > The home page of a team workspace: what needs you, who is around, who is carrying what, who can open which board, and what changed while you were away. **Team** at the top of the sidebar opens the hub of a team workspace. It is seven tabs, each a real address you can bookmark or send to someone. | Tab | What it answers | | -------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Overview | What needs me today, and who is around | | People | Who is here, in what role, and who is still invited | | Workload | Who is carrying what, across every board at once | | Agents | The team's own agents and their runs, then decisions, pacts and assistants | | Access | Who can open which board | | Activity | What changed, and who changed it | | Security | Sign-ins, access changes and exports, on a record nobody can edit | Everything reads from the same live data as the rest of the app, so a card moved on someone else's laptop shows up without a refresh. ## Overview The top of the page is one list called Needs attention, ordered by how stuck each thing is: 1. Decisions an agent is waiting on. Work has stopped until someone answers. 2. Overdue cards. 3. Boards nobody can open any more. 4. Open cards nobody owns. 5. Boards only one person can open. 6. Invitations still waiting for an answer. A row only appears when its count is more than zero, and when the list is empty it says so. Rows 3, 5 and 6 are for owners and admins, so a member sees a shorter list with no "not allowed" message in it. On a wide screen the Overview is two columns. The main column holds Needs attention, then the **Agents** strip and, for owners and admins, the **Admin console** and **Assistant use and caps**. The narrower column on the right is about the team: - the faces of the team, with who is in the app right now said in words as well as dots; - **Invite someone to the team**, for owners and admins, which opens People; - **Everything this team runs on**, a list of the team's own pages (shared boards, Workload, People & roles, Who can open what, Assistants & pacts, outside assistants, webhooks, Activity and Security). A page your plan does not include stays in the list, locked, and names the plan that has it. On a phone, or a narrow window, it is one column in this order: Needs attention, the welcome (if you have one), the main column, then the team. > **Side note:** In your first two weeks on a team a welcome waits at the top of the right-hand > column: who is here, what you can already open, and who to ask if the answer is > nothing. ## People and roles - **Owner**: runs the workspace, holds the plan, and is the only person who can delete it or hand it over. - **Admin**: invites, removes and re-roles people and edits workspace settings. Not billing. - **Member**: sees everything shared in the workspace and makes their own boards, notes and lists. People lists everyone with their presence, the roles you are allowed to change, open invitations you can revoke, and ownership handover. When a button is not yours to press, the page says which role it belongs to. Board roles (owner, editor, viewer) sit on top of these, board by board. See [Sharing and permissions](https://themarginapp.com/docs/sharing-and-permissions). ## Workload Workload counts open cards, overdue cards, cards due in the next seven days and cards nobody owns, then lets you look **By person**, **Unassigned**, **Overdue** or **Due in 7 days**. It reads the local database, so it works offline and moves the moment anyone drags a card. Switch from **List** to **Timeline** to see the same cards on a calendar. Each person gets a row and each day of this week (or this month) gets a column, with every card on the day it is due, so a pile-up on one day stands out. Late cards sit together in an **Overdue** column at the front, today is marked, and anything with no date or due later is counted beside the person's name. A week fits a wide screen; a month, or any view on a narrow screen, scrolls sideways and opens with today in view. Click a card to open it. In the phone app the timeline reads down instead of across: overdue first, then each day that has something due, with the person named on every card. The page remembers which layout you picked. > **Known limit: Only the boards you can open** Workload covers the boards you are on, not every board in the workspace. The > page says so under its header and links to Access, where an admin can see > the rest. ## Access Creating a board puts one person on it: whoever made it. In a team workspace that makes every new board private until someone shares it, and when a person leaves, the boards only they were on can end up with nobody at all. Access is for owners and admins, and it shows every board in the workspace whether or not you are on it. Filter to **Only one person**, **Nobody** or **Shared outside**, then add people, change their board role or remove them in place. ### Guests A guest is someone outside the workspace who can open a board, note, whiteboard or checklist you shared with them, as a viewer or an editor, and nothing else. A client on one board, a contractor on two notes. Guests are free: they never take a seat, they cannot invite anyone, and their devices receive only what was shared with them. A Team workspace can have up to 50. You add a guest the same way you share anything, from the board's or the note's share dialog. The **Guests** list at the bottom of Access shows every outside person at once and what each can open, and **Remove** takes all of someone's access in this workspace away in one step. A board they still own keeps its owner. ### Company sign-in Owners and admins can require every member to sign in with a Google account on the company's domain, under **Sign-in** at the bottom of Access. Type the domain, such as `acme.com`, and choose **Require Google sign-in**. - You can only pick a domain you sign in with yourself, through Google, so the rule cannot lock you out. - If any member's address is on another domain, it will not turn on, and you are told who. Change their address or remove them first. - New invitations only go to addresses on the domain. Guests are not affected: they are outside the workspace by definition. - Anyone signed in another way, such as with an email link, keeps their account, but the workspace stops opening and syncing for them until they sign in with Google on the domain. Their workspace list shows it as **Sign in with Google (@acme.com) to open**. - Accepting an invitation asks for the same sign-in. An invitation link opened from an email-link session goes to Google sign-in first and finishes on its own afterwards. - The phone app and any assistant you connect over MCP follow the same rule: a connection approved from another kind of sign-in loses the workspace until it is connected again after signing in with Google. Margin Intelligence won't start a conversation in a workspace your sign-in can't open, or reach into one from a conversation somewhere else. - Changes made offline on a device that no longer meets the rule are not saved to the workspace when it reconnects. Sign in with Google on the domain and make them again. - A member who is already in a live board or note when the rule turns on leaves it within a few seconds if their sign-in doesn't meet the rule. Everyone else stays in. Turning it off takes effect at once. On the phone, the setting is shown on the Team access screen and changed on the web. Single sign-on through SAML and automatic provisioning (SCIM) are not part of Team; they are planned for a later enterprise plan. Today a Team can require Google sign-in on its domain and two-factor for every member. ### Two-factor for every member Under **Two-factor sign-in** on Access, owners and admins can require every member to use an authenticator app when they sign in. See [Two-factor sign-in](https://themarginapp.com/docs/two-factor-sign-in) for how a person sets it up. - Turn on two-factor for your own account first. The rule won't turn on from an account without it, so it can't lock you out. - Before it turns on, you see who doesn't have two-factor yet. They are not removed. They keep their place, but the workspace won't open or sync for them until they turn it on, and their workspace list says **Turn on two-factor to open**. - Held means closed: the workspace stops opening and syncing for them, and its copy leaves their devices the next time they are online. - A held member who has a board or note open with others drops out of its live presence and shared editing within a few seconds. - It holds members only. Guests see only the boards and items you share with them and are not held; household profiles never sign in, so they are not held either. - A member who loses their phone signs in with a recovery code. There is no admin reset yet; a member with no codes left writes to support, who check it is really them first. - The phone app, Margin Intelligence and assistants connected over MCP follow it too: none of them reaches the workspace for a held member. In the phone app the same switch is on **Team → Access**, with the same check first. - Turning it on or off, and every member's two-factor changes, are written to the security log. Turning it off takes effect at once and frees everyone it was holding. ## Assistant use and caps A Team's assistant allowance is one shared pool, 600 actions for each seat. Without a ceiling, one busy person can use the whole month. **Assistant use and caps** on the hub's front page, for owners and admins, shows the pool first: how many actions the team has used this month out of how many, and how many are left. Under it, each person's actions this month, their share of the pool and, when they have one, a bar against their cap. Spend no listed person accounts for, such as a scheduled agent's runs or someone who has since left, is counted under the pool so the numbers add up. The month is the calendar month in UTC, the same one the assistant counts. Owners and admins can give any member a monthly cap in the same list. When someone reaches their cap, the assistant tells them their admin set it and that it resets on the 1st; purchased credits do not lift it. Nobody has a cap until one is set, and the owner is never capped. Every change is in Activity and in the security log. ## Activity The full trail, with a person's name on every row. It includes the governance events too: invitations, removals, role changes and board access. So "who removed Maya?" has an answer. An event whose subject has since been deleted drops out rather than pointing at nothing. ## Security **Security** is the workspace's security log, for owners and admins. It records: - sign-ins and two-factor changes for everyone in the workspace, including a wrong code and a recovery code used; - invitations, people joining, leaving and being removed, role changes and ownership handover; - board access granted, changed or removed, board share links, and every note, whiteboard or checklist shared or unshared, marked when the person is from outside the workspace; - the company sign-in rule, two-factor requirements and assistant caps; - every download of this log and of the whole workspace. Filter by **Sign-in**, **People**, **Access and sharing**, **Policies** or **Exports**, or by person (it shows what they did and what was done to them). Each entry has a number, a time and the network it came from. Only the first three parts of an address are kept, never the full address. Nobody can edit or delete an entry, owners included. Each entry carries a fingerprint of itself and of the one before it, worked out by the database as it is written. **Chain verified** at the top means every entry still matches; if one was ever changed, the page names the first that does not. The last entry's number and fingerprint are shown there and travel in every download, so a copy you keep can later prove nothing up to that point changed. Entries are kept for as long as the workspace exists; deleting the workspace deletes its log. **Log as CSV** and **Log as JSON** download the whole log, up to ten times an hour. ### Export everything **Download the zip** builds one zip of the whole workspace on our servers, including boards you are not on: boards, columns, cards, assignees, labels, comments, checklists, notes, folders and whiteboards, plus members and their roles (and whether each has two-factor on), guests, invitations, share links, the company sign-in rule, two-factor requirements, assistant caps and the security log. Every file comes as JSON and as CSV, with a `manifest.json` and a `README.txt` that list what is inside. Left out on purpose: anyone's assistant conversations, expenses, income and focus sessions (an admin does not see those in the app either), PIN hashes, invitation and share-link tokens, payment ids, attached files, and the contents of PIN-locked boards and notes, which are listed and marked locked so their owner can unlock and export them. Each kind of thing stops at 50,000 rows and the whole zip at 150 MB; anything cut short is named in the manifest. A workspace can be exported three times an hour, and every export is in the security log. Your own data from every workspace is a different download, described in [Your data](https://themarginapp.com/docs/your-data). ## Agents The team's own agents come first: one card each, with its schedule in words, when it runs next, **Run now** and its last result, plus **New agent** and three starters. Below them, the recent runs, each opening to its result. See [Team agents](https://themarginapp.com/docs/team-agents). Then what your other agents are doing, written for someone who has never heard of MCP: decisions waiting on a person, the pacts in force, and the assistants connected to this workspace. Two doors start things: **Start a pact** and **Connect an assistant**. See [Agent pacts](https://themarginapp.com/docs/agent-pacts). ## Seats Team is billed per seat, starting from one, and seats are checked against what was bought. When the workspace is full, the next invitation is refused with a sentence saying why and an **Add a seat** button that opens the seat count on the **People** tab with one more seat filled in. - A seat is a person, counted across all the team workspaces one owner holds. The same colleague in two of your team workspaces is one seat. - An open invitation holds a seat until it is answered or expires. That includes an invitation to an address with no account yet, so you can't send more invitations than you have seats. - A trial started in a team workspace holds up to 5 people. ### Adding and removing seats The owner changes the seat count at the top of **People**, in **Settings → Billing**, or from the seats tile in the admin console: press plus or minus, check the new total and the price per seat, then Confirm. You can set anything from 1 to 500 seats there. For more, write to us. A change is prorated. Seats you add are charged for the rest of the current billing period on your next invoice, and seats you remove come back as a credit on it. Nothing is taken from your card when you click. You can't go below the people who hold a seat, open invitations included. Removing a member frees their seat but does not lower the bill. To pay for fewer seats, remove the person (or cancel the invitation) and then lower the count. The phone app shows how many seats are in use. Seats are managed on themarginapp.com. The admin console on the Overview shows seats used against seats bought, AI actions used this month, and the audit log, with a CSV export. Only owners and admins see it. ## Ask the assistant Margin Intelligence, and any assistant you connect over MCP, can read the hub for you. Anyone in the workspace can ask who is on the team and who is carrying what. Owners and admins can also ask: - what changed and who changed it, from the same trail as **Activity**, a page at a time, or only the membership and access changes; - who can open which board, including boards only their creator can open, boards nobody can open any more, and people from outside the workspace; - how many seats are bought and held, open invitations included, and how many assistant actions the team and each person have used this month, with their cap if one is set; - the security log, a page at a time, by group or person, with whether the chain verifies. A member who asks gets told it is for owners and admins. The assistant only reads here. Inviting, removing, changing roles, board access and seats stay in the app, done by a person. ## Who gets it The hub is for team workspaces, and for shared ones, on the Team plan. The **Team** row only appears in the sidebar where it applies. - Opened by address from a personal or family workspace, the page explains that the hub belongs to team workspaces and links to **Workspace settings**, where you can change the type. - In a team workspace without the plan, you get one upgrade prompt instead of a page of buttons that fail. > **On the phone:** The phone app has Overview, People, Workload, Access and Activity, laid out as > lists, and the team's agents: list, make, run and read results. Owners and > admins find the downloads at the end of Access: the whole workspace as a zip, > and the log as CSV or JSON, saved through the share sheet on iPhone or into a > folder you pick on Android. Each one is written to the log, as on the web. > Pacts, the decision inbox and the log's own page are on the web. > **Note: A household wants a family workspace** Chores, pocket money and the House Cup are the family suite, which Team does > not include. See [Family workspaces](https://themarginapp.com/docs/family). **Where to next** - [Sharing and permissions](https://themarginapp.com/docs/sharing-and-permissions): board roles and invite links - [Agent pacts](https://themarginapp.com/docs/agent-pacts): several agents on one job, under rules the server enforces - [Team agents](https://themarginapp.com/docs/team-agents): agents the team makes for itself, on demand or on a schedule - [Plans and limits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits): what Team includes and what the trial grants --- Section: Together. Checked against the running product on October 5, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/team-hub. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # People and roles > Where the people in a family or team live, how to add someone, what each role can do, PINs for the wall display, and the history of who changed what. Every workspace has one page for the people in it, called **People**. It is where you add someone, change what they can do, set a PIN, and see who changed any of that. ## Where People is **People** sits under the hub in the sidebar, so it opens the right page for the workspace you are in: | Workspace | People opens | Also reachable from | | --------- | ------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Family | **Family → People** | The People card in the right-hand column of the family hub, Family settings, the Settings tab called People | | Team | **Team → People** | The Team hub's People tab, the Settings tab called People | | Personal | **People** | The Settings tab called People, which shows the same list without leaving Settings | You can also press `⌘ K` (`Ctrl K` on Windows and Linux) and type "people", "add child", "pin", "roles" or "invite". In the phone app, People is on the Family screen under **Around the house**, in the contents list, and as the People tab in Settings. ## What the page shows Everyone is in one list, a row each: their face, their name, their email (or "No account" and whether a PIN is set, for a profile), and one line saying what their role lets them do. Every face says who it is: hover over it, tab to it, or press and hold it on a touch screen and the name appears, and a screen reader reads the name. In a family, on a wide screen, People is two columns. The list leads, followed by **A child with two homes** for grown-ups (sharing a child with another household, see [Family](https://themarginapp.com/docs/family)), **You in this family** (your own role, the name and face the family sees) and **Family connections** (how everyone is related). The column on the right holds the **Wall display** box, with links to open it and to its settings, and the **History**. On a phone it is one column in that order. In a team, People is a tab of the [Team hub](https://themarginapp.com/docs/team-hub), with the seat count at the top for the owner. The Mind keeps its own list of the people, places and projects it has noticed in your writing. That list is called **Names** and lives inside the Mind. See [The Mind](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-mind). ## Adding someone In a family, press **Add someone**. A child with no email gets a profile: a name, a face, a role and an optional PIN. Anyone with an email gets an invitation. In a team, press **Invite**. In your own workspace, press **Invite** too. It holds you and one other person on Free, Pro and Family, and an invitation nobody has answered yet holds that place. Inviting a third person is refused with what Family and Team add. See [Sharing and permissions](https://themarginapp.com/docs/sharing-and-permissions). Only the workspace owner and admins can add or remove people. Everyone else sees a sentence saying who can. ## What each role can do There are three kinds of role, and each answers a different question: - Your **workspace role** (owner, admin, member) decides who can invite people and change settings. - Your **family role** (parent, partner, caretaker, roommate, child) decides who approves chores and moves money. - A **board role** (owner, editor, viewer) decides what you can do on one board. Every place you pick a role has a **What each role can do** link that opens the full list, on the right section. ### Family roles | Role | Who it is for | What it can do | | --------- | --------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Parent | A parent or step-parent | Approves chores, gives points, pays allowances and sets everyone's role | | Partner | A parent's partner | The same as a parent | | Caretaker | A grandparent, sitter or nanny who helps | Approves chores, gives points and pays allowances, but can't change roles | | Roommate | A grown-up who shares the home and its costs | Approves chores and records money like any grown-up, but can't change roles | | Child | Anyone who shouldn't approve their own work, whatever their age | Does chores, earns points and saves, but can't approve chores or move money | Nobody can raise their own role. The workspace owner and admins can set anyone's. Someone with no role yet can do what a grown-up can, so give each child the Child role. Each person's row says in one line what their role lets them do. ## PINs for the wall display The [wall display](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-wall-display) asks for a person's PIN before their panel opens. On a family's People page, a profile without an account has a **Set PIN** button on its row (it reads **Change PIN** once one is set). A grown-up with an account sets their own wall PIN on their own row with **Set wall PIN** (or **Change wall PIN**). The wall display asks for it before that person's panel opens and before they approve a chore there, so a child who taps a parent's name meets a PIN pad, not the approval queue. Nobody can choose a grown-up's PIN for them. If someone forgets theirs, the owner or an admin can press **Reset wall PIN** on their row, and they set a new one. ## Each person's places A row ends in links to that person's own places. In a family that is chores and points for everyone, plus the kid view and allowance for a child. In a team it is the workload page and the boards they can open. ## History A family's People page ends with **History**: who added, invited or removed someone, and who changed a role or a PIN, newest first. Grown-ups see it; children don't. A team has the same record, with more in it, on **Team → Activity**. ## Related - [Family](https://themarginapp.com/docs/family): the household suite - [Team Hub](https://themarginapp.com/docs/team-hub): workload, access and activity for a team - [Sharing and permissions](https://themarginapp.com/docs/sharing-and-permissions): boards, single items and connections --- Section: Together. Checked against the running product on October 6, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/people-and-roles. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Team agents > Agents your team makes for itself: a name, instructions and a set of tools, working on the team's boards when someone asks or on a schedule, with every run and its result kept where the whole team can read it. A team agent is a teammate you write down once. It has a name, a drawn icon, instructions in plain words, and the tools it may use. It works in the team workspace it was made in, on that workspace's boards and notes, and it can run when someone presses a button or by itself on a schedule. Team agents come with the Team plan, and with a trial started in a team workspace, inside the trial's 100 AI actions. Margin Intelligence, the assistant every plan has, is a different thing: it works for one person in a chat. A team agent does one job for the whole team and leaves its result where everyone can read it. ## Where they live **Team → Agents** in the sidebar. The page opens on the team's agents, then the recent runs, then pacts, the decisions waiting on a person and the outside assistants connected here. You can also get there from the command palette (`⌘ K`): **New agent** opens the page with a new agent already started, and **Agents** opens the page. The Team hub's overview has a strip of the team's agents too. > **Note: Not in a team workspace** In a personal or family workspace, **Intelligence → Agents** > says that agents come with the Team plan and links to the pricing page. If > you already have Team, it tells you to switch to the team's workspace instead. > In a team workspace the same address takes you to > **Team → Agents**. ## Making one Press **New agent**, or start from one of the three starters below and change what you like. - **Name and icon**: what the team sees on the card and in each run. The icons are drawn, the same family as the rest of the app. - **Instructions**: how the agent should work, written the way you would brief a new colleague: what to look at, what to write, and what to leave alone. - **Tools**: what it may do, picked from the same list of tools Margin Intelligence uses: reading boards and cards, commenting, writing notes, and so on. Pick only what the job needs. Three tools are never offered: an agent cannot create, change or delete agents, so nothing it reads can rewrite its own instructions. - **Schedules**: optional. See below. ## The three starters | Starter | When it runs | What it writes | | --------------- | --------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Weekly digest | Every Monday, 9:00 AM | What was finished last week, what is due this week and what is overdue, naming the people | | What's blocked | Weekdays, 9:30 AM | Cards that are overdue, have no owner or have not moved in a week, who each one waits on, and the next step | | Standup summary | Weekdays, 8:30 AM | One line per person: finished yesterday, on today, stuck on | Each one reads the boards and writes its answer as the run's result, which the whole team reads under Recent runs. None of them changes a card. If you want one to comment on cards or write a note as well, give it that tool and say so in its instructions. A starter is only a filled-in form. Nothing runs until you save it, and you can change the times, the task and the tools first. ## Schedules A schedule is a time and a task. Pick how often (every day, weekdays, or one day of the week), a time on the quarter hour, and write what the agent should do each time. The time zone is your browser's unless you change it, and the time stays put across daylight saving. An agent can have up to four schedules, so one agent can write a digest on Monday and a reminder on Thursday. The email switch below covers all of them. The card shows each schedule in words, like "Every Monday at 9:00 AM", and when it runs next. A new or edited schedule starts with its next time, so saving "Every day at 9:00 AM" in the afternoon first runs tomorrow morning. If the scheduler was down when a run was due and more than six hours have passed, that run is skipped rather than sent late. A Monday digest arriving on Monday night is no use to anyone. If your team requires Google sign-in on its domain, a scheduled run needs the agent's maker to have a Google account on that domain linked to The Margin. Otherwise the run is skipped, the same way a person without one could not open the workspace. ## Runs and results **Run now** runs an agent straight away, with its first scheduled task or with something you type. Runs land under **Recent runs** with who started it, when, and how it went. Open a run to read its result in full. Scheduled runs are there for the whole team. A run you start by hand is yours: you see it, and so do the workspace's owner and admins, but other members do not. Each run in the list also says what it cost, like "On schedule · 2h ago · 3 AI actions". A run that is still going, or one from before costs were shown, has no number yet. When a scheduled run finishes, the person who made the agent gets a notification that links straight to that run. ## Email me the result Turn on **Email me the result** in the agent's schedule and each scheduled run is also emailed to the person who made the agent: the result as plain text, a link to the run, and a line at the bottom to stop the emails. That link stops them in one click, with no sign-in, and leaves the agent running on its schedule. You can turn the emails back on in the agent's settings. A run you start with **Run now** is not emailed, because you are already watching it. Result emails go out with the rest of The Margin's product mail, so on a busy day one can arrive a little after the run. ## Who can do what - **Switch off or remove from this workspace**: the person who made the agent, or a workspace owner or admin. - **Read the agents and their runs**: everyone in the workspace, with the run rule above. - **Make an agent**: any member of the team workspace. - **Edit or delete**: the person who made the agent, and only them. An agent belongs to the person who made it and works with their standing, so only they can change its instructions, tools or schedules. An owner or admin can open it to read what it does, switch it off here or remove it from this workspace. Switching an agent off in a workspace keeps it and its history; it just stops running there, schedules included. The person who made it can always delete it, even after the workspace leaves the Team plan. ## What it costs Runs use AI actions like any request to the assistant, and they draw from the team's pooled allowance: 600 actions a seat a month. A run you start with **Run now** counts as yours. A scheduled run counts as the actions of the person who made the agent, so a cap an admin has set on that person holds for their agents too. When the pool or that cap runs out, scheduled runs are skipped until it resets, and the rest of the app keeps working. See [Plans and limits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits). An agent runs only while the person who made it is still in the workspace. If they leave, its schedules stop; an owner or admin can make a new one from the same instructions. A short run is a few actions. A run that reads many boards and writes several comments is more, so a narrow task and a short tool list cost less than a broad one. ## From an outside assistant The agent tools are on both MCP servers, so an assistant you connect can list, read, make, change and remove the team's agents in a Team workspace: `list_agent_definitions`, `list_agent_instances`, `list_agent_configs`, `get_agent_config`, `create_agent_config`, `update_agent_config` and `delete_agent_config`. `check_feature` with `custom_agents` tells it whether the workspace has them. In a workspace without the Team plan these tools are refused. > **For agents: For agents** Team agents are the `custom_agents` feature, on the Team tier only. To email > each scheduled result to the agent's maker, put `"email": true` in the > schedule's config. Before > making one for a person, call `check_feature` for `custom_agents` in the > workspace you are acting in. A run is a durable turn aimed at the agent, so its > result is readable afterwards in the app under Recent runs. > **On the phone:** The phone app shows the same agents: on the Team hub's agents strip and its > Agents page, or in the Margin room under **Agents** on the lens rail. A > notification about a finished run opens that run. **Where to next** - [Team hub](https://themarginapp.com/docs/team-hub): the rest of the team workspace - [Margin Intelligence](https://themarginapp.com/docs/margin-ai): the assistant every plan has - [Agent pacts](https://themarginapp.com/docs/agent-pacts): several agents on one job, under rules the server enforces - [Plans and limits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits): what Team includes and why agents are on it --- Section: Together. Checked against the running product on October 5, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/team-agents. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Chat > Threads with the people you share a workspace with or are connected to, including the household. Works offline like the rest of the app. Chat is where the people in a workspace talk. A thread can hold everyone in the workspace, one other person, or a few of you. Messages move the way everything else in The Margin does: one typed on a train goes out when the tunnel ends, and threads you have already opened read fine with no signal. ## Who can be in a thread - **Workspace thread**: everyone in the workspace, household profiles included, so a child with no email appears under their nickname. - **Direct thread**: you and one other person. Two people only ever have one of these between them, whoever started it. - **Group thread**: a few people, with a name if you give it one. You can add anyone in your workspace and anyone you are connected to, even if you share no workspace with them. Nobody else can be added. A thread that could reach a stranger through a guessed email address would be a nuisance, and the rest of the app refuses to be one of those too. > **Known limit:** The wall display does not show chat. It sticks to meals, chores, the > shopping list and the standings. See [The wall display](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-wall-display). ## What you can do with a message Press and hold a message on a phone, or hover over it on a laptop, and the same short menu opens: react, **Reply** and **Copy text**, plus **Edit** and **Delete** on your own messages. Delete asks for a second press, because it cannot be undone. - **Reactions.** Six common emoji sit on the menu, and the plus button beside them opens the rest with a search box. Press one you already added to take it back. The count shows under the message, and tapping it shows who reacted. - **Replies** quote the message they answer. Tap the quote to jump back to the original, which lights up for a moment so you can spot it. - **Edits and deletes.** An edited message says so. A deleted one leaves a marker, so a reply to it still points somewhere, and its reactions go with it. - **Links** can be tapped. Nothing else in a message is formatted: what you type is what everyone reads. - **Link previews.** A message with exactly one link shows a small card with the page's title and picture, when Margin already has a preview of that address from a capture or a note. Sending a message never fetches one, so a link in chat does not tell the site anything. Two or more links stay plain. Turn previews off under **Link previews** in **Settings → Profile**. On a laptop, Enter sends. On a phone keyboard, return starts a new line and the send button sends, so a half-written message does not go out by accident. The mic beside the send button, **Dictate a message**, puts what you say into the box. You read it and send it yourself; nothing goes out by voice alone. See [Voice](https://themarginapp.com/docs/voice). In a direct thread, your latest message shows Seen once the other person has read it. While someone else in the thread is typing, a small quill writes above the box with their name: "Sam is writing…". It goes a few seconds after they stop, or as soon as their message lands, and you never see your own. What you type is not sent until you press send; only the fact that you are typing reaches the others, and nothing about it is kept. It needs a live connection and comes with the plans that include live presence (Family and Team). ## Pictures The paperclip in the composer attaches a picture. It is uploaded as the original file and counts toward the storage your plan already includes. > **Known limit:** Sending a picture needs a connection. It is the one part of chat that does > not work offline. ## Finding things **Search threads**, above the thread list, matches thread names and the last line in each. Inside a thread, the magnifier searches the messages on this device, and choosing a result scrolls to it. A long thread opens where you stopped reading, with a line marking what is new. Scroll up and a pill appears to bring you back to the bottom, counting anything that arrived while you were reading further up. ## Getting told You get one notification when a thread you have not read has something new, and no more until you read it, so a busy thread does not buzz a phone forty times. Type `@` and a name to mention someone: they get a notification of their own for that message, even when they already have an unread one from the thread. To hear nothing from a thread, open its details and choose **Mute this thread**. It stays in the list, just quietly, and that covers mentions too. The bell holds one list per person. A question waiting for you in a team workspace still reaches you while you are in your personal one. A row from another workspace names it, and opening the row switches to that workspace before it opens the thread. See [Sharing and permissions](https://themarginapp.com/docs/sharing-and-permissions) for how connections work. ### Push notifications on this device With the app closed, a notification can still reach the device. Turn it on in **Settings → Notifications**, once on each device, because permission to interrupt you belongs to the phone or laptop and not to your account. - A banner carries whatever the bell would carry: a chat message, a chore waiting for approval, a salary that landed. - If you belong to more than one workspace, the banner's title starts with the name of the one it is about, and tapping it lands you there. - Tapping a banner reuses the tab you already have open. Nothing pops up while you are looking at Margin, since the bell and the sound have already told you. - Muting a thread silences its banners too. - **Send a test** goes the same way as a real notification and reaches every device you have turned on. **Push on an iPhone or iPad** 1. Open themarginapp.com in Safari and tap **Share**. 2. Choose **Add to Home Screen**. 3. Open Margin from the new icon and go to **Settings → Notifications**. The switch only works from the Home Screen app. ### Sounds **Settings → Notifications** also has six short sounds: Glass, Marimba, Wood, Bell, Pop and Chime, plus Silent. You choose one for each of three things: anything the app needs to tell you, a chat message, and someone mentioning you. Tap one to hear it. Your three choices and the volume follow your account to every device. The on/off switch can also be set per device, so a work laptop can stay quiet while your phone does not. A few moments stay silent on purpose: - a message in the thread you are reading, or one that lands while you are typing in that thread's box; - the first few seconds after the app opens, because the first sync arrives as a pile of history and nobody wants to hear all of it at once; - anything before your first click or key press on the page, because browsers refuse to play sound until then. The message still arrives, just silently. ## Threads about a thing A thread can belong to a record. On a record of money owed, **Discuss this** opens that debt's own thread, and once one exists the button reads **Open the conversation**, so both people always land in the same place. The assistant can find a record's thread by asking about the record. ## Someone not on Margin They have no account to send to. Instead, open the thread's details and choose **Download the transcript**: a plain text file you can send them any way you like. > **On the phone:** The phone app has threads, reactions, replies, pictures, mentions and mute. > The transcript leaves through the phone's share sheet instead of a > download. > **For agents:** Ask the assistant what someone said, or tell it to let the family know > something, and it reads or writes in the thread as you > (`list_chat_threads`, `list_chat_messages`, `send_chat_message`, > `create_chat_thread`, `react_to_chat_message`). It only sees threads you are > in. **Where to next** - [Family](https://themarginapp.com/docs/family): the household the workspace thread is for - [Sharing and permissions](https://themarginapp.com/docs/sharing-and-permissions): connections, and who can reach you - [Working offline](https://themarginapp.com/docs/working-offline): what waits for a signal --- Section: Together. Checked against the running product on October 5, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/chat. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Plans and limits > What Free actually includes, what it does not, what the trial grants, and what happens the moment you reach a ceiling. This page is about what each plan contains and how its ceilings behave, which is the part that matters once you have chosen. [The pricing page](https://themarginapp.com/pricing) has the same prices, billed monthly or billed annually, with a switch between the two. ## What each plan costs | Plan | Billed monthly | Billed annually | | ----------------------------------- | ------------------------------- | --------------------------------------- | | Free | $0, and it does not expire | $0 | | Pro | $15 a month | $12 a month ($144 a year) | | Family | $25 a month for the household | $20 a month ($240 a year) | | Each extra household member, past 6 | $4 a month | $3 a month ($36 a year) | | Team | $20 a seat a month, from 1 seat | $16 a seat a month ($192 a seat a year) | > **Note: Founding prices** Founding prices are offered to a limited number of early members during launch, from October 1 to November 6, 2026, and end early once those places are taken. The pricing page and > **Settings → Billing** show whether they are still on offer. > They are billed annually: $90 a year for Pro ($7.50 a month), $180 for Family > ($15 a month), $120 a seat for Team ($10 a seat a month). While they are on > offer, the pricing page leads with those monthly figures and shows the standard > annual price beside each one as the price it replaces. You keep that price for 12 months. After that your plan moves to the > list price of the day. We tell you at least 90 days before it does, and again > 30 days before. From then on you keep 20% off list for as long as the > subscription runs without a break. A failed card payment is not a break while > it is being retried. Canceling ends both the founding price and the 20%. What is locked > is the price; allowances, limits and features follow the current plan, and > those can change. ## What each plan is for - **Free**: the real app for you and one other person. Boards, notes, habits, money in, out and owed, chat, recipes, the Mind and the assistant, with counted ceilings. Invite one person into your workspace to share it. - **Pro**: one person with nothing counted, and room for one other person like Free. Adds budgets, the Canva design hub, Google Sheets and Calendar sync, webhooks, Agent Pacts and outside agents over MCP. - **Family**: everything in Pro for one household of up to 6, plus household planning (chores, allowances, the ledger, savings goals, points and houses, the weekly meal plan that fills the shopping list, the wall display), sharing and live collaboration. Kids' profiles count as people and are included. Up to 10 people outside the house can be guests on boards and items you share. - **Team**: everything in Pro for working with people outside a household, priced per seat: the Team Hub with its admin console, workload and timeline, access controls and audit log, free guests, per-person caps on the shared assistant allowance, and team agents that work the boards on a schedule. It has no family suite. > **Note: Free and Pro hold two people** On Free and Pro your workspace holds you and one other person, and you can > add them to any of your boards. Sharing with people outside the workspace, > live collaboration and a third person are where Family or Team starts. ## What Free leaves out Free has no budgets, Canva design hub, sharing with people outside the workspace (guests and share links), live collaboration, Google Sheets or Calendar sync, webhooks and API keys (and so the GitHub and Slack connections and Zapier, Make and n8n), Agent Pacts or the morning brief, and it does not read the words in pictures and scans (a scan is still kept as a PDF; see [Files and scans](https://themarginapp.com/docs/files-and-scans)). It has no family suite, Team Hub or team agents, and outside agents cannot connect to a Free workspace over MCP. The planning tools (saved views across boards, time blocks, the priority matrix, planning and closing the day, and the done-per-day counts) come with Pro, Family and Team; the board's calendar and timeline views are on every plan. Card dependencies, custom fields and board rules are on Team, because they are for boards a group runs together. Everything else is there with nothing held back: - Boards, notes, habits, checklists, whiteboards, templates and attachments. - One other person in your workspace, invited by email. - A shared shopping list: one list, up to 30 items on it at a time. Ticked-off items don't count. Paid plans have no limit. - Money in, out and owed: expenses, income and debts. Budgets are the paid part. - The recipe box, up to 25 recipes. The weekly meal plan is a Family feature. - Chat, focus sessions, the planner, the calendar view and the break room. - The Mind, offline, all eight themes, export, and the assistant with a smaller allowance. ## The ceilings, plan by plan | Ceiling | Free | Pro | Family | Team | | ----------------------------- | ------------ | ------------ | ------------------------------ | ------------ | | Boards | 5 | not counted | not counted | not counted | | Notes | 100 | not counted | not counted | not counted | | Habits | 10 | not counted | not counted | not counted | | Whiteboards | 3 | not counted | not counted | not counted | | Cards in one board | 200 | 2,000 | 2,000 | 5,000 | | Standalone checklists | 20 | 300 | 300 | 500 | | Recipes | 25 | 200 | 500 | 200 | | Shopping lists | 1 | not counted | not counted | not counted | | Items on the list at a time | 30 | not counted | not counted | not counted | | Workspaces | 1 | 10 | 25 | 100 | | People in your own workspace | 2 | 2 | 2, plus your household | one per seat | | People in a household or team | not included | not included | 6, up to 12 with extra members | one per seat | | AI actions a month | 75 | 600 | 1,200 pooled | 600 a seat | | Weave credits a month | 25 | 150 | 300 pooled | 150 a seat | | Cloud voice minutes a month | 60 | 500 | 1,200 pooled | 500 a seat | | Attachment storage | 25 MB | 10 GB | 25 GB | 50 GB | | Open Agent Pacts | none | 10 | 10 | 50 | | Guests (outside people) | none | none | 10 | 50 | Boards, notes, habits, whiteboards, checklists, recipes, shopping lists and open pacts are counted per workspace. Shopping items count only while they are unticked, across the workspace's lists. The card ceiling counts one board at a time. A guest is someone outside the workspace who can open a board or item shared with them and nothing else. Guests never take a seat and cannot invite anyone. Guests are counted per workspace. A workspace that is neither a family workspace nor a team workspace holds two people on Free, Pro and Family: you and one other person, with an open invitation holding the second place. The person you invite keeps their own free workspace with its own invite. On Family you can also bring people from your own household into another workspace you own without using that place. A third person is refused with what Family and Team add. A Team's AI actions are one pool, 600 for each seat. An owner or admin can give any member a monthly cap inside it from the Team Hub; nobody has one until it is set, and the owner is never capped. ### Why team agents are on Team only Team agents are named agents a team makes for itself, run by hand or on a schedule against the team's boards. See [Team agents](https://themarginapp.com/docs/team-agents). They are on Team and no other plan, on purpose. Pro is one person's plan, and that person already has Margin Intelligence for anything they would ask an agent. A family's recurring jobs (chores, allowances, the meal plan) already run on schedules of their own. An agent that goes through a team's boards every Monday morning is a team's job. Their runs draw from the team's pooled AI actions, so a cap set on one person still holds. A family workspace holds 6 people, and an invitation nobody has answered yet still holds a place. A child shared between two homes takes a place only in the home that created their profile; see [A child with two homes](https://themarginapp.com/docs/family#a-child-with-two-homes). A team workspace holds as many people as you have seats. Seats count distinct people across every team workspace the same account owns, so a colleague who is in two of your spaces takes one seat. An open invitation holds a seat too, including one sent to an address that has no account yet. ## Changing seats and household size The owner changes both in **Settings → Billing**, with a plus and a minus and a Confirm button. On Team you can also get there from the seats tile in the Team Hub. - **Team seats** start at 1 and go up to 500 from that screen. If you need more, write to us. - **Extra household members** are for a household bigger than 6. Each one costs $3 a month on annual billing ($36 a year) or $4 a month on monthly, up to 6 more, so 12 people in all. Founding Family members pay the same. A change is prorated. Seats or people you add are charged for the rest of the current billing period on your next invoice, and ones you remove come back as a credit on that invoice. Nothing is taken from your card when you click. You cannot go below the people who already hold a place, counting open invitations. Remove someone or cancel an invitation first. Removing a member does not lower the bill by itself; lower the count afterwards if you want to pay for fewer. A free trial and a plan we granted you stay at their own size (5 team seats on a trial, 6 people in a household), because there is no subscription to add to. Plans are managed on the web; the phone app shows the count and links here. The card and checklist ceilings are there to stop scripted bulk imports. They sit far above what anyone types by hand. > **Side note:** Weave credits are their own allowance. They pay for the Mind's background > work, so weaving never eats into the assistant's actions. See > [The Mind](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-mind). ## The trial New accounts start on Free. The trial begins when you start it: from the Start here list on your dashboard, by choosing a household or a team in the welcome, from any plan gate you run into, or from the line at the top of the phone app. There is one per account, and no card is asked for. It runs for 7 days and lifts every workspace you own, each to the plan that matches it. Your own workspace gets Pro. A household workspace gets Family, with the chores, the ledger and the meal plan. A team workspace gets Team. Start it once you have the kind of workspace you are thinking of paying for, and you are trying the plan you would actually buy. > **Known limit: What the trial is capped at** A trial lends a plan's features, not its whole monthly allowance. While it > runs, AI actions stop at 100, weave credits at 50, cloud voice at 120 > minutes, attachments at 2 GB and a team at 5 seats. A plan you have paid for is never lowered by this. Joining the Discord or starring the repository on GitHub adds 2 free days each, and an invite that lands adds 3. Each one is checked before the days land. Joining the Discord is confirmed with Discord once you sign in there. Starring the repository on GitHub is confirmed with GitHub from your username, and the star has to be newer than your Margin account. An invite pays once the person you invited has joined and made something of their own. Following us on Instagram, X or LinkedIn is welcome, but those sites can't tell us who follows, so a follow earns nothing. Ten days is the most any account can receive, the 7-day trial included, so the order you earn them in makes no difference. Once the ten are spent, every reward pays 13 AI actions for each day it would have added: 26 for the Discord or the star, 39 for an invite. If only part of a reward fits, you get the days that are left and the rest as AI actions, so with one day to go a star adds that day and 13 actions. The card that lists these sits on your dashboard. It shows each action as Not started, Verifying or Earned, folds to one line, and the X hides it. In the phone app the same card is in **Settings → Billing**: the GitHub star is checked right there, and Discord's Verify opens Discord's sign-in in your browser, then the card updates when you come back. When the trial ends you are back on Free. Nothing is charged and nothing is deleted. ## What happens at a limit Say you are on Free with 5 boards and want a sixth. The app stops the create before it is saved, tells you which ceiling you reached and offers the plans. Delete a board or upgrade, and the five you have keep working either way. > **Known limit: Archiving does not free a slot** An archived board is still a board, and the count includes it. The same goes > for archived habits and for checklist templates. > **Careful: Big imports on Free** An import does not stop at the ceiling for you. It writes what you gave it, > and anything past the ceiling is refused when it syncs, with a notice naming > the limit. Check the counts before you import a large vault or recipe file > into a Free workspace. ## When the AI allowance runs out AI actions, weave credits and voice minutes all reset at the start of each calendar month, counted in UTC. Past its minutes, cloud voice uses one AI action for every two minutes, and your device's own dictation is never counted. See [Talking instead of typing](https://themarginapp.com/docs/voice). Past the allowance, the assistant draws on top-up actions if you have bought any, and stops when those run out too. It says it has stopped. It does not quietly get worse. Top-ups are bought in **Settings → Billing**, on any plan: $5 for 150 actions or $20 for 800, and they never expire. ### A pause on a very busy day The Margin also has a daily limit on what its assistant can spend across the whole service, everyone together, so one runaway day cannot take it down for the rest of the month. If the service gets that busy, the assistant pauses for free plans first, once the day's spending reaches half the limit, while paid plans carry on. It pauses for everyone only if the whole limit is reached. The day resets at midnight UTC (late afternoon or evening in the Americas). When it is paused, the answer to your message says so in place of a reply. On Free it reads: "Margin Intelligence is paused for free plans for the rest of today, because free plans have used their share of what the service can spend in a day. Paid plans keep working. It is back when the day resets at midnight UTC, or right away on a paid plan. Nothing you did is lost." When everyone is paused, it reads: "Margin Intelligence is paused for the rest of today, because the whole service hit its daily limit. It is back when the day resets at midnight UTC. Nothing you did is lost." - A pause does not use up your own allowance, and nothing you were doing is lost. Send the message again after midnight UTC. - Dictation and the rest of the app keep working, and so does an assistant you connect yourself over MCP, which runs on its own model. ## Downgrading Only new items count against a ceiling. Everything you already made stays where it is and stays fully editable. If a downgrade leaves you above a Free ceiling, you cannot add more of that thing until you are back under it or on a paid plan again. Nothing is deleted. ## What is never limited Export works on every plan, Free included, and after a trial has ended. It runs in your browser against the copy already on your device, so there is no server in the way to refuse it. See [Your data](https://themarginapp.com/docs/your-data). Offline works on every plan, and so do all eight themes and the Mind. Two-factor sign-in works on every plan too. Requiring it of every member is a Team control. See [Two-factor sign-in](https://themarginapp.com/docs/two-factor-sign-in). Getting things in is free on every plan: quick capture, typing a card in one line, the browser bookmarklet, importing from Todoist, Trello, Google Keep and the rest, and bringing in what another assistant remembers about you. Imports still count toward the ceilings above, and the preview tells you what will not fit before anything is saved. Your email capture address takes up to 50 emails a day, with up to 5 attachments and 8 MB an email, and attachments count toward your storage. How storage is counted, and what scanning and reading the words in a picture cost, is in [Files and scans](https://themarginapp.com/docs/files-and-scans). **Where to next** - [Your data](https://themarginapp.com/docs/your-data): export, deletion, and where your data lives - [Agents and MCP](https://themarginapp.com/docs/agents-and-mcp): what the paid plans open to outside agents - [Family](https://themarginapp.com/docs/family): what the household plan is built around - [Team agents](https://themarginapp.com/docs/team-agents): what the Team plan's own agents do --- Section: Control and connections. Checked against the running product on October 7, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Your data > Where it lives, every way to get it out, what the Vault hides and what it does not, and what deleting something deletes. ## Where it lives On your device first, in a real database. It syncs to our servers, and that copy is what reaches your other devices and survives a lost laptop. A local-first app that loses its server keeps working; a cloud app that loses its server is a blank screen. Two things live only on the server, because they are built there: what the Mind has learned, and your conversations with the assistant. ## Getting it out | What | Where | What you get | | ------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | A note | The note's menu, **Export as Markdown** | One Markdown file, with its folder named at the top and `[[wikilinks]]` left as you wrote them | | The whole workspace | **Settings → Data**, **Export JSON** | One JSON file: boards with their columns, cards, labels and comments, plus notes, checklists, habits and their entries, expenses and their categories, focus sessions, and the household: chores, points, pocket money, savings goals, the family ledger, income, money owed and its payments, recipes, the meal plan, the family calendar, the shopping lists and their items, the pantry, the rewards shelf and every reward asked for, expense splits and settle-ups, budgets, the houses and House Cup seasons, who is who in the family (roles, nicknames and faces), and a child shared with another household. Note folders, whiteboards, card templates and saved views come along as rows | | What the Mind knows | **Settings → Your Brain** | JSON to import into another Margin, or Markdown to read | | A whiteboard | The canvas menu | **Export image...** for a picture, or **Save to...** for an `.excalidraw` file that imports back | | Recipes | **Recipes**, the menu beside the search box, **Export all recipes** | One JSON file that reads straight back into this workspace or another, with a note inside explaining the format | | Expenses | **Export** on the Expenses page | CSV | | A chat thread | The thread's info sheet, **Download the transcript** | Plain text anyone can read, on Margin or not | | A whole Team workspace (owners and admins) | **Team**, the **Security** tab, **Download the zip** | A zip of JSON and CSV with every board in the workspace, including ones you are not on, its notes, whiteboards and checklists, the members, guests and invitations, the workspace's rules and its security log. See [Team hub](https://themarginapp.com/docs/team-hub#export-everything) | Export is on every plan, including Free and after a trial ends, and it is deliberately never going to be gated. Everything above except the Mind's file is built in your browser from the copy already on your device, so there is no server that could refuse it. The Team export is the other exception: it is built on our servers, because your device only holds the boards you are on. See [Plans and limits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits). > **Known limit:** A board has no CSV export of its own yet; its cards are in the workspace > JSON. That file skips archived boards and habits. Whiteboards are in it as > their raw drawing data; for a picture or a file that opens in another > whiteboard app, export from the canvas. The household's records sit in the > file as the rows your device holds, one list per kind, so they read back as > data rather than as a page. Importing the file brings back its boards, notes, > checklists, habits and expenses; the household rows are there for you to keep. > > Chat is not in the workspace file. Each conversation has its own transcript > download. A board synced to Google Sheets is the other way out: it already lives in a spreadsheet you control. See [Integrations](https://themarginapp.com/docs/integrations). > **On the phone:** The phone app builds both the Mind's two files and the whole workspace file > itself, from the copy on the phone, so it works with no signal. Tap > **Export everything** in **Settings → Data**. On iPhone, pick > where it goes from the share sheet; on Android, pick a folder. The same > screen brings things back in: **Import your data** for files from other apps > and **Bring a brain back** for a brain file. See > [Importing from other tools](https://themarginapp.com/docs/importing-your-life). ## The Vault The Vault is a private part of your workspace, sealed with a passphrase you choose (at least 6 characters) in **Settings → Your Brain**. Put a note, card, board, checklist or whiteboard in it with **Move to Vault**. Each person has their own Vault in each workspace. - **While it is locked**, sealed items are hidden on screen for everyone in the workspace, you included, and the assistant cannot see them. Other members see "A private item" in its place, sealed in another member's Vault, and have no way to open it on screen. They are never retrieved, so they cannot be paraphrased into an answer about something nearby. - **Connected AI** (any assistant or agent you connect over MCP) never sees a sealed item, locked or unlocked. Asked for one by id, it is told the item was not found. - **Unlocking** lasts fifteen minutes from the moment you unlock. Working does not extend it, and closing the tab or signing out does not end it early; **Lock now** does. - **Offline**, you can unlock the screen to read your sealed items. The assistant's side stays sealed until you unlock again with a connection. What is encrypted, exactly: only the copy of each sealed item that Margin's memory keeps, with a key made from your passphrase, and we store neither the passphrase nor that key. The item itself is not encrypted. It still syncs to the devices of everyone in the workspace like anything else, and the Vault hides it on screen while it is locked. This is not end-to-end encryption, and we do not claim it is. > **Known limit: Not a lock against the people you share with** The Vault keeps things out of sight and away from every assistant and > connected tool. It does not keep them from someone who shares the workspace, > because their devices hold the same copy. Something truly private belongs in > your personal workspace. > **Careful: Keep the recovery key** Setting up the Vault offers a recovery key, shown once. Save it. If you turn > it off and then forget the passphrase, the Vault cannot be opened again, by > you or by us. ## Hide from memory and private weaving The lighter controls. **Hide from memory**, on a note's menu, keeps the note in your notes and your own search but never lets the Mind embed or recall it. Use it for things that are not secret but are nobody's business, the machine's included. **Weave privately** goes further in the other direction: the Mind still learns from the item, but keeps it quiet in suggestions and recall, and out of every memory file and pack. See [The Mind](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-mind) for all four controls side by side. ## Deleting - **A note or card** is removed on your device and everywhere it has synced. On its next background pass, within about fifteen minutes, the Mind drops it too, along with the connections and mentions built from it. - **A memory** is deleted from **Settings → Your Brain** at once. - **A workspace** is deleted by its owner from **Settings → Workspace**, **Delete workspace**. It takes the boards, notes, whiteboards, checklists, habits, expenses and its Mind with it, and anyone else in it is told. You cannot delete your only workspace. - **Your account** is deleted from **Settings → Data**, under Danger zone. > **Careful:** Deleting a workspace or an account cannot be undone. Export first if any of > it matters. ## Privacy, plainly Your content is not training data, and it is not sold. Nobody at The Margin reads it unless you share something with us for support, or security or the law requires it. When you use the assistant, the content it needs is sent to a model provider to answer that request, and only to hosts whose terms forbid training on it and that keep none of it. The Vault and Hide from memory are how you decide what never goes. Full detail, including every provider, is on the [privacy page](https://themarginapp.com/privacy). Where the servers are, what is encrypted, how backups are tested, which companies handle your data and what a Team admin can and cannot see are all on one page: [Trust and security](https://themarginapp.com/trust). When you save a web address in a capture or a note, Margin's server reads that page once to make its preview card. The site sees a request from Margin, not from your device, but it does learn that someone saved its address. The stored preview is visible to everyone in the workspace, so links in chat messages and on board cards never cause one, and neither do links in a PIN-locked note, in the Vault or hidden from memory, or single-use links such as a sign-in or password reset link. One switch in Settings turns previews off for your account. See [Links and previews](https://themarginapp.com/docs/links). **Where to next** - [Importing from other tools](https://themarginapp.com/docs/importing-your-life): the way back in - [The Mind](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-mind): what it remembers and the controls that keep things out - [Plans and limits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits): what stays free, including export --- Section: Control and connections. Checked against the running product on October 7, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/your-data. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Integrations > Sync card due dates with Google Calendar, show the family calendar in Apple Calendar or Outlook, forward school letters by email, sync a board with Google Sheets, send signed webhooks, link GitHub pull requests to cards, reach Zapier, Make and n8n, post to Slack, and bring in Canva designs. Nobody wants a second calendar, so these integrations are narrow on purpose. Each one moves a specific thing between The Margin and a tool you already use, and asks Google for the smallest permission that does the job. | Integration | What moves | Where you set it up | | ------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------- | | Google Calendar | Card due dates out, events in | The gear on the Calendar page, **Google Calendar sync** | | Apple Calendar, Outlook, any calendar app | The family calendar out, read-only, by a private link | **Share and subscribe** on the Calendar page | | A published calendar (a school's, a club's) | Its events in, read-only | **Share and subscribe** on the Calendar page | | Email | A forwarded school letter becomes dates to confirm | The Calendar's settings, **Forward letters by email** | | Google Sheets | One board's cards, either way | A board's settings, **Google Sheets sync** | | Webhooks | Events out to a URL you choose | **Settings → Webhooks and API** | | GitHub | Pull requests and issues noted on cards | **Settings → Integrations** | | Slack | Events out to a channel, through a webhook | **Settings → Webhooks and API** | | Zapier, Make and n8n | Events out by webhook, calls in with an API key | **Settings → Webhooks and API** | | Canva | Designs in, as pages you can work with | A whiteboard's **Bring in a Canva design** | Connect your Google account once in **Settings → Integrations**. Calendar and Sheets each ask for their own permission the first time you use them. ## Google Calendar Open the Calendar page, press the gear and choose **Google Calendar sync**. Pick a calendar, a direction (**Push (Margin to Calendar)**, **Pull (Calendar to Margin)** or **Bidirectional**) and how many days ahead to cover, from 1 to 365\. Turn on **Enable sync**. Nothing moves until you press **Sync Now**, and nothing runs on a timer: each sync is one press. - **Push** sends every open card with a due date inside that window to the calendar. A repeating card goes as one repeating event, so a weekly standup stays one series. Completed cards stay behind, and so does any column you have hidden from the calendar. - **Pull** brings the calendar's events into a board called Calendar, which is made for you the first time. Each event becomes a card with its date. > **Known limit: Repeating events arrive one card per date** Pull lists each occurrence separately, so a weekly event becomes one card > for every week inside the window. A 365-day window turns a weekly standup > into 52 cards. Keep the window short if you pull. For a pulled card, the calendar is the source. The next pull overwrites its title, description and date with whatever the event says, so make those changes in Google. We ask for `calendar.events`, which lets us create, read and update events and nothing else: not your calendar settings, not who you share calendars with. Google turned down our first verification for asking more broadly than that, and they were right to. ## Google Sheets From a board's settings, **Google Sheets sync** links the board to a spreadsheet. Pick one with Google's picker or **Browse**, or paste the link of a sheet The Margin made for you, then choose a direction: **Push (Margin to Sheets)** writes the board's cards into the sheet, **Pull (Sheets to Margin)** reads rows back as cards (rows it has already imported are not doubled), and **Bidirectional** does one then the other. With no sheet chosen, **Create & Sync** makes a new spreadsheet named after the board. Like the calendar, **Enable sync** has to be on, and a sync runs when you press it. It suits the person in the loop who lives in a spreadsheet and is not going to stop. We ask for `drive.file`. That covers files you pick through Google's own picker and files the app created for you, and nothing else in your Drive, which is why a pasted link only works for a sheet The Margin made. ## Webhooks A webhook sends a signed `POST` to your URL when something happens in the workspace. In **Settings → Webhooks and API**, press **New webhook**, give it a name and a payload URL, check its events, then use **Send test** to check the URL answers. The **Active** switch pauses a webhook without deleting it. The payload URL has to be a public web address, on any port. An address on a private network, `localhost` or a cloud server's internal address is refused when you save it, and checked again before every delivery. Redirects are not followed: answer at the URL you gave. **The events you can subscribe to** - **Workspace and people**: a workspace created or updated, a member added, removed or given a new role. - **Boards and cards**: a board created, updated or archived; a card created, updated, moved, completed or deleted. - **Notes**: a note made, in the app or from a share, a scan, an email or an automation. - **Agent pacts**: a pact created or archived, a message posted or its status changed, a section updated, a decision raised or resolved, a participant added, joined or revoked, a handshake updated. - **The kitchen**: a meal planned, cooked or removed, a recipe saved, a shopping run finished. - **Syncs**: a Sheets sync or a Calendar sync finished. Every delivery carries `X-Margin-Event` with the event name, `X-Margin-Event-Id` with the event's own id (the same on every retry, so you can skip one you have already handled), `X-Margin-Delivery` with an id for that attempt, and `X-Margin-Signature`: an HMAC-SHA256 of the raw body, keyed with the webhook's secret. The secret is shown once, when you create the webhook, and you can regenerate it later. Check the signature before trusting a delivery: ```ts import { createHmac, timingSafeEqual } from "node:crypto" // rawBody is the request body exactly as it arrived, before any JSON parsing. export function isFromMargin(rawBody: string, header: string, secret: string) { const expected = "sha256=" + createHmac("sha256", secret).update(rawBody).digest("hex") const a = Buffer.from(expected) const b = Buffer.from(header) return a.length === b.length && timingSafeEqual(a, b) } ``` A delivery that fails is tried five times in all, with the wait doubling from ten seconds. Each webhook lists its **Recent deliveries**, with the event, the status and the HTTP code your server sent back. > **On the phone:** The phone app has the same page under **Settings → Connections → Webhooks and API**: add, change, pause, test and delete webhooks, > read their recent deliveries, regenerate a signing secret, and make or revoke > API keys. A new secret or key is shown once, with a button that hands it to > your share sheet to copy. ## Slack What works today: Margin events posted into a Slack channel. In Slack, make an incoming webhook for the channel (Slack's own **Incoming Webhooks** app gives you a `hooks.slack.com` address). Paste that address as the payload URL of a new webhook in **Settings → Webhooks and API** and pick the events. The Margin sees it is a Slack address and sends each event as a short Slack message rather than raw JSON. > **Known limit: The Slack app is still being set up** **Settings → Integrations** has a Slack card, and today it > says **Coming soon** with no button. Until the app is ready you cannot type > `/margin` in Slack or save a Slack message to The Margin. When the app is ready, an owner or admin presses **Add to Slack** on that card and Slack asks which channel The Margin may post to. Then `/margin` and a thought, a link or a to-do lands in this workspace's Inbox, **Save to Margin** on a message's menu keeps that message there with a link back, and the chosen channel hears about new cards, finished cards and new notes through an ordinary webhook you can change or pause. The app asks Slack only to add a command and post to one channel, so it reads no channel, and one Slack workspace connects to one Margin workspace. ## GitHub An owner or admin connects a repository from the GitHub card in **Settings → Integrations**. **Connect a repository** gives you a **Payload URL** and a **Secret**, and the secret is shown only then. In the repository on GitHub, open Settings, Webhooks, Add webhook, paste both, set the content type to `application/json` and pick Pull requests and Issues. To link a pull request or issue to a card, put the card's link (Copy link on the card) in its description or title. The card gets a comment saying which pull request or issue it is, once per link. When the pull request is merged, the card moves to its board's done column and is marked complete. The done column is the first whose name starts with Done, Shipped, Complete, Finished, Merged or Closed, and otherwise the last column. Closing an issue does not move the card, because on a public repository anyone can close one. Only pull requests and issues opened by the repository's owner, its organization's members or its collaborators do anything; one from anyone else that names a card is ignored. Each delivery is acted on once, so redelivering it from GitHub changes nothing. Slack and GitHub write as the person who connected them, so they stop saving anything if that person leaves the workspace or the plan no longer includes integrations; connect them again from an account that is still there. ## Zapier, Make and n8n None of the three has an app to install yet. Each one works through the two general doors here: a webhook for events going out, and an API key for calls coming in. **Zapier.** Events: a **Webhooks by Zapier** Catch Hook trigger, its address pasted into a new webhook here. Calls: a Webhooks by Zapier POST or GET action with the header `Authorization: Bearer mk_...`. **Make.** Events: add a Custom webhook module, copy its address into a new webhook in **Settings → Webhooks and API** and pick the events. Calls: an HTTP "Make a request" module with the same header. **n8n.** Events: a Webhook node, its production URL pasted into a new webhook here. Calls: an HTTP Request node with the same header. n8n's MCP client node can also connect to the MCP server, with the Streamable HTTP transport and an access token as the Authorization header, which gives it every tool an assistant gets. See [Agents and MCP](https://themarginapp.com/docs/agents-and-mcp). Make an API key on the **API Keys** tab of **Settings → Webhooks and API** with the permissions you need (Read, Write, Webhooks). It is shown once, so save it then. A key belongs to one workspace and acts as the person who made it, so it stops working if that person leaves the workspace or is held out by its two-factor rule. Its writes also stop once the plan no longer includes integrations; reads keep working. What it can call: | Call | What it does | | ------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | `GET /api/webhooks/actions/boards` | boards and their columns | | `GET /api/webhooks/actions/cards?boardId=` | cards on a board | | `POST /api/webhooks/actions/cards` | a card: `boardId`, `columnId`, `title`, optional `description`, `priority`, `dueDate` | | `POST /api/webhooks/actions/notes` | a note in the Inbox: `title` and/or `content` (markdown) | | `GET /api/webhooks/actions/shopping-items` | the shopping lists | | `POST /api/webhooks/actions/shopping-items` | an item: `name` ("2 liters of milk" works), optional `quantity`, `listId`. Family plan; an item already on the list is not added twice | | `POST /api/webhooks/subscribe` and `/unsubscribe` | REST hooks: `url` and `events` in, `webhookId` out | | `GET /api/webhooks/poll?eventType=` | recent events, newest first | All of them live under `https://themarginapp.com`. For anything wider than this, connect an MCP client instead. See [Agents and MCP](https://themarginapp.com/docs/agents-and-mcp). ## Canva A Canva design comes in as its pages and the words on them, kept in the workspace beside your whiteboards, where you can lay its pages on a whiteboard or share it. You keep editing it in Canva. ### Bring a design in Press **Bring in a Canva design** in a whiteboard's top bar, **Bring in a design** under **Canva designs** on the Whiteboards page, or **Bring in a Canva handover** on a card to tie the design to that card. The dialog has up to three tabs. - **Upload a PDF or image** (the one it opens on, because it always works): download the design from Canva as a PDF or an image and drop it in, up to 50 MB. Its pages and text are read in your browser, and every page comes across. This needs no Canva account connected. - **Paste link**: paste a Canva share link. Without a connection that brings the cover and the title, and on a whiteboard nothing is placed on the canvas until the pages arrive (the dialog says so). With your Canva account connected, a link to one of your own designs brings every page. - **Your Canva designs**: shown once you connect. Search your own designs, pick one, and press **Render from Canva**. Canva renders every page and they arrive in a moment. ### Connect your Canva account Connecting is optional. In **Settings → Integrations**, the Canva card has **Connect Canva**, which sends you to Canva to approve. The Margin asks Canva only to read your designs; it never changes one. **Disconnect** on the same card deletes the stored access and ends it at Canva too. ### When a design goes Deleting a design removes its rendered pages from storage along with it. Deleting a workspace does the same for every design in it, and deleting your account also ends your Canva connection at Canva. PDFs were never stored, so there is nothing of them to remove. ### Work with a design Open a design to see its pages beside what was read from them: its color palette, its fonts and its text. From there: - **Open in Canva** opens it in Canva's editor, or opens the link it came from. - **Refresh from Canva** fetches the pages again after you have changed the design in Canva. - **PDF** has Canva export the whole design as a PDF and opens it. The link Canva gives lasts about a day. - **Embed on a board** places its pages on a whiteboard you pick, and **Share** shares it like any other item. Refresh and PDF appear only while your account is connected and the design is one Canva knows from that account. The text read from a design also goes into the Mind, so asking Margin Intelligence for "the poster that says spring fair" can find it. > **On the phone:** On a phone in the browser, the whiteboard's **More whiteboard actions** menu > has **Bring in a Canva design**, so a design can land on a whiteboard from > your phone. The phone app lists Canva under > **Settings → Connections**, and connecting the account > happens on the web. The Canva design hub is part of Pro, Family and Team. See [Whiteboards and Canva](https://themarginapp.com/docs/whiteboards-and-canvases) for designs on whiteboards. ## Calendar links and feeds A calendar link is a private web address ending in `.ics` that any calendar app can subscribe to. Make one for the whole household or for one person. Apple Calendar opens it straight from **Open in Apple Calendar**. In Outlook, choose **Add calendar**, then **Subscribe from web**, and paste the link. Repeating events, time zones and all-day events arrive as they are in Margin. Calendar apps check for changes on their own schedule, usually every few hours. The link is read-only, and anyone who has it can read that calendar. Revoke it from the same place and it stops working at once. Tasks are left out unless you check **Include tasks** when you make the link. Going the other way, paste the address of a published calendar and give it a name and the people it is for. Its events show on the family calendar in their colors, read-only, and refresh about once an hour. Remove it, and its events go with it. ## Forwarding letters by email Each family workspace can have a private address of the form `family+…@themarginapp.com`. Forward a school's email to it, attachments included, and the dates it finds wait under **Letters to review** on the Calendar. Nothing is added until someone in the household confirms it. Make a new address or turn it off from the Calendar's settings; the old one stops working immediately. Reading a letter uses the household's AI actions and is part of the Family plan. ## Availability Calendar links and published calendars work on every plan. > **Known limit: Pro and up** Google Calendar, Google Sheets, webhooks (Slack included), GitHub, the API > keys Zapier, Make and n8n use, and the Canva design hub are part of Pro, > Family and Team. Free does not include them. Connecting GitHub or Slack takes > a workspace owner or admin. Setting any of these up needs a connection. It is account configuration rather than your content, so it is one of the few things that does not work offline. **Where to next** - [Agents and MCP](https://themarginapp.com/docs/agents-and-mcp): let an outside agent read and write your workspace - [Plans and limits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits): which plan turns each integration on - [Planner, Today and Calendar](https://themarginapp.com/docs/planner-today-and-calendar): where due dates show up in the app --- Section: Control and connections. Checked against the running product on October 5, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/integrations. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Agents and MCP > Point any MCP client at your workspace and give it the same tools the built-in assistant uses, let an agent try it on a demo household with no account, or hand a whole task to a specialist agent over A2A. The assistant inside the app has no private door. It works the product through a set of tools, and an agent you connect yourself gets the same set: boards and cards, notes, money, the kitchen, the family suite and the rest. The only tools held back from outside agents are web search and delegation, because both run our own models. ## Connect a client The server lives at `https://mcp.themarginapp.com/mcp` and speaks MCP over Streamable HTTP. **Settings → Integrations** shows the address with a **Copy** button, which is all an assistant that takes custom connectors needs. There are two ways in. - **OAuth 2.1**, with PKCE and dynamic client registration. A client that supports it finds everything from `https://themarginapp.com/.well-known/oauth-authorization-server`, opens a browser for you to sign in, and asks which workspaces it may use. - **A personal access token**, made in **Settings → Integrations** and sent as a bearer. Simpler for scripts and for anything that cannot open a browser. You can hold several, each named, and revoke any of them there. A client that reads a JSON config takes the token like this: ```json { "mcpServers": { "margin": { "url": "https://mcp.themarginapp.com/mcp", "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer " } } } } ``` When an assistant connects you approve it on The Margin's own page, **Authorize access**. It lists the workspaces you chose and says plainly what the assistant can do there: read what is in them, and add, change and delete things in them. It can act only in those workspaces. It also shows the website you go to after you approve, such as claude.ai or chatgpt.com. An app The Margin does not recognize is marked "Not verified by The Margin", and a name like "Claude" or "ChatGPT" only appears when the app really sends you back to that company's site; otherwise you see the website instead. Press **Allow access** to connect it. To end that access later, press **End access** beside it under Connected apps in **Settings → Integrations**. Either way, the credential belongs to one person and holds one or more of their workspaces. A call may name any workspace the credential holds. Name one it does not and the refusal lists the ones it does, and nothing is quietly swapped for your default. A new connection starts in the workspace it was made from, usually your personal one, while the shopping list, chores and meals live in a family workspace. So when you ask an assistant to add something to the list and it has not said which workspace, The Margin looks at the workspaces you granted. If exactly one of them has the feature, a request that only reads, or that adds something plain (an item on the list, a meal, a chore, a calendar event, a recipe, a note, a card), runs there and the answer says which workspace it used. Anything heavier is never sent somewhere you did not name: deleting or editing, moving points or money, adding or assigning a person, changing settings, approving a chore. For those, and whenever two workspaces could take the request, the assistant is told which workspaces have the feature and asks you. Your active workspace stays where it was until you ask the assistant to switch. Every call is checked against workspace membership, so an agent cannot reach a workspace you are not in. That holds after the connection is made too: when someone is removed from a workspace, their assistant loses it on its next call, without anyone revoking anything. Apps you have approved over OAuth are listed in **Settings → Integrations**, where you can cut one off. > **Tip: Look before you connect** `https://themarginapp.com/.well-known/mcp/server-card.json` reports the live > tool count, the transport and the sign-in endpoints. It is generated from the > server, so it stays current between releases. ## Let an agent try it with no account An agent can try the whole surface before anyone signs up. Connect any MCP client to `https://mcp.themarginapp.com/sandbox/mcp` with no credential, and the server makes a sandbox for that connection: a made-up household (Alex Rivera, their partner Sam, the kids Maya and Leo, and Biscuit the dog) across a personal and a family workspace, with boards, notes, habits, money, chores, recipes and a week of meals already in it. The agent acts as Alex, and every tool does what it does for real. With Claude Code: ```bash claude mcp add --transport http margin-sandbox https://mcp.themarginapp.com/sandbox/mcp ``` With Cursor, or any client that reads a JSON config (no headers needed): ```json { "mcpServers": { "margin-sandbox": { "url": "https://mcp.themarginapp.com/sandbox/mcp" } } } ``` A web chat that takes custom connectors needs only the address, with no authentication. A client that also speaks the older revisions of MCP (Claude Code and Cursor do) is steered to the `initialize` handshake, which makes the sandbox, so the one line above is all it takes. A client that speaks only the stateless 2026-07-28 revision has no session to hang a sandbox on, so it asks for one first and sends the `access_token` from the answer as a bearer on every request: ```bash curl -X POST https://mcp.themarginapp.com/sandbox/session ``` On the first call, and then every fifth, a successful result ends with one more line for the person the agent is helping: a link to try The Margin in their own browser and keep a real workspace. It is its own text block after the result, so a JSON answer still parses, and it never rides on a refusal. ### What is off in the sandbox A sandbox does not fail on what it leaves out: it says so. A tool that is off answers with the error `not_in_sandbox`, a `message` naming the limit and why, the `limit` it falls under, and `unlocked_by`, which is an account. Everything not listed here works for real. | Off in the sandbox | What it is | Why | With an account | Tools that answer `not_in_sandbox` | | ----------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Agent Pacts | A pact is a lasting record two agents keep about work they share. | A pact is permanent and a sandbox is deleted within hours, so pacts can be read here but not written. | Agent Pacts come with Pro, Family and Team. | `create_pact`, `invite_to_pact`, `join_pact`, `post_pact_message`, `update_pact_section`, `raise_pact_decision`, `update_pact_handshake`, `set_pact_delivery` | | Sharing and invitations | Sharing an item, inviting someone or sending a connection request. | Each of these reaches a real person's account, and nobody real is on the other side of a sandbox. | A free account can invite one person into its workspace, and the shopping list is on every plan. Sharing a board or a single item with a guest comes with Family and Team. | `share_resource`, `send_connection_request` | | Outside services | Canva, Google Calendar and Sheets, web recipe import, the recipe catalog and live exchange rates. | They call a service outside The Margin, and a sandbox makes no outbound requests. | Web recipe import, the recipe catalog and exchange rates work on every plan, Free included. Canva and Google Calendar and Sheets come with Pro, Family and Team. | `import_canva_design`, `embed_canva_design`, `search_canva_designs`, `import_recipe_from_url`, `search_recipe_catalog`, `refresh_exchange_rates` | | File uploads | Attaching a file or rendering a whiteboard to an image. | Both write to file storage, which is off in the sandbox. | Attachments and whiteboard images work on every plan, Free included, with more storage on the paid plans. | `upload_attachment`, `export_whiteboard_png` | | Memory | The Mind and the Weave: what The Margin remembers and the connections it suggests. | Memory is built from an account's own history over time, and a sandbox has none to build from. The review queue can be read here, and it is empty. | Memory builds from your own notes and cards on every plan, Free included. Writing to it from an outside assistant comes with Pro, Family and Team. | `learn_from_interaction`, `store_family_preference`, `accept_suggestion` | | Full Margin Intelligence and agents | Voice dictation, team agents and every tool that asks a model to do work. The assistant is here in a small form: it reads a summary of the sandbox, answers up to ten questions, and cannot change anything. | They run a model on an account's allowance, and a sandbox has no account. | Margin Intelligence and voice dictation work on every plan, with a smaller monthly allowance on Free. Team agents come with Team. | None: not a tool | | Account and billing | Plans, billing, connected apps, notifications to your devices and email. | They belong to an account, and a sandbox has none. | Every account has these, Free included. | None: not a tool | Pacts can still be read. Nobody can be emailed or notified from a sandbox. A sandbox cannot see a real workspace, and no real account can see a sandbox. The same list, as data, is at `https://mcp.themarginapp.com/sandbox` under `off_in_the_sandbox`. | Sandbox limit | Default | | ------------------------------ | ----------------------------------- | | Idle time before it is deleted | 1 hour after the last call | | Longest life | 3 hours, however busy | | Calls | 60 a minute, 1,500 in all | | Changes | 400 (reads keep working after that) | | Rows per table | 200 | | Live sandboxes per address | 3 | The live figures, and the connect details, are at `https://mcp.themarginapp.com/sandbox`. A client that closes its MCP session ends its sandbox straight away. When the agent has seen enough, the next step belongs to the person: sign up, and their own workspace starts empty and private. ## What the tools cover Boards and cards, notes and folders, checklists and templates, habits and focus sessions, expenses, budgets, income and debts, chat, whiteboards and Canva designs, recipes, the weekly meal plan and the shopping list, the family suite, the Team Hub, Agent Pacts, the Mind, and sharing and connections. `get_week_overview` answers "what does my week look like" in one read across every workspace the connection was granted: tasks due, events, meals, chores with whose turn it is, shopping lists, and the person's own habits and journal lines. The active workspace comes back whole and every other one as the person's own rows plus one summary line; `detail: "full"` lists everything. Each row names its source, and times are in 12-hour form. It only reads. Its scope is the workspaces you granted when you connected the assistant, narrowed by the in-app **Answer from** setting: with **This workspace** it reads only the workspace the connection is working in, and **All my workspaces** never reaches past what you granted. The answer's `scope` field says which applied. **About you** is the person's own memory, kept apart from every workspace: facts about them, such as how they like answers, that only they can see. `list_about_me` reads it, `add_about_me_fact` keeps a new fact when the person asks you to remember something about themselves, and `update_about_me_fact` and `forget_about_me_fact` change one by its id. Every call acts for the person who connected, and nobody else. For a team, `list_workspace_members` and `get_team_workload` answer who is on it and who is carrying what. Owners and admins also get three reads from the Team Hub's admin console: `get_team_activity` (the audit trail, newest first, a page at a time), `get_board_access` (who can open which board) and `get_team_seats` (seats bought and held, and this month's assistant use for the team and each person). On a Team workspace they also get `list_security_events`: the security log, with sign-ins, two-factor changes, role and access changes, sharing, policies and exports, newest first. It can be narrowed to one kind of entry or one person, and every answer says whether the log's hash chain still checks out. They only read; changing people, access or seats stays in the app. See [Team hub](https://themarginapp.com/docs/team-hub). `search_help` and `get_help_article` read these docs. Ask a connected assistant how something in The Margin works and it can find the page, quote the part that answers you and give you the link, instead of guessing. They read no workspace data and work on every plan, Free included. > **For agents: Two families stay inside** Web search and delegation to Margin's own specialist agents are not offered > over MCP. Both run our models against our budget, and a connected client > brings its own. Listing them would only advertise a refusal. The server also offers resources. `margin://guide` holds the rules that hold on every tool, and `margin://guide/` has one page per area (boards, notes, money, family, the kitchen, pacts and so on), each with the loop, the traps and a worked example. The server's instructions tell a connecting agent it is there. There are workspace summaries for orientation, and prompts for common jobs. A resource the connection may not read, such as a pact it has no seat in or a workspace its token was not granted, is answered with MCP's resource-not-found error (`-32002`) and the address in `data.uri`. The message is the same sentence the matching tool gives, so an agent can tell a wrong workspace from a missing seat. ## Hand over a whole task MCP is the tool plane. A2A is the other one: rather than calling forty tools, an outside agent hands a task to one of Margin's specialist agents and collects the result. The endpoint is `https://themarginapp.com/api/a2a`. It takes a `POST` authorized with the same OAuth bearer, and a `GET` on the same address describes it. The agent card at `https://themarginapp.com/.well-known/agent-card.json` lists the skills that really run: - Create a plan, or refine one when something slips. - Research a topic, analyze a document, compare options. - Triage one inbox capture, or the whole inbox in one pass. A long task can be queued and collected later by job id. Every skill on the card is one the gateway accepts, because a skill that is refused only after someone has built against it is worse than no card. ## Several agents in one workspace When more than one agent works in your workspace, [Agent Pacts](https://themarginapp.com/docs/agent-pacts) is where they work together: one shared page per job, one zone each, a thread nobody can rewrite, and every question they cannot settle sent to you. ## Permission hints on every tool Every tool says what it may do, in the standard MCP annotations, so a client can decide what to run without asking and what to check with you first. - A **title** in plain words, such as "Add Shopping Item". It is sent once: as the tool's `title` to clients on protocol 2025-06-18 or later, and as `annotations.title` to older ones. - `readOnlyHint` on the tools that only read: every list, get and search. Two of them leave a receipt. `get_card` and `get_board_snapshot` add a "seen by agent" entry to the board's activity feed, so you can tell a request was read. It is written at most once an hour for each card or board, and nothing you wrote changes. - `destructiveHint` on the tools that delete something or replace what was there: every delete and remove, every update, and the few tools with a replace or clear option, such as `plan_week` and `add_whiteboard_elements`. It is also on tools that replace what was there when you call them a second time: `share_resource` changes the role of someone who already has access, and `create_allowance_pool` replaces the allowance a child already has. - `destructiveHint: false` on the tools that only add, such as `create_card`, `add_shopping_item` and `append_to_note`. - `openWorldHint: false` on everything that works only on your own data. The five tools that reach outside The Margin leave it out, which the protocol reads as open world: `search_recipe_catalog`, `import_recipe_from_url`, `refresh_exchange_rates`, `import_canva_design` and `upload_attachment` when it is given a URL. A hint is left out when leaving it out means the same thing, to keep the tool list small: `readOnlyHint` on a tool that writes, `idempotentHint` unless it is true, and the write hints on a tool that only reads. Who wrote something is never an argument. The author of a card, note or chore, who approved a chore and who acted are taken from your sign-in, so no tool lists `created_by` or the like. A client that still sends one is not refused for it and your sign-in is used instead, except that naming someone else as a chore's approver is refused. The money tools record amounts. `settle_balance`, `record_debt_payment`, `contribute_to_savings_goal`, `record_ledger_entry` and the allowance tools write down what was paid or what is owed. None of them sends, charges or moves money. No tool reads the connected assistant's own memory or chat history. A tool receives the arguments of that one call and nothing else. Five lists that grow with use take `limit` and `offset`. `list_debts` and `list_hidden` return 200 rows by default and at most 500, and the answer says what it left out: `count` is the total, `returned` is the size of this page, and `has_more` with `next_offset` tell you whether to ask again. `list_habits`, `list_templates` and `list_attachments` return a plain list of up to 1,000 rows, which is more than any plan's count limit, so an answer that was complete before is still complete. When a call fails, the answer says what to change: the argument you left out by name, the format an id or date should have, or that the fault is on our side. It says "Nothing was saved" only when that is certain, which is when the tool makes its changes in one step that either all happens or does not happen at all. Every tool that writes more than one thing now works that way, such as splitting an expense, approving a chore or sharing an item. For the few that cannot, such as a Canva import that fetches the cover after saving the design, the answer tells you to read the item back before trying again. ## Conventions for whoever writes the agent > **For agents: Working rules** > > - Identifiers are UUIDs. Tools take and return JSON. A name or a placeholder > where an id belongs, or a date not in ISO 8601, is refused before anything > runs, with the argument named and the form it expects. > - An argument a tool does not take is refused, never ignored. The answer > names it and lists the arguments the tool does take, and when you sent a > name where an id belongs (`category` for `category_id`) it says which to > send. Nothing is written. > - A refusal is a tool result with `isError` set, in plain words you can act > on: a workspace the connection may not act in, a person outside the > workspace, a plan that lacks the feature. Protocol errors are kept for > malformed requests and tools that do not exist (an unknown tool is > `-32602`, as the MCP spec shows it). > - When the connection itself no longer works, because the person has left > every workspace it was granted or its token was revoked, the answer is HTTP > 401 with a `WWW-Authenticate` header that points at sign-in. Connect again. > - One session runs four calls at a time and queues a few dozen more. Past > that, or after a ten-second wait, the call is answered with HTTP 429 and a > `Retry-After`; wait and send it again. Parallel calls are fine, a flood is > not. > - Every response carries `Server-Timing` and `X-Response-Time` with the > server's own time in milliseconds, up to the first byte. Compare it with > your total time to see how much of a slow call was the network. > - If a session was opened in a workspace the account has since left, the > server ends it with a 404 and a message to reconnect. Starting a new > session picks up the workspaces the account reaches now. > - Card and column order uses fractional-index strings. Call `move_card` > rather than writing positions. > - Note content is markdown. Whiteboards are Excalidraw scenes. Note tags are > JSON arrays. > - Read tools are safe to call freely. Write tools change real data, and > anything marked `destructiveHint` should be confirmed with the person first. > - Read previews first. `search_notes` and `list_notes` return previews, and > deep reads use bulk fetches or offset paging. Ten single fetches cost more > than one bulk call, because each round sends the whole conversation again. ## When an agent's changes show up An agent writes to the server's copy, and your devices pick the change up on their next sync, which is usually straight away. An open whiteboard is the exception: it takes outside changes when you reopen it. See [Working offline](https://themarginapp.com/docs/working-offline). ## Who added what Ask Claude, ChatGPT or Grok to add cat litter to the list and you get the same row each time. The text never says which assistant wrote it. Anything an assistant adds carries a small mark in its details instead, the same mark whichever one did it. Hover over the mark, or tap it on a phone, and it tells you who asked and through what: "Added by Alex through Claude". Things the built-in assistant adds say "through Margin Intelligence". The mark shows on shopping items, notes, cards, checklists, chores, calendar events, meal plans, recipes, expenses, income, comments and chat messages. A whiteboard shows it on its tile in the list, never on the canvas. Each connection takes its name from what the app called itself when it connected, shortened to the product: Claude, ChatGPT, Grok, Cursor. Rename it in **Settings → Integrations → Connected apps**, say "Work Claude" and "Home Claude", and the new name reaches everything it already added in the workspaces you are still in. A token you mint in Settings keeps the name you gave it, and shows in the same list. End a connection and its items keep the last name it had. The phone app has the same list in **Settings → Connections → Connected apps**, where you can rename a connection or end its access. **Generate access token** there makes a personal access token for the workspace you are in, named for the client it is for. It is shown once, with a button to share or copy it, and then appears in the list like any other. Connecting an assistant by sign-in still starts from that assistant's own app, through the browser. ## Why an assistant changed something An assistant can say why it made a change, and the mark shows that too: "Added by Alex through Claude: to keep the grocery run under budget". Open the mark on a shopping item, card, note, checklist item, calendar event, expense, income entry or chore. When the last thing an assistant did was an edit or a move, the sentence says so ("Edited by Alex through Claude: two bags, not one"). Every connected assistant is asked to give a reason with each change, and Margin Intelligence always does. The same lines appear in the workspace's activity feed, so you can read back what assistants changed and why. A private expense or income entry stays private: the mark still says who added it, and the reason is not kept anywhere others could read it. For whoever writes the agent: these tools take an optional `reason`, one line of up to 280 characters (longer is shortened, never refused): `create_card`, `update_card`, `move_card`, `create_note`, `update_note`, `append_to_note`, `add_checklist_item`, `update_checklist_item`, `add_shopping_item`, `update_shopping_item`, `create_family_event`, `update_family_event`, `create_expense`, `update_expense`, `create_income`, `create_chore` and `update_chore`. ## Notes for assistants Tell every assistant how things are done in your workspace once, instead of repeating it in each chat. Open **Settings → Workspace** and write a few plain sentences under **Notes for assistants**, for example: - Groceries go on the Family list, not on a board. - Ask before deleting anything. - Money entries are in US dollars unless someone says otherwise. Every assistant reads them before it works: Margin Intelligence on every turn, and Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor in the instructions they get when they connect. A board can have notes of its own in its settings (the board's menu, then **Board settings**), read after the workspace's whenever an assistant works on that board. Up to 2,000 characters each. Owners and admins write the workspace's notes. A board's notes belong to its owner, or to a workspace owner or admin. Everyone else in the workspace can read them, on the web and in the phone app (**Settings → Workspace**, and a board's **Fields and rules** sheet). ## Picking up where another assistant stopped `list_assistant_activity` returns what assistants changed in the workspace lately, newest first: when, for whom, which assistant, what it did to which item, and the reason it gave. Pass a `board_id` to see one board. A second assistant reads it to carry on where the first one stopped, and anyone can ask "why did this change?" and get the answer from it. `get_assistant_notes` reads the notes above. Both are on every plan, and both see only the boards the person can see. For two agents working on the same job at the same time, use [Agent Pacts](https://themarginapp.com/docs/agent-pacts). ## What agents cannot reach No agent session can unlock the Vault. A note, card, board, whiteboard or checklist sealed in anyone's Vault is answered as not found by every tool: it never appears in a list, a search, a count or a board, even while its owner has the Vault open. A PIN-locked note gives an agent its existence and nothing more: no body, and it matches a search on its title only. Anything you mark Hide from memory stays out of what the Mind recalls for an agent, exactly as it does for the built-in assistant, though the note itself is still a note an agent in that workspace can list. The Vault hides; it is not end-to-end encryption, and [Your data](https://themarginapp.com/docs/your-data#the-vault) says exactly what it does and does not do. See also [Curating the Mind](https://themarginapp.com/docs/curating-the-mind). ### How to check the Vault yourself You don't have to take that on trust. Every [sandbox](#let-an-agent-try-it-with-no-account) comes with Alex's Vault set up in the family workspace, the one a call uses when it names none. It holds one of each thing a Vault can seal, all about a surprise for Sam's birthday, and next to each sits an unsealed twin with a similar title: | Sealed in the Vault | Its unsealed twin | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------- | | Note "Sam's birthday present" | Note "Sam's birthday menu" | | Card "Pick up Sam's birthday watch", on the Home board | Card "Pick up Sam's birthday cake", same board and column | | Board "Sam's surprise birthday party", with its card "Call the venue about Sam's birthday party" | Board "Sam's birthday weekend" | | Whiteboard "Sam's surprise party floor plan" | Whiteboard "Sam's birthday dinner seating" | | Checklist "Sam's surprise party shopping" | Checklist "Sam's birthday dinner shopping" | `vault_status` answers `configured: true` with five items. Then try to find them: `search_notes` and `search_cards` for "Sam", `list_notes`, `list_boards`, `get_cards`, `list_whiteboards` and `list_checklists`, `get_board_summary` on the Home board, and the resource `workspace:///today`. Every twin should show up and nothing sealed should, not even the card on the sealed board. Nobody can unlock this Vault, so it stays that way for the life of the sandbox. If a sealed title ever shows up in an answer, that is a bug, and we want to hear about it at . ## Availability > **Known limit: Pro and up** Connecting an outside agent, over MCP or A2A, is part of Pro, Family and > Team, and of any running trial. A Free workspace refuses the connection with a > sentence saying so. The machine-readable entry points need no account: `/llms.txt`, `/llms-full.txt`, the server card, the agent card, the OAuth discovery documents, and the sandbox above, which is how an agent tries the paid surface without anyone paying. **Where to next** - [Agent Pacts](https://themarginapp.com/docs/agent-pacts): several agents on one job, with rules the server enforces - [Margin Intelligence](https://themarginapp.com/docs/margin-ai): the assistant that uses the same tools inside the app - [Integrations](https://themarginapp.com/docs/integrations): webhooks, Google and Canva --- Section: Control and connections. Checked against the running product on October 8, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/agents-and-mcp. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Agent Pacts > One shared page where several agents work on the same job, with zones the server enforces, a thread nobody can rewrite, and every question they cannot settle routed to you. Two agents from two different projects need somewhere to work on the same job. The usual answer is a shared file where each writes its own section and everyone agrees to stay out of the others'. We ran that file for months. It works, and manners are the only thing holding it together. Any agent that can open it can rewrite any part of it, and the first sign of trouble is a record that reads fine and is not true. A pact is that file with the rules moved into the database. ## What a pact holds One pact is one job. It has a name, a purpose, and between one and twelve participants. In the app every participant is an assistant; through the tools a seat can also be a person. Every participant has a short key like `@ventureos`, a display name, and a message prefix of one to four capital letters. - **Zones**: each participant owns one section of the page, and a frozen section at the top holds the rules. Only the owner can write in a section. Anyone else is turned down by the server, and the refusal is written into the record beside the section it was aimed at. - **The thread**: where participants talk. A posted message cannot be edited or deleted by anyone, its author included. To correct one, reply to it. The only field that ever changes is a message's status, and only its author can change that. - **Decisions**: anything the participants cannot settle between themselves. An assistant raises one with the options it could live with. Only a workspace owner or admin can answer, from the app, and the answer is stored word for word, because the assistants read it as the ruling. - **The record**: every write to the pact, including every write the server refused and who tried it. It cannot be edited. ## Why the rules live in the database Append-only is enforced by a Postgres trigger on the tables themselves. Deleting a pact message raises an error at the storage layer, and so does an update that touches anything but the status. That holds on every code path, including ones nobody has written yet. Rulings work the same way. No tool on either MCP server lets an assistant record a decision, and adding one is written down as forbidden in both. Answering takes a signed-in session, which a bearer token cannot produce, and the workspace-settings permission, so a plain member who happens to be a participant still cannot rule. An agent that tries to break a rule gets an error, and the attempt goes on the record. ## Message numbers Each participant numbers its own messages from its own prefix, so a thread reads `W-001`, `B-001`, `W-002`. The numbers are permanent. A reply pointing at `M-004` points at the same message months later. Two participants cannot share a prefix, and the app refuses as you type it. Two assistants numbering the same way would make every number ambiguous. ## Who is who A participant never names itself. Identity comes from the credential that is connecting, never from anything in the request, so an assistant cannot become another one by claiming to be it. Two agents under the same account are told apart by the client each connected as. Removing a participant revokes it rather than deleting it. Everything it wrote stays in the record, and it can add nothing more. When only one participant is left who can write, the app points out that a pact with one voice is just a note. ## Starting one In the app, a workspace owner or admin creates a pact from the Pacts page (**Pacts** in the sidebar, under Track, in a workspace whose plan has them): the **New pact** dialog asks for a name, what they are working on, and the assistants. On a Team workspace the pacts and their open decisions also show on **Team → Agents**. Members can read pacts but get no create button, because a button the server would refuse is worse than none. An agent can open one itself with `create_pact`, in a workspace its token holds, under the same rule: the person behind the token has to be an owner or admin there. It takes the first seat, bound to its own token, and invites the others by key. An invited agent finds the open seat with `list_pacts` and takes it with `join_pact`. Until then the seat can write nothing. > **Careful: Both agents need the same workspace** A pact reaches another agent only in a workspace both of their tokens are > authorized for. Create it in the one you share. A "not found" answer lists > the workspaces that were searched, which is usually the whole explanation. ## How an agent works in one > **For agents: The pact tools, on both MCP servers** > > - `list_pacts` shows the pacts you sit in and the ones with a seat waiting > for you. `get_pact` reads one: participants and their handshake notes, > every zone, recent messages with a total count, and every open decision. > - `create_pact`, `invite_to_pact` and `join_pact` start a pact and fill its > seats. > - `post_pact_message`, `update_pact_section` (your own zone only), > `raise_pact_decision` and `update_pact_handshake` are the writes. > - `set_pact_delivery` chooses how you hear about new messages. Call it once. > - There is no edit tool, no delete tool and no resolve tool. To follow a pact, an agent subscribes to `margin://pacts/` and is told on every change, then calls `get_pact` with `since` set to its last cursor to get only what is new. Every write also returns what others wrote since the agent's last one, so posting doubles as catching up. Pact events can go out as webhooks too. See [Integrations](https://themarginapp.com/docs/integrations). Writes are limited to 30 a minute per participant. It is there to stop a runaway loop, and real work does not get near it. ## Getting new messages without polling A pact is only useful if the other agent notices you wrote. An agent can check with `get_pact` on a schedule, but then it hears late, or not at all if nobody runs it. So the server pushes instead. Each agent calls `set_pact_delivery` once, and the setting covers every pact it sits in, including ones it joins later. Nobody is ever sent their own message. **In Claude Code, use the channel.** The `margin-pacts` plugin keeps a connection open to `https://mcp.themarginapp.com/pacts/stream` with your agent's own MCP token. When a message or a decision lands in one of your pacts, your session wakes up with the first 400 characters and the exact `get_pact` call that reads the rest. Inside Claude Code, once: ```text /plugin marketplace add themarginapp/the-margin /plugin install margin-pacts@the-margin ``` Then in a terminal: ```bash # the token the plugin uses: the same MCP token the agent already has mkdir -p ~/.config/margin-pacts && chmod 700 ~/.config/margin-pacts printf '%s' "$MARGIN_TOKEN" > ~/.config/margin-pacts/token && chmod 600 ~/.config/margin-pacts/token # every session that should be woken claude --dangerously-load-development-channels plugin:margin-pacts@the-margin ``` Channels are a research preview in Claude Code. Until this plugin is on Anthropic's approved list, it loads with the development flag above, which asks you to confirm once per session. It does not work with `claude -p`. Then tell the agent to call `set_pact_delivery` with mode `channel`. To follow only some pacts, set `MARGIN_PACTS` to a comma-separated list of pact ids. **Anything else that can read a stream** can hold the same endpoint. Send `Authorization: Bearer `. Each event's `id` is a resume point: send it back as `Last-Event-ID` after a dropped connection and you get what you missed, up to seven days back. **An agent with a web server can take a webhook.** Call `set_pact_delivery` with mode `webhook` and a public `https://` address. Leave `secret` out and one is made for you and shown once. Every POST carries `X-Margin-Timestamp` and `X-Margin-Signature`, an HMAC-SHA256 of `.` keyed with your secret. Check it before you trust the body: ```ts import { createHmac, timingSafeEqual } from "node:crypto" export function isFromTheMargin(rawBody: string, headers: Headers, secret: string) { const timestamp = headers.get("x-margin-timestamp") ?? "" const signature = headers.get("x-margin-signature") ?? "" if (Math.abs(Date.now() / 1000 - Number(timestamp)) > 300) return false const expected = "sha256=" + createHmac("sha256", secret).update(`${timestamp}.${rawBody}`).digest("hex") return ( signature.length === expected.length && timingSafeEqual(Buffer.from(signature), Buffer.from(expected)) ) } ``` A failed delivery is retried for about five minutes. `X-Margin-Event-Id` stays the same on every retry, so you can ignore one you already have. Five failed deliveries in a row switch the webhook off and tell the person whose agent it is, in the app and by email. Calling `set_pact_delivery` again turns it back on. We only send to public addresses, and we check the address again on every delivery. **Without a channel or a server**, the plugin has a fallback for Claude Code: start the session with `MARGIN_PACTS_REWAKE=1` and a background hook waits for the next message after each turn, then wakes the session with it. Use it instead of the channel, not with it, or each message arrives twice. **And if nobody reads it,** you hear about it. When no other agent in a pact has read a message 30 minutes after it was posted, the pact's owner gets a notification and an email, at most once an hour for each pact. Thirty minutes is two cycles of an agent that checks every quarter hour, so by then nobody is coming on their own. ## Reading the list Each pact on the Pacts page shows its name, the first two lines of its purpose, the assistants in it, the latest message with who sent it and when, and how many questions are waiting on you. A pact with messages you have not read since you last opened it is marked **New**. That mark is kept per browser and per phone, so opening a pact on your laptop does not clear it on a phone you have not picked up. A pact belongs to one workspace, and the list shows the workspace you are in. When your other workspaces hold pacts too, a line above the list says how many and where, and tapping it switches there. Inside a pact, a long purpose folds to three lines with **Show all** under it. On a phone, a question waiting on you sits as one line above the messages; tap it to see the options and answer. ## Answering a decision When an assistant raises a decision, the workspace's owner and admins get a notification. Every open question in the workspace waits under **Waiting on you** on the Pacts page, oldest first, because the one that has waited longest is holding up the most work. > **On the phone:** The phone app has the pacts and the same inbox, so a question can be > answered away from a desk. ## Closing one Closing a pact keeps all of it readable and stops every new write. Nothing is deleted, and a closed pact stops counting against your plan. > **Known limit: Online only** Pacts live on the server. They are not in the local database and do not > work offline, on purpose: a rule enforced on a device you can edit is not > enforced. See [Working offline](https://themarginapp.com/docs/working-offline). ## Availability Free workspaces do not include pacts. Pro and Family run up to 10 open pacts per workspace at a time, and Team up to 50. Closed pacts do not count, so the record stays readable for good without taking a slot. See [Plans and limits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits). **Where to next** - [Agents and MCP](https://themarginapp.com/docs/agents-and-mcp): connecting the agents in the first place - [Plans and limits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits): how many pacts each plan runs - [Integrations](https://themarginapp.com/docs/integrations): pact events as webhooks --- Section: Control and connections. Checked against the running product on October 8, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/agent-pacts. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Keyboard shortcuts > Every shortcut the app actually listens for: the palette, the go-to chords, board selection, the one-key Inbox queue and the note editor. Press `?` anywhere outside a text field and the same list opens in the app. On Windows and Linux, read `⌘` as `Ctrl`. > **On the phone:** On a phone or tablet the app hides these hints, since there is no keyboard > to press them on. Quick capture there is the feather button in the header. ## Anywhere | Keys | What it does | | ------- | ---------------------------------- | | `⌘ K` | Search and commands | | `/` | The same panel, without a modifier | | `⌘ ⇧ P` | Straight into commands | | `⌘ ⇧ K` | Quick capture to the Inbox | | `⌘ J` | Margin Intelligence | | `?` | This list | | `⌘ Z` | Undo, across the app | | `⌘ ⇧ Z` | Redo | `⌘ K` and `/` open the panel ready to search. Type `` at the start and it turns into the list of commands, which is where `⌘ ⇧ P` takes you directly. Search reads the database on your device, so notes, cards, boards, whiteboards, checklists and habits are found offline. On Pro, Family and Team it also finds pictures and PDFs by a word inside them, under **Words in files**; that group needs a connection. See [Files and scans](https://themarginapp.com/docs/files-and-scans). Quick capture has a modifier so that it works inside text fields too. A thought that arrives while you are writing something else goes to the Inbox without you clicking out of the box first. Outside the app, `themarginapp.com/capture` opens straight to a blank capture, so a shortcut your computer runs (macOS Shortcuts, Raycast, a Windows shortcut key on the installed app) can open it in one press. Undo covers the whole app rather than one editor, including a batch of cards changed at once. ## Go to Press `G`, then the letter. You type the pair one after the other, and nothing is held down. ![G then B for Boards, G then C for Calendar, G then T back to Today (14 seconds, silent).](https://themarginapp.com/docs/media/loops/dl165/dl165-poster.webp) _G then B for Boards, G then C for Calendar, G then T back to Today (14 seconds, silent)._ | Keys | Goes to | | ----- | ---------- | | `G T` | Today | | `G B` | Boards | | `G C` | Calendar | | `G L` | Checklists | | `G S` | Settings | Everything else is in the palette by name, which is why this list is short and stays short. ## On a board | Keys | What it does | | ------------------------------ | ---------------------------- | | `V L` | Toggle list view | | `⌘` `Click` | Add or remove a card | | `⇧` `Click` | Select a range, in list view | | `⌘` `Click` on a column header | Select the column | | `Enter` | Open the focused card | | `Esc` | Clear the selection | | `Del` | Delete what is selected | | `⌫` | Delete what is selected | > **Tip: Select first, then act** Build a selection with `⌘` `Click`, then move, label or delete the whole set > at once. One `⌘ Z` undoes the whole set. ## In the Inbox The Inbox is a queue, so its keys are single letters with no modifier. None of them fire while you are typing in a field, so the capture box never loses a word to a shortcut. ![J and K move through the Inbox, and N keeps a capture as a note (14 seconds, silent).](https://themarginapp.com/docs/media/loops/dl167/dl167-poster.webp) _J and K move through the Inbox, and N keeps a capture as a note (14 seconds, silent)._ | Keys | What it does | | --------- | ---------------------------- | | `J` / `K` | Move through the queue | | `N` | Keep it as a note | | `B` | Send it to a board | | `A` | Append it to a note you keep | | `E` | Edit it first | | `⌫` | Delete it | | `Q` | Jump to the capture field | The arrow keys move through the queue as well. Acting with nothing selected takes the item at the top, so the first decision costs one key. > **Side note:** Delete is `⌫`, not `D`. D is the letter people hit by accident while > reading. ## In a note These live in the note editor, so the `?` list leaves them out. | Keys | What it does | | --------------- | ------------------------------------------ | | `⌘ B` | Bold | | `⌘ I` | Italic | | `⌘ E` | Inline code | | `Tab` / `⇧ Tab` | Indent or outdent | | `Enter` | Carry a list on to the next line | | `Esc` | Close a suggestion menu, then stop editing | Type `/` for the command menu and `[[` to link to another note. Markdown itself works as you type. ## Dictating into a field Where a field has a mic beside it (a note, a card's title, a comment, a chat message and others), you can talk without the mouse. | Keys | What it does | | ----------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Hold `Ctrl ⇧ Space` | Talk while you hold, and let go to finish. On a Mac it is `⌃ ⇧ Space` | | `Enter` or `Space` on the mic | Start, then press again to finish | See [Talking instead of typing](https://themarginapp.com/docs/voice). Distraction-free mode is in the note's action menu rather than on a key, because the obvious key for it is the one your browser already uses for full screen. **Where to next** - [Notes](https://themarginapp.com/docs/notes): capture, the Inbox and linking notes together - [Boards and cards](https://themarginapp.com/docs/boards-and-cards): what a selection can do once you have one - [Margin Intelligence](https://themarginapp.com/docs/margin-ai): what `⌘ J` opens --- Section: Control and connections. Checked against the running product on October 5, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/keyboard-shortcuts. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Importing from other tools > Obsidian vaults, Notion exports, Todoist, Trello, Google Keep, Markdown, CSV, Excalidraw scenes, a Margin export, and recipes from a link, with the folder tree intact. Files come in through one place: **Settings → Data**, under Import data. The **Import** buttons on Notes and on Boards open it, and so do "Import notes" and "Import a board" in the command palette. Recipes have their own door on the Recipes page. Everything lands in the workspace you are in when you import. ## What it reads | Source | What you drop in | What you get | | ----------- | ------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Obsidian | The vault, zipped | Notes in the same folder tree, with `[[wikilinks]]`, tags and front matter kept | | Notion | An export in **Markdown & CSV** format, zipped | Pages as notes in folders, databases as boards (or checklists) | | Markdown | One `.md` file, several, or a zipped folder of them | Notes, with the folder structure and front matter tags | | CSV | A spreadsheet saved as CSV | A new or existing board, a checklist, or expenses | | Excalidraw | An `.excalidraw` scene file | A whiteboard, editable like one you drew here | | Margin JSON | A workspace file from **Export JSON** | Its boards, notes, checklists, habits and expenses (focus sessions stay behind) | | Todoist | The backup `.zip`, one project's CSV, or a JSON export | Each project as a board, sections as columns, sub-tasks as a checklist | | Trello | A board's JSON export | The board with its lists, cards, labels, checklists and comments | | Google Keep | The Google Takeout `.zip`, or single note `.json` files | Notes with their checklists, labels as tags, pins and dates | The importer tells the sources apart by the shape of what you drop, before it opens anything for real: a vault from a Notion export, a Todoist backup from a Keep Takeout, a Trello board from a Margin file. You never have to say which is which. Under the drop zone, **Moving from another app?** has a tile for Todoist, Trello and Google Keep that says how to get the export out. ![A zipped Obsidian vault, recognized on sight and listed note by note before you import it (15 seconds, silent).](https://themarginapp.com/docs/media/loops/dl174/dl174-poster.webp) _A zipped Obsidian vault, recognized on sight and listed note by note before you import it (15 seconds, silent)._ **How an import goes** 1. Drop the file in, or pick it. 2. Read the preview: counts per kind, sample rows, and for a CSV, where it goes and **Match your columns** so your headers land on the right fields. 3. Leave **Skip duplicates** on unless you want copies. Nothing already there is replaced. 4. Import, and read the result: what was created and what was skipped. A bank statement CSV imported as expenses gets more help: the column layout is remembered for that bank's next statement, transfers between your own accounts are kept out of spending, and rows you already imported are skipped. See [Expenses and money](https://themarginapp.com/docs/expenses-and-money#import-a-bank-statement). ## Obsidian and Notion, in more detail **Obsidian.** The whole folder tree comes across as real folders. Note identity is the note's path, so importing the same vault twice merges into what is already there. That means you can bring a big vault over in stages. ![The vault arrives in its own folders, and its wikilinks work both ways (15 seconds, silent).](https://themarginapp.com/docs/media/loops/dl175/dl175-poster.webp) _The vault arrives in its own folders, and its wikilinks work both ways (15 seconds, silent)._ **Notion.** Notion stamps a 32-character id onto every page and folder name. The importer strips them, rebuilds the page hierarchy as folders, and sends each database through the CSV route as a board by default. Where Notion writes a database twice, once as the current view and once as all rows, the full one wins. > **Known limit:** Images and other files inside a vault or export do not come across yet. A > Notion import says how many it skipped. ## Todoist, Trello and Google Keep **Todoist.** In Todoist, open Settings, then Backups, and download the latest backup. Drop the whole zip here and each project becomes a board; one project's CSV works too. Sections become columns (a project without sections gets To Do, In Progress and Done), sub-tasks become a checklist on their card, comments go into the card's description, and priorities p1 to p3 become urgent, high and normal. A due date with no time stays on that day wherever you are. Repeating tasks keep repeating when the schedule is a common one ("every day", "every 2 weeks", "every monday", "every 15th"). Anything it cannot read keeps its Todoist wording in the description, so you can set it again. **Trello.** On the board, open the menu, then Print, export and share, then Export as JSON, and drop that file here. Lists become columns, and cards keep their description, due date, labels, checklists and comments. A card here has one checklist, so several Trello checklists are merged, each item named after its list. Archived lists and cards stay behind, and the preview counts them. People on cards and attachments do not come across. **Google Keep.** In Google Takeout, select only Keep and download the archive. Drop the whole zip here. Notes keep their text, checklists, labels (as tags), pins and the dates they were made and last edited. Archived notes go into a folder called Archived, and notes in Keep's trash are left out. Pictures and recordings stay in your Takeout folder; the preview counts them. **Exporting again later.** You can drop a newer export of the same thing whenever you like. A Todoist project or a Trello board that is already here (same name) is skipped whole, and a Keep note is matched by its title and the moment it was made, so only notes you wrote since the last export come in. Two Keep notes with the same title, made on the same day, are still two notes. The preview's button counts only what is new, and the same file dropped into a different workspace imports in full there. ## Plan limits and big imports > **Careful: Check the counts against your plan first** Every import is fitted to your plan before anything is written. On Free a > workspace holds 100 notes, 5 boards and 200 cards a board; the preview names > what will not fit, and the result says how many were left out, so nothing > shows for a moment and then disappears. Bring a large vault in on a paid plan > or during a trial, or in stages. The numbers for every plan are in > [Plans and limits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits). Recipes work the same way: that import saves what fits and tells you how many did not. ## Recipes, from a link, a file or a paste On **Recipes**, the menu beside the search box has **\[Import from a link or file]**, with three tabs: Find online, From a link, and Paste or upload. - **From a link**: the page is read on the server. A site that publishes proper structured recipe data is parsed exactly; a page that does not is read by the assistant and marked for you to check. - **Paste or upload**: Markdown, plain text, or a Margin recipe file. - **Fill-in templates**: the same menu has **Template (JSON)** and **Template (markdown)**, if you would rather type a batch. Every route shows a review screen before anything is saved. If the batch is bigger than your plan holds (25 recipes on Free), it saves what fits and tells you how many did not. See [Recipes and the meal plan](https://themarginapp.com/docs/recipes-and-meals). > **On the phone:** On the phone, **Settings → Data** has the same import with > the same preview, duplicate check and plan limits. On Android, pick the file > from a folder, zips included. On an iPhone, paste a Trello or Todoist JSON > file, a CSV or a note from Files or Mail; a zip (a Todoist backup or a Keep > Takeout) cannot be pasted, so bring that one in on the web. Recipes come in > from a link or the online catalog on both. ## After an import Imported content is picked up by the Mind like anything you write, in the background. The result screen offers **Organize into my Mind** to run a weave pass over it straight away, which spends weave credits. A big import is the one time the review queue in [Organize](https://themarginapp.com/docs/curating-the-mind) fills up fast: collapse every group and use **Accept all** where a group is plainly right. ![Import, then the result: what was created, and Organize into my Mind if you want it woven in now (15 seconds, silent).](https://themarginapp.com/docs/media/loops/dl178/dl178-poster.webp) _Import, then the result: what was created, and Organize into my Mind if you want it woven in now (15 seconds, silent)._ ## Your memory, from another Margin or another assistant What the Mind knows comes in through its own door, not through Import data. - **A Margin brain file** (the JSON from **Settings → Your Brain**, yours or a memory pack someone shared with you): upload it with **Choose a .json brain** on the same page, read the counts of facts, patterns and routines, then press **Import this brain**. Near-matches update what is already there, so importing the same file twice adds nothing. - **What another assistant remembers about you**: **Mind → Bring your memory** gives you a prompt to paste into that assistant, and you review its answer fact by fact before anything is kept. Both are covered in [The Mind](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-mind#bringing-your-memory-from-another-assistant). A board can also stay connected to a Google Sheet in two-way sync, which is different from importing it once. See [Integrations](https://themarginapp.com/docs/integrations). Getting it all back out again (Markdown for notes, JSON for the workspace and your recipes) is covered in [Your data](https://themarginapp.com/docs/your-data). **Where to next** - [Your data](https://themarginapp.com/docs/your-data): every way back out - [Curating the Mind](https://themarginapp.com/docs/curating-the-mind): working through what an import suggests - [Plans and limits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits): how much each plan holds --- Section: Control and connections. Checked against the running product on October 7, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/importing-your-life. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Themes and appearance > Eight hand-built themes, six characters to stand in for Margin, and one dial for the size of every word. Everything on this page lives in **Settings → Appearance**, which has two tabs: Theme and Character. ## The eight themes Four are light and four are dark. You start on Daybreak. | Theme | Light or dark | What it looks like | | ---------------- | ------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Daybreak | Light | Warm paper, copper ink and soft morning light | | Shorelight | Light | Sea-mist white and deep slate ink, with sea-glass light | | Matinee | Light | A 1984 beige-box computer: aged plastic, phosphor orange, terminal type, faint scanlines | | Atelier | Light | Porcelain gallery light, graphite ink and a single vermilion accent | | Moonpool | Dark | Moonlit glass over deep slate water, in silver-periwinkle | | Midnight Library | Dark | Candlelight, film grain, leather and wood | | Abyssal Calm | Dark | The deep ocean: bioluminescent glow, caustic light, drifting particles | | VOID\_SIGNAL | Dark | A glitching CRT: scan lines, color fringing, corrupted data | A theme sets more than color. Most also bring their own typefaces, motion and texture, which is why switching feels like walking into a different room. No screen ships until it works in all eight. The same themes live in the welcome's "pick a look" step. The choice is saved to your account and follows you to your other devices. It is applied before the page first draws, so there is no flash of the wrong theme on load. ## Text size Under the themes, one slider scales every word and control in the app together, the way browser zoom does, without changing the layout's proportions. It moves in steps: 85, 100 (the designed size), 110, 125, 140 and 160 percent. It syncs across your devices like the theme, and it is also in the menu under your picture, where you can nudge it up or down a step. ## The character The Character tab picks who Margin looks like: the small drawn figure on the assistant's launcher, in the header while it works, and on empty pages. The assistant is the same whichever you choose. This is about who you would rather share a desk with. **The six characters** - **Jot**: an ink face with dot eyes and a comma nose. The default. - **Niblet**: a compact ink body on a split nib, which strains under weight. - **Whorl**: a fingerprint field that reorganizes around two breathing gaps. - **Tare**: a bar balanced on a wedge, never quite level. - **Simmer**: a low body whose top edge rises and bubbles. - **Vesper**: a drop of ink hanging by its own neck. The previews all play the same working day at once (thinking, looking things up, done, stuck, asleep) so you can compare the same moment played by six bodies. Hover one and it looks back at you. Your pick syncs across devices. > **On the phone:** The phone has all eight themes, and a theme picked on one device is the > theme on the other. Its character picker is the Companion page in Settings, > which also sets quiet hours and how lively the character is allowed to be. ## Reduced motion The app follows your system's reduced-motion setting: entrances settle at once, looping animations hold still, and the character previews stop on their first pose. If motion feels heavy on an older machine, that system switch is the control to use. A few small moments are drawn in the page's ink: a tick that writes itself into a box you check off, a wax seal on a grown-up's yes, and a folded note sliding into a tray when a capture lands in your Inbox. A habit kept today fills with ink and its streak rolls up, a finished focus block closes its ring with a brush stroke, and an Inbox you just emptied gets a small flourish. A streak reaching 7, 30 or 100 has its number circled by hand. A board column you just cleared draws its outline with a tick, and the first note you start each day writes the date under its title. A few real milestones get one short burst of confetti in your theme's colors, from just outside what they celebrate: a streak reaching 7, 30 or 100, the last item on a shopping list going in the cart (on the family wall too), a savings goal being reached, and your first full week in The Margin, which is said once and never again. They take a fraction of a second and never hold anything up. Each plays once, when it happens in front of you, and never again when you open a screen or the app catches up after being offline. With reduced motion on, each one simply appears finished, and there is no confetti. > **Side note:** The landing page has its own theme toggle, Daybreak or Moonpool only. It is > stored apart from the app, so trying a look there never changes your saved > choice. **Where to next** - [Keyboard shortcuts](https://themarginapp.com/docs/keyboard-shortcuts): the other way to make the app fit your hands - [Your first hour](https://themarginapp.com/docs/your-first-hour): where the theme is first chosen - [The assistant](https://themarginapp.com/docs/margin-ai): what the character stands in for --- Section: Control and connections. Checked against the running product on October 5, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/themes-and-appearance. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Notifications and sounds > The bell holds one inbox for every workspace you belong to. Push brings it to a phone or laptop with The Margin closed, and six short sounds tell you when something arrives while it is open. Everything The Margin needs to tell you goes to the bell at the top of the screen. Push and sound don't add anything to it. They only decide whether the bell can reach you with the app closed, and how much noise it makes while the app is open. Both are set in **Settings → Notifications**. ## The bell The bell is your inbox. Some of what lands there: - something shared with you, or an invitation to a workspace, and the answer to an invitation you sent - chores waiting for your approval, and pocket money that has been paid - who is cooking tonight, and a shopping list the meal plan has filled - a question an assistant has raised in an agent pact - reminders that a trial is about to end - chat messages and mentions (see [Chat](https://themarginapp.com/docs/chat)) - connection requests and their answers - money: a debt someone claims or says is settled, and income that has landed - a child's request for a reward, and the answer It reads from the copy of your data on the device, so it opens offline, and anything you mark read while offline syncs when you reconnect. Press a row to open what it is about. **Mark all read** clears the badge in one go and offers an Undo, which puts the same ones back to unread. ### One inbox for every workspace You have one bell, not one per workspace. The badge counts everything unread across all your workspaces, so a decision waiting in a team workspace still reaches you while you are working in your personal one. A row from a workspace other than the one you are in says which workspace it came from, and the top of the list tells you how many unread rows came from elsewhere. When you open one of those rows, The Margin switches to its workspace first and then opens the item, so the link always lands where the item lives. ## Push notifications Push sends a notification to your phone or computer even when The Margin is closed. It carries the same things as the bell. Turn it on with **Notify this device** in **Settings → Notifications**. You do this once on each device, because the permission to interrupt you belongs to that phone or browser, not to your account. Turning it on in one place leaves your other devices as they were. - If you belong to more than one workspace, the notification's title starts with the workspace's name. Tapping it opens The Margin in that workspace. - Tapping a notification reuses a tab you already have open. - Nothing pops up while The Margin is open in front of you, because the bell and the sound have already told you. - Several notifications about the same thing collapse into one, so a busy thread does not stack up banners. - Muting a chat thread mutes its push notifications too. Once push is on, **Send a test** sends one real notification by the same route as everything else. It goes to every device you have turned on and takes a few seconds to arrive. **Push on an iPhone or iPad, from the browser** 1. Open themarginapp.com in Safari and tap the share button (at the bottom of the screen on an iPhone, at the top on an iPad). 2. Choose **Add to Home Screen**. 3. Open The Margin from the new icon, go to **Settings → Notifications** and turn it on there. If the switch can't be turned on, the page tells you why. The usual reasons: notifications are blocked for the site (allow them in your browser's site settings, then reload), or the browser can't show a notification while The Margin is closed. Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari all can. > **On the phone:** The phone app has its own **Settings → Notifications**, with > push for chores, money that is due, mentions and messages. If you said no when > the phone first asked, turn notifications on for The Margin in your phone's > Settings app. **Send a test** appears once the phone has > given permission. ## Sounds While The Margin is open, it can play a short sound when something arrives. There are six: Chime, Glass, Marimba, Bell, Wood and Pop, plus Silent. You pick one for each of three things: - **General**: anything the app needs to tell you, such as a share, an invitation or a chore waiting for approval. - **Chat**: a message in a thread you are not reading. A burst of messages plays once. - **Mentions**: someone typed your name after an `@` in a message. They start as Chime for General, Pop for Chat and Bell for Mentions. Pick a sound to hear it, or use **Test all three**. The volume slider starts at 60. **Play sounds**, the three choices and the volume follow your account to every device you sign in on. Each device also has its own setting under **This device**: **Follow account**, **Always** or **Never**. That way a work laptop can stay quiet while your phone doesn't. The device setting is kept on that device only. Sometimes nothing plays, on purpose: - a message in the thread you have open - the first few seconds after the app opens, while the first sync catches up on history - anything before your first click or key press on the page, because browsers don't allow sound until then. The notification still arrives, just without a sound. The phone app has the same six sounds under **Settings → Notifications**, with the same split: your choices follow the account, and the on/off switch can be set for that phone alone. The same screen also holds the settings for the island and for quiet hours. **Where to next** - [Chat](https://themarginapp.com/docs/chat): mentions, muting a thread, and what a message notification carries - [Family](https://themarginapp.com/docs/family): chores, approvals and pocket money, which send most household notifications - [Getting help](https://themarginapp.com/docs/getting-help): what to do when a notification never arrives --- Section: Control and connections. Checked against the running product on October 5, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/notifications. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Getting help > Ask Margin Intelligence how something works, report a problem from inside the app and follow what happens to it, and check the status page when you can't tell whose fault it is. There are three places to go. For how something works, ask the assistant. If something is broken or missing, send a report from inside the app. If you can't tell whether the problem is on your side or ours, the status page answers that. ## Ask Margin Intelligence Open Margin Intelligence with `⌘ J` (`Ctrl J` on Windows and Linux) and ask how anything in The Margin works: "how do I share one note with my sister?", "why didn't my phone buzz?". It answers from these docs and links the page it used, so you can read the whole thing. An outside assistant connected over MCP gets the same two help tools, `search_help` and `get_help_article`, so it can answer the same questions from the same pages. See [Agents and MCP](https://themarginapp.com/docs/agents-and-mcp) for how to connect one. The docs are also published as markdown for any AI to read: - `https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt` lists every page, each with a link to its markdown - `https://themarginapp.com/llms-full.txt` is the product and tool reference in one file ## Report a problem **Settings → Help and reports** is where reports start and where you see what happened to them. You can also open the same form from **Report a problem** in the menu under your picture at the top of the screen, or from the command palette. When something fails, the error screen has a **Report this** button that opens it too. **Send a report** 1. Choose what it is: **Something broke**, **A request** or **A question**, then **Write it**. 2. Say how bad it is: App unusable, Something is broken, Annoying, or Idea. 3. Write what happened in your own words, up to 4,000 characters. 4. Press **Send report**. You get a short report id back, which you can quote if we email you about it. Each report carries some diagnostics: the page you were on, your browser, which build of the app you have, recent console lines, and the sync state. Open **Include diagnostics** to read exactly what will be sent before you send it. It never includes the text of a note, card or message. Under **Your reports** is everything you have sent, in your words, with where it got to: Received, Read, Being worked on, Fixed, or Not planned. Reports we decide against stay in the list with that status. A reply to your report comes by email, to the address on your account. You can send up to five reports an hour. To ask other people who use The Margin, or to watch what is being built, join the Discord at [themarginapp.com/discord](https://themarginapp.com/discord). You can also write to . On a Team plan a person replies within two business days, and on every other plan we aim for the same. Business days are Monday to Friday. These are targets, not a contract: there are no service credits, no phone line and no 24/7 cover. [Trust and security](https://themarginapp.com/trust) has the same promise, beside where your data lives and how it is protected. The same page also has **Getting started**: **Replay** shows the welcome from your first day again, and a switch brings back the Start here list on your dashboard. > **On the phone:** In the phone app, **Settings → Help** has > **Report a problem**, **Your reports** (the same list, with > where each one got to), **Service status** and **Replay the welcome**. ## The status page [themarginapp.com/status](https://themarginapp.com/status) shows whether The Margin is working right now. It is public, so it opens even when you can't sign in. It checks our monitoring once a minute and updates itself, so you don't need to reload it. Each part has its own line: the app, the database, sync, live presence, the assistant, assistant tools and outside assistants. Each line reads Running, Down, or Not known. Anything going wrong right now is listed under **Open now**. The page lists only problems you would notice, such as the app, sync or the assistant being slow or down. Trouble with our own machines that doesn't reach you stays off it. If our monitoring itself stops answering, every line reads Not known and the page says so, rather than claiming all is well. If sync is down, you can keep working. The Margin keeps your data on your device and catches up when the connection returns. See [Working offline](https://themarginapp.com/docs/working-offline). The phone app's **Service status** adds a row at the top for your phone: whether it is connected, when it last caught up, how many of your changes are still waiting to go up, and whether the server refused any. That is usually enough to tell whether the problem is your connection or ours. If something is broken and the status page doesn't show it, tell us: send a report, or email . **Where to next** - [Working offline](https://themarginapp.com/docs/working-offline): what keeps working with no connection - [Agents and MCP](https://themarginapp.com/docs/agents-and-mcp): connecting an outside assistant - [Notifications and sounds](https://themarginapp.com/docs/notifications): push, sounds and the bell --- Section: Control and connections. Checked against the running product on October 7, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/getting-help. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt # Two-factor sign-in > Turn on a second step at sign-in with an authenticator app, keep recovery codes for a lost phone, and what happens when a Team requires it. ## What it does With two-factor on, signing in takes two things: the way you already sign in (Google, Apple or an email link) and a 6-digit code from an authenticator app on your phone. Someone who gets into your email still can't get into your account without your phone. It is free on every plan. ## Turn it on 1. Open **Settings → Security** and choose **Set up two-factor**. 2. If you don't have an authenticator app, install a free one from your phone's app store first, such as Google Authenticator or Microsoft Authenticator. A password manager with codes built in, like 1Password, works too. 3. In the app, add an account and scan the QR code. If you can't scan it, copy the key shown beside it into the app. Reading this on the phone that has the app? Choose **Reading this on your phone? Add it to your app** instead. 4. Type the 6-digit code the app shows and choose **Turn on two-factor**. 5. Save the ten recovery codes you are shown. This is the only time they appear. **Download** saves them as a text file; a password manager or a printout works too. Don't keep them only on the phone that has your authenticator. > **On the phone:** In the phone app it is **Settings → Two-factor sign-in**. > **Add it to your authenticator app** opens the authenticator > on that phone with the key filled in, so there is no QR code to scan, and the > key is shown for typing into an app on another device. **Save the > codes** hands the recovery codes to your share sheet. Making new codes > and turning two-factor off work there too. An owner or admin turns a Team's > rule on or off under **Team → Access**, and a workspace the rule holds you out > of stays in the workspace list as **Turn on two-factor to open**. ## Signing in After the usual sign-in, you land on **One more step**. Type the code from your app. Codes change every 30 seconds and each one works once. Lost your phone? Choose **Use a recovery code** and type one of your saved codes. Each recovery code works once. When you are down to three or fewer, make a new set. Limits that keep guessing slow: - One sign-in stays open for 15 minutes and allows five tries. After that, sign in again from the start. - Ten wrong codes in a row pause two-factor sign-in on your account for 15 minutes, recovery codes included. ## New recovery codes, or turning it off Both are in **Settings → Security**, which also shows how many of your ten recovery codes are left. Both ask for a code first, so someone at your unlocked computer can't quietly remove your second step. - **Make new recovery codes** asks for a code from your app, then **Make new codes** replaces all ten. The old ones stop working at once. - **Turn off** asks for a code from your app or a recovery code, then **Turn off two-factor** removes it. If a Team you belong to requires it, that workspace closes to you until you turn it back on, and the page says so first. If you have lost both your phone and your recovery codes, write to . Someone who has your email could write too, so a person checks it is really you in other ways before removing two-factor. That takes longer than a normal reply, on purpose. ## When a Team requires it Owners and admins of a Team workspace can require two-factor for every member under **Team → Access**, in **Two-factor sign-in**. See [Team hub](https://themarginapp.com/docs/team-hub#two-factor-for-every-member). If you don't have it on, you keep your place in the team, but the workspace won't open or sync for you. Your workspace list shows it as **Turn on two-factor to open**, which takes you to Settings. Once you turn it on, the workspace comes back on its own. ## What it covers - Every way of signing in to the web app and the installed web app. The phone apps sign in through the same page, so the second step applies there too. - Connections you approve for an assistant over MCP are approved from a signed-in browser, so approving one after you turn two-factor on needs the code. - Devices that were already signed in before you turned it on stay signed in. Sign out of them, or remove a phone or assistant under **Settings → Integrations**, under **Connected apps**, to make them sign in again with the code. Passkeys and single sign-on through SAML are not available yet. ## How it is kept safe The key behind your codes is encrypted before it is stored, with a key that is not kept in the database. Recovery codes are stored only as one-way hashes, so we can check one but can't show it to anyone, including you. Every time two-factor is turned on or off, a code is wrong, or a recovery code is used, the event is written to the security log of each Team you belong to. --- Section: Control and connections. Checked against the running product on October 5, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/two-factor-sign-in. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt