Live tags

A live tag is a tag that carries its own structure. Define #contact once with fields like email, phone, and company, then type #contact on any bullet and those fields drop in as child bullets you fill in inline — no separate form, no hidden data.

A plain tag is a label; a live tag is a label plus a small schema. The two coexist: most of your tags are plain, the ones worth a shape become live tags.

Pro plan — Creating and editing live tags requires the Pro plan. Filling in values, applying a live tag someone else created, and querying the bullets that carry one stay available on every plan.

The idea

Thoute already has tags. A tag like #contact is a quick way to group bullets across your whole outline. A live tag adds structure on top of that tag — an ordered list of items that get materialized as children whenever you apply the tag.

A live tag item is one of two things:

• A field — a typed value (text, number, date, checkbox, select, URL, block ref). It becomes a labeled child bullet with the right inline editor: a date field gets a date picker, a select gets a dropdown, a checkbox gets a checkbox.
• A section — a free-form heading (e.g. Agenda, Notes, Action items) that becomes a plain child bullet you add your own bullets under.

Live tags are bound to tags, not to bullet types. The bullet you tag stays a normal note (or task, or decision, or whatever); the live tag just fills in a set of children beneath it.

Defining a live tag

1. Open Explore → Tags.
2. Click a tag (or type a new one as a #tag on any bullet first, then pick it from the rail).
3. The right pane shows the schema editor. Click + Add field or + Add section.
4. For a field, give it a name (e.g. email), pick a type, and optionally a default. For a section, give it a heading.
5. Use the up/down arrows to reorder items — the order is the order children appear in.

That's it. The tag is now live. Type it on any bullet and the items materialize as children.

Field types

Type	Use it for
Text	Short labels, names, short notes
Number	Ratings, counts, prices
Date	Due dates, started/finished dates, anniversaries
Checkbox	Read/unread, favorite, owned
Select	A value from a fixed set of options ("unread", "reading", "done")
URL	Source link, IMDB page, store listing
Block ref	Point at another bullet (e.g. the related project)

For Select, the options are a comma-separated list — unread, reading, done.

Applying a live tag

Type the tag into any bullet — #contact — and the live tag's fields and sections appear as child bullets beneath it. A few things to know:

• It only happens once. Re-typing the tag or editing the bullet won't duplicate the children. If you later add a field to the live tag, the next time you touch a tagged bullet only the missing field is filled in.
• Your own bullets stay put. Materialized fields and sections group at the top of the bullet's children; anything you've already written underneath stays below them.
• Values live in the child bullets. A field's value is just the content of its child bullet — that's the single source of truth. Edit it in the outline, or in the table view (below); both stay in sync.

Filling in values

Each field child shows the field name as a label followed by its editor. Type into a text field, pick from a dropdown, toggle a checkbox, choose a date. These field rows are typed widgets rather than free text, so the up/down arrow keys step over them — click a field to edit it.

Section children are ordinary bullets. Write whatever you want under them.

Tagging an attachment

Attachments (PDFs, images, emails, web clips, …) don't have editable text to type a #tag into, so you tag them from their detail panel:

1. Click the attachment to open its detail panel on the right.
2. In the Tags row, type a tag and press Enter (existing tags autocomplete).
3. If the tag is a live tag, its fields and sections appear as child bullets beneath the attachment in the outline — exactly like tagging a regular bullet.

Remove a tag from the panel with the × on its chip.

AI context

Beyond structure, a live tag can carry meaning for the AI — a short note on what the tag represents and how it should be read. This is what turns a tag from an opaque label into something Thoute's AI features can reason about the way you intend.

In the tag's editor, expand the AI context section and fill in any of:

• Description — what the tag means and how you use it. ("Prospects I'm actively pursuing.")
• AI interpretation prompt — freeform guidance on how the model should read or apply the tag.
• Related tags — other tags that are relevant ("see also"), so a question about one can pull in the context of the others.

When you ask a question that names the tag — #prospect — its description and guidance are handed to the model alongside your notes. The tag stops being a mystery string and starts carrying your intent.

Authoring AI context is a Pro feature, like the rest of tag-schema authoring. A tag can carry AI context on its own — you don't need any fields or sections for it. And it works the same for the broader steering system: the vault brief, entity glossary, and page context all layer with tag context to ground every AI run.

Querying live-tagged bullets

Visit Explore → Tags and click a live tag. Below the schema editor you get a table view of every bullet carrying that tag, with the live tag's fields as columns.

• Filter any column. Type in the filter row under the column header (case-insensitive substring match).
• Sort any column. Click the header — click again to flip ascending/descending, a third time to clear.
• Edit in place. Cells use the same editors as the outline and write straight to the bullet's field children, so a change here shows up in the outline and vice-versa.
• Open any row. Clicking a row opens that bullet in its home page.

Bullets on pages you haven't opened yet show empty field columns until the page loads — the values come from the child bullets, which load with the page.

Renaming or removing items

• Rename a field or section in the schema editor and existing bullets keep their values — the label just updates. (Items are tracked by a stable id, not their name.)
• Remove a field and the bullets that already have it keep the value, shown as a small "removed field" row with a button to delete it at your pace.
• Remove the tag from a bullet and its materialized children stay in place. Delete them yourself if you don't want them — Thoute never silently throws away something you typed.

Multiple live tags on one bullet

A bullet can carry multiple live tags. Each one materializes its own items independently, so even if two live tags both define a rating field, the two values are separate child bullets and never collide.

When to make a live tag vs. just use a tag

Most tags don't need to be live. A live tag is worth it when:

• You're capturing the same kind of thing repeatedly — contacts, books, recipes, meetings, sales prospects.
• You want the same fields or the same sub-structure every time.
• You want a table view of everything tagged that way.

A live tag is overkill when the tag is a quick free-form label (#followup, #idea), or the details you'd track are different every time. If you're not sure, start without one — every bullet already carrying the tag picks up the items the moment you add them.

A few worked examples

Contacts

• Tag: #contact
• Fields: email (text), phone (text), company (text), lastSpoke (date)

Meeting notes (fields and sections)

• Tag: #meeting
• Fields: date (date), attendees (text)
• Sections: Agenda, Notes, Action items

Books I want to read

• Tag: #book
• Fields: author (text), rating (number), status (select: unread, reading, done), finishedAt (date)

What's next

• Tags — How tags work without a schema (which is most of the time).
• Steering AI — Tag context is one layer; the vault brief, entity glossary, and page context are the others.
• Library — The outline; Tags is one of the Explore lenses.
• Capture — Get the thought down first; structure later.