A one-minute introduction

Cogitatum is a little markup for seeing the reasoning in your notes. Keep the context in ordinary prose, then mark the parts you want to examine:

- A neighbourhood library is considering later opening hours. This is an imagined discussion.
- [C] The library should stay open until eight on weekdays.
  - [G] Readers have asked for somewhere to study after work.
  - [O] The library cannot afford another staffed shift.
    - [R] Try one evening within the existing staffing budget.

C marks a Claim, G a Ground, O an Objection, and R a Response. The indentation connects the reason and objection to the Claim, and the Response to the Objection. The opening context remains ordinary prose.

A marked piece of content is a Point. A connection between Points is a Bearing. The map shows those connections; Reading keeps your prose in order. The marks make an argument easier to inspect without deciding whether its reasons are good enough.

Try it

Open the example’s Try in Playground link on the website, change a sentence, and inspect the result. You can also paste it into the Playground. No installation or account is needed. The quick start walks through a first note; Bearings shows separate reasons, joint reasons and chains of reasoning.

Experimental Obsidian and Logseq adapters bring Reading and Map to cog or cogitatum code blocks while you edit in the host. They require local installation and currently use Core/format 0.5.0; compatibility with 0.6 notes has not been verified.

These pages describe format 0.6.0. For saved notes or an installed compiler, check the version and migration reference.