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07 · Using it

Changes (pull requests)

Read the `.md` files in an agent's open PR — as cards — before you merge.

On this page

Cards are fixed by an AI agent, and the result arrives as a pull request. Checking it used to mean “open the GitHub app → PR → Files changed → that .md → switch to preview”, every single time. The third tab brings that back inside.

When it appears

Shown whenYou are connected to a repository of your own. On the demo, or unconnected, the tab does not appear at all
Permission neededPull requests: read-only on the GitHub App. Contents alone returns 403
What it fetchesOpen PRs → the files they touch → the .md blobs

Permissions are per-API. Contents can be working while pull requests return 403. Worse, an issued token keeps the permissions it was approved with, so adding the permission to the GitHub App does not fix it by itself. You must approve the new permission on GitHub and reconnect in the app to get a new token. The 403 screen names both steps.

How it reads

  • A .md that parses as cards is shown exactly as it is quizzed (no frontmatter as prose, no raw [[id]])
  • Files with no cards (INDEX.md and friends) render as plain Markdown
  • No diffs. What you want to know is whether the fixed text reads well; which lines changed is better seen on GitHub

Leave it open and it follows new commits

This is a screen you sit on while an agent pushes fixes, so the text updates in place.

  • Every 15 seconds it asks whether anything changed (in a form that does not count against the rate limit when nothing has)
  • It never swaps silently. A line above the text says “Updated by a new commit (time)”. Text changing mid-read is otherwise indistinguishable from misreading it
  • It stops while the app is in the background, and checks once on return
  • If the file left the PR (deleted or renamed), the last text you could read stays, and it says so
  • No push notifications: that would need a server, and this app has none

Where references resolve from

[[id]] resolves in this order: cards in the same PR → the synced vault. So when the answer and its definition are added in the same PR, it still expands without waiting for a merge.

v1’s 📌 resolves by relative path, so it only sees the synced vault (the screen says so).

Cards cannot be edited here

The app only reads cards. Editing here would create “fixed in the app” and “fixed in the PR” as two truths, and someone would have to decide which is newer.

This tab is also separate from sync: looking at a PR never rewrites your local vault or advances the sync ledger.

This page is the public specification for Anchor Cards. Found something that disagrees with the app? Tell us onGitHub or viacontact.