Reuse Your Notes as AI Context with Active Notes

The repeated-background problem

A model knows nothing about your work beyond what the request carries. So a useful request often starts with the same few sentences: the product is called this, the audience is that, we already decided against the other. Typed fresh each time, they drift, get shortened when you are busy, and leave out the one detail that mattered.

An Active Note holds that background once, in words you chose carefully. Attaching it takes a click, and it says the same thing every time.

Build a small set of useful notes

One subject per note: Project Atlas: facts and Project Atlas: open decisions attach more precisely than one note holding both.
A title you can search for: Search looks at titles and words, so name a note the way you will look for it later.
Facts apart from assumptions: Mark what is settled and what is a guess, so the model does not treat a guess as fact: Launch date: 3 November (confirmed). Budget: about 40,000 (estimate).
Keep it current: Edit a note when something changes. Messages already sent keep the copy they sent, so an update never rewrites an earlier conversation.
Short beats complete: A note is attached whole. A tight paragraph of what matters works better, and uses fewer tokens, than everything you know.

Worked example: from agenda to team email

A weekly agenda note holds five numbered items and two notes from the week: the launch review moved to Thursday, and a reminder to ask for the updated budget.

Open the noteCtrl+Shift+N opens your notes. Choose the agenda.
Choose Use with AIThe note is attached to the message you are writing, and SideNote Pro says that nothing is sent until you press Send.
Ask for exactly what you wantTurn the attached agenda into a short team email. Separate updates from questions. Do not invent dates or owners.
Send, then check the resultThe last instruction matters: the agenda names no owners, and a model left to itself might supply some.

The SideNote Pro message box with a note chip, Weekly team sync: agenda, above the request Turn this agenda into a short email to the team. Below it, the composer tools, the provider and system prompt pickers and the send button, and a notice: Attached Weekly team sync: agenda to your message. Nothing is sent until you press Send. — An agenda note attached to a request. The chip shows what will be shared, and nothing is sent until you press **Send**.

Two more patterns

A reply template, adapted

Keep a reply you send often, such as a refund confirmation, as a note with placeholders like {name}. Attach it, paste in the message you are answering, and ask: Adapt the attached template to this request. Keep its tone, fill in what the message tells you, and leave a placeholder for anything it does not.

A saved command, explained or adjusted

A note holding a PowerShell command you use now and then can go with a question: Explain what each part of the attached command does, then adjust it to find files over 1 GB in my Downloads folder. The answer is text. Nothing runs until you copy a command and run it yourself, where you choose.

Or simply keep the note

Not every note needs AI. A packing list, a phone number, the steps for a task you do once a quarter: Float keeps a note in a small window beside your work, and Keep on top keeps it in view. Notes need no AI provider at all.

A floating Active Note window titled Lisbon trip: packing list, holding a five-item list, with a Keep on top pin and a close button at the top and Use with AI, Copy, Open in Active Notes and Saved at the bottom. — A packing list in its own window, kept beside your work. Nothing about it involves an AI provider.

Attach only what the task needs

Attaching a note shares it with the provider in that request, so attach the notes a request needs and leave the rest on your PC. Attach Active Notes in the message box lets you tick several, up to ten per message, and each shows as a chip you can open or remove before you send.

Reusing a note saves typing, not necessarily money. Its text is sent as input with that request, and with later requests in the same conversation, so a long note uses input tokens each time. Keep notes short, and start a new conversation when the old one has moved on.

The Attach Active Notes list open above the message box: a search box and six notes with checkboxes, Weekly team sync: agenda ticked, with Open Active Notes and an Attach button at the bottom. The message box below already carries that note's chip. — Tick the notes this request needs. The others stay on your PC.

Choose the right kind of context

Which kind of context fits what you want to give the model
You want to give the model	Use
Reference information you reuse across tasks: facts, templates, snippets	Active Notes
Standing instructions on how to answer: tone, length, format	A system prompt, chosen per conversation
A point one conversation settled, kept beside it	Takeaways
A large collection of files to search	Local folder context
One document as it is	An attached document

Keep control of the copy you send

A sent note is a snapshot: The copy sent stays with that message. Editing or deleting the note later changes nothing already sent.
It stays in that conversation: Later requests in the conversation carry it, as they carry everything said earlier, until compaction summarizes it.
It goes nowhere else: A note is never added to other conversations, and SideNote Pro builds no automatic memory from your notes.
The conversation owns the copy: Deleting the conversation deletes the copy it sent. Your note itself stays in Active Notes.

Next step

Use a note with AI has the exact steps, and Active Notes covers floating, capture and storage.

Stop retyping context: reuse your notes with AI