How Atlas connects your research

Atlas connects the sources you add, the questions you ask, and the notes you save. As the project develops, that work becomes reusable context for later questions.

A project becomes a research workspace

A project gives Atlas a continuing body of research to work with. Its sources, chats, notes, citations, links, and maps can remain useful after the session in which you created them.

When you ask a new question, Atlas can use context from the current project instead of relying only on the latest message.

Your work adds project context

Each part of the workspace contributes something different:

• A processed source gives Atlas text it can search and cite.
• A chat preserves earlier questions and answers.
• A note preserves your own findings and synthesis.
• Citations, mentions, and links record relationships between project items.
• Maps help you inspect themes and relationships across the same research.

A source remains the original material. A note can preserve what you concluded after reading it.

Later questions can use earlier work

When you ask a later question, Atlas receives an overview of the current project and can search its sources, notes, and chats for relevant passages. It can use those passages in an answer and cite material that you can inspect.

Atlas does not read every item for every response. The answer depends on the context available for that question and the material Atlas retrieves from the project.

Project context grows as you work

Adding useful sources gives Atlas more original material to search. Saving useful notes carries your conclusions forward. Keeping relevant chats preserves earlier questions and answers that may help with later work.

This context stays within the current project. Atlas does not automatically include material from another project in a response.

Next step

The next guide, Source types, explains what you can add to a project.