`alix`

Early WIP. The deck format and the progress store still change between commits, with no migration path, so expect to lose progress. Fine for tinkering; not yet for study you care about.

alix is a plain-text spaced-repetition learning tool that turns your own material into decks you study, then has you prove you actually grasped it, not just memorized it. It uses AI only where that helps: generating decks from a source you bring (an article, a paper, a codebase), a tutor on any card, and an exam that grades your written answers against that source. Reviewing runs fully offline; you work through several degrees of depth, from recognizing an answer to reconstructing it from memory, and only passing that exam marks a deck as understood.

A review card in the alix web app: a multiple-choice question over a plain-text deck

Manual → alix.study/book · Slides → alix.study/slides.html · Site → alix.study

Feedback → bugs via the issue form, ideas at contact@alix.study

Install

cargo install alix
# or a prebuilt binary:
curl -sSf https://alix.study/install.sh | sh

The core needs nothing else. The AI features (generate, deck augment, the exam, and the tutor) shell out to a model CLI you install and log in to yourself: Claude Code by default, or Gemini, Codex, or Copilot via [ask] backend. Each backend gets read-only tools only, and alix stores no API keys. See Getting started and Configuration.

Quick start

# make decks and workspaces from your own material
alix generate <url-or-file>            # -> a deck
alix generate <repo> --goal "how X works" --workspace ~/decks/topic   # -> a workspace

# then study, always in the web app (pick a deck or workspace, then a depth)
alix

A deck is a text file

## What does a String own?
A Vec<u8>, its bytes on the heap.
> Capacity can exceed its length.

## Fill in the blank
let \blank{mut} x = 0;

The front is the ## line; the plain lines below are the answer. A > line is a note shown after you answer, and a  directive on a card tunes it (here \blank{mut} turns into a fill-in-the-blank, auto-detected as a cloze card). Full format and every directive: the deck format, directives.

Commands

Command	What it does
`alix`	Open the web app to pick a deck or workspace
`alix generate <source>`	Draft a deck, a trace (`--trace`), or a whole workspace
`alix deck augment <deck> --target …`	Add distractors, notes, or key points
`alix workspace init <dir>`	Scaffold an empty workspace to grow into
`alix workspace deadline <dir> [<date>\|clear]`	Show, set, or clear a workspace's "ready by" date
`alix <dir>`	Serve a folder or workspace as its own scoped instance
`alix deck import <file.tsv>`	Import an Anki TSV export (`--workspace` places it)
`alix stats <path>` · `alix list <path>`	Progress · schedules (deck, folder, or workspace)
`alix reset <path>`	Clear stored progress (deck, folder, or workspace)
`alix share <path>` · `alix receive <code>`	Send/get decks over magic-wormhole
`alix config`	Show the config (`--init` writes a starter file)
`alix doctor [path]`	Check the setup, or lint a deck; `--backends` probes the AI

Every flag and option: command reference.

What's inside

Each links to its chapter in the manual:

Reveal methods and session depths (Recognize / Recall / Reconstruct), picked per session. → Reveal & session depths
FSRS scheduling, with card retirement and per-deck completion states. → Scheduling
A tutor you can ask "why is that the answer?" without leaving review. → The tutor
Deck generation and augmentation from a URL or a local source (distractors, notes, key points). → Generating decks
An AI exam that grades open questions against the source and gates unlocks. → The AI exam
Traces: predict-and-verify walks along one path through real source. → Trace decks
Workspaces and explore: group decks with shared settings, or turn a source (including a repo) into an ordered workspace of decks and traces. → Workspaces, Explore
A local web app for review and the exam, LAN-shareable, no accounts or database. → The web app
Self-contained, portable decks. Your decks and their progress live in one folder; drop it in a cloud drive (Dropbox, iCloud, Syncthing) and it follows you across devices, no accounts. → Configuration
A personal deadline on a workspace, with scheduling that leans toward it and a readiness readout. → Workspaces
A paired phone can borrow your desktop's AI for the tutor and the exam, over your LAN. → Pairing a device

Development

make check   # clippy + tests, the gate before a change is done
make fmt     # format (nightly rustfmt, not plain cargo fmt)
make web     # run the web frontend

Building a client? The web JSON API is a documented contract: docs/API.md. See CONTRIBUTING.md.

Support

alix is free and open source. Telling someone who studies is the best support; if you want to support the project financially, you can do so here.

License

Licensed under either of

Apache License, Version 2.0 (LICENSE-APACHE or http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)
MIT license (LICENSE-MIT or http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)

at your option.

Bundled third-party assets (fonts) are separately licensed; see NOTICE.

Contribution

Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in the work by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be dual licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.

alix 0.6.0

alix