Amnesia Reader · Josué Guevara

Problem

Ebook readers tend to keep highlights, locations, and reading state inside the reader while research notes live somewhere else. That separation makes links between a passage and an argument harder to keep portable and inspectable.

Origin

Amnesia grew out of years of reading, note-taking, digital-library management, and working in Obsidian. Books, highlights, and reading state were separate from the notes and links used for research, so the project brings those materials into the same workspace.

Position

The project favors local ownership of reading data, portable relationships, and self-hostable storage. Links and annotations are stored as relationships to the reader’s own material, so they remain useful outside a hosted reader account.

System

ReaderTypeScript/Svelte Obsidian plugin for EPUB/PDF reading, navigation, annotations, search, and note integration.
ServiceRust/Axum server with SQLite persistence, S3-compatible storage, OPDS/metadata handling, PDF rendering, and OCR pathways.
LinksLink-creation flow records destination, source locator, excerpt, and backlink metadata in the book note.
FederationA typed Doc Doctor bridge exposes books, highlights, reading state, source relationships, and knowledge-gap annotations through capability-scoped operations and bidirectional events.
DeliveryAutomated tests plus build paths for the client and server.

AmnesiaBooks · highlights · reading state · source locators

Doc DoctorStubs · document state · AI · grounding · citations · MCP

Implemented federation boundary: each system keeps its own domain while exchanging scoped state and operations.

Implemented · reading context Amnesia supplies books, highlights, source locations, and reading state while keeping the underlying reading material inside its own domain.

Implemented · editorial loop Eligible knowledge gaps can synchronize to Doc Doctor stubs; resolution and health state can return to the reading workflow.

Planned: Let Doc Doctor search Amnesia’s source-addressed library when a document needs supporting evidence or a citation.

Demonstration

Wikilink creation and the resulting backlink stay inside the Obsidian knowledge surface.

Amnesia — source link1/3 · Select passage

Don Quijote de la Mancha

PRIMERA PARTECAPÍTULO VIII

Del buen suceso que el valeroso don Quijote tuvo en la espantable y jamás imaginada aventura de los molinos de viento

En esto, descubrieron treinta o cuarenta molinos de viento que hay en aquel campo; y, así como don Quijote los vio, dijo a su escudero que la ventura iba guiando sus cosas mejor de lo que acertaran a desear.

—Porque ves allí, amigo Sancho Panza, donde se descubren treinta, o pocos más, desaforados gigantes, con quien pienso hacer batalla y quitarles a todos las vidas.

—¿Qué gigantes? —dijo Sancho Panza. —Aquellos que allí ves —respondió su amo—, de los brazos largos, que los suelen tener algunos de casi dos leguas.

—Mire vuestra merced —respondió Sancho— que aquellos que allí se parecen no son gigantes, sino molinos de viento, y lo que en ellos parecen brazos son las aspas.

—Bien parece —respondió don Quijote— que no estás cursado en esto de las aventuras: ellos son gigantes; y si tienes miedo quítate de ahí, que yo voy a entrar con ellos en fiera y desigual batalla.

Y diciendo esto, dio de espuelas a su caballo Rocinante, sin atender a las voces que su escudero Sancho le daba, advirtiéndole que sin duda alguna eran molinos de viento.

Levantóse un poco de viento, y las grandes aspas comenzaron a moverse; lo cual visto por don Quijote, dijo: aunque mováis más brazos que los del gigante Briareo, me lo habéis de pagar.

Arremetió a todo el galope de Rocinante y embistió con el primero molino que estaba delante; dio una lanzada en el aspa, volvióla el viento con tanta furia que hizo la lanza pedazos.

Sancho acudió a socorrerle. Don Quijote, todavía seguro de la lógica de su aventura, sostuvo que las cosas de la guerra más que otras están sujetas a continua mudanza, y atribuyó la transformación al sabio Frestón.

—Dios lo haga como puede —respondió Sancho Panza—; y ayudándole a levantar, tornó a subir sobre Rocinante, que medio despaldado estaba.

captiv

Captivity as methodResearch / Cervantes

Windmills, giants, and perceptionReader Notes / Don Quijote

Cervantes in AlgiersLibrary / Books

Captivity as method

Research / CervantesCaptivity as method

Properties

source: Don Quijote · I.8
status: working synthesis
tags: #cervantes#captivity#epistemology
related: Windmills, giants, and perception
created: 2026-07-18

Captivity as method

The episode provides a compact model of competing authority. Sancho and Quijote occupy the same field, receive the same sensory data, and still inhabit different actionable worlds.

Working claim. Calling the objects “giants” or “windmills” changes which actions are intelligible to each character.

Reading thread

The windmills become a test case for [[epistemic authority]]. Sancho's correction appeals to ordinary recognition; Quijote's reply absorbs contrary evidence into a larger explanatory system.

Sancho’s correction depends on shared conventions for identifying ordinary objects.
Correction fails because Sancho and Quijote apply different rules for evidence.
Quijote absorbs the failed charge into the Frestón explanation.

Captivity parallel

Compare the later captive's tale: control over names, categories, and testimony determines whose account can circulate as fact. See [[Cervantes in Algiers]] and [[Narration and evidence]].

Source: [[Don Quijote de la Mancha · Capítulo VIII]]

Amnesia · readerMarkdown

Decisions

Host the reader inside Obsidian. Books, passages, Markdown notes, backlinks, graph relationships, and canvases can share one knowledge environment.
Keep the reading record locally controlled. Library state, annotations, links, and source addresses are designed to remain useful without depending on a hosted reader account.
Keep reading material addressable outside the reader. Books, passages, highlights, and reading state carry stable identities and source locators so adjacent systems can consume research context and reconstruct relationships from either side.
Separate the Obsidian client from the self-hosted service. The TypeScript/Svelte reader owns the workspace experience; the Rust/Axum service owns library, persistence, storage, rendering, and OCR concerns.
Consolidate PDF display modes behind one rendering authority. Paginated, vertical, horizontal, grid, and canvas modes share one renderer and state topology, with each display mode operating as a view over that shared state.
Decouple immediate interaction from asynchronous refinement. Camera feedback stays synchronous while rendering works from snapshots; stale refinement output can be discarded while navigation continues.
Protect visible work before speculative work. Memory budgets and scheduling prioritize the current visible set, then prefetch and background refinement.
Use runtime capability to select fast paths. Shared renderer code stays platform-neutral; worker bootstrap, memory envelopes, and optional acceleration paths are chosen through explicit capability adapters so mobile constraints are part of the architecture.

Further inspection

Read the product and architecture documentation Inspect the federated editorial system