AI Study Notes

AI Study Notes is an iPad-first study notebook prototype that combines a page-based handwriting experience with an AI study sidebar. The product direction is closer to GoodNotes than to a chat app: students write directly on pages, select a region with an AI selection tool, and ask questions while keeping the handwritten context visible.

What Is Included

• SwiftUI iPad app scaffold
• PencilKit handwriting canvas
• Custom compact writing toolbar
• Multiple pen types, colors, widths, highlighter, lasso, and eraser tools
• Page templates and configurable page sizes
• PDF import as page backgrounds
• Page thumbnails, page selection, duplication, deletion, and batch actions
• Notebook-level AI chat sidebar
• Local persistence for notebooks, pages, drawings, selections, and chat history
• Cloudflare Workers backend scaffold for a multimodal AI proxy
• XcodeGen project specification

Core Workflow

Handwrite notes -> select a page region -> ask AI in the sidebar -> copy useful output -> continue studying

The app can run with a local mock AI client when no backend URL is configured. A real backend can be supplied through the AIBackendURL value in project.yml.

Requirements

• macOS with Xcode
• iOS 17 SDK or newer
• XcodeGen
• An iPad simulator or physical iPad for testing
• Node.js and npm if you want to run or deploy the Worker backend

Open The iPad App

brew install xcodegen
xcodegen generate
open AIStudyNotes.xcodeproj

Then choose an iPad simulator or a connected iPad and run the AIStudyNotes scheme.

Backend Setup

The worker/ directory contains a Cloudflare Worker that exposes:

GET /health
POST /ai/chat

The Worker expects the provider API key to be stored as a Cloudflare secret rather than committed to the repository.

cd worker
npm install
npx wrangler secret put DASHSCOPE_API_KEY
npm run deploy

Optional model overrides can be configured as non-secret Worker variables:

• QWEN_FLASH_MODEL
• QWEN_PLUS_MODEL

After deployment, set your Worker URL in project.yml:

AIBackendURL: "https://your-worker.example.com"

Run xcodegen generate again after changing project.yml.

Documentation

• Product Plan
• Technical Plan
• Open Questions
• Writing Pen Research
• Developer Handoff

Security Notes

• Do not commit real API keys, tokens, Cloudflare secrets, signing credentials, or private deployment URLs.
• The iPad app falls back to MockAIClient when AIBackendURL is empty.
• Production AI calls should go through a backend proxy so provider keys never ship in the app bundle.
• Before making a fork or mirror public, scan both the current tree and Git history for secrets.

Repository Hygiene

Generated build products and local Xcode user state should stay out of version control. The tracked Xcode project files are intended to make the project easy to open, while personal files such as xcuserdata/, .DS_Store, and build/ are ignored.