> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.node-pad.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# The Canvas

> The workspace surface where branches, references, notes, attachments, and merges stay visible together.

The canvas is the main surface inside a NodePad workspace. It holds your conversation branches, text notes, and cross-branch connections in one view so you can see the structure of the work, not only the latest reply.

## Why it matters

Most AI interfaces flatten everything into one timeline. That works until the work stops being linear — when a question splits into sub-questions, when you want a second opinion from another model, when a fact-check should stay separate from the main draft, when a reply needs to draw from messages that happened elsewhere. The canvas keeps all of those moves visible instead of hiding them inside one scroll.

## What you can place on it

<Columns cols={2}>
  <Card title="Conversation branches" icon="git-branch">
    A branch is a sequence of user and assistant messages. Branches can continue, split, and reconnect through merge flows.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Text notes" icon="sticky-note">
    Freeform annotations for you and your team. They are not model instructions.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Reference and merge edges" icon="share-2">
    Edges show how messages relate across branches — visible provenance instead of hidden prompt text.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Attachments" icon="paperclip">
    Images and files stay attached to the messages that used them and can carry forward into branches and merged drafts.
  </Card>
</Columns>

## Common actions

<Columns cols={2}>
  <Card title="Navigate" icon="move">
    Pan and zoom to inspect one branch closely or zoom out to understand the whole workspace. Use workspace search to jump between matching messages without losing your spatial layout.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Organise" icon="layout-grid">
    Open the command palette to jump to actions such as merge composition or the reference picker. From the sidebar you can favorite a workspace, add tags, duplicate it, or export it when you want a checkpoint.
  </Card>
</Columns>

<Tip>
  Each canvas belongs to a workspace, which keeps its own `title`, `default model`, `reasoning preference`, `workspace instructions`, `branch layout`, and `tags`. A good mental model is one workspace per problem space — one for a feature investigation, another for a long research project, another for a piece of writing.
</Tip>

## Continue

<Columns cols={3}>
  <Card title="Nodes" icon="circle-dot" href="/concepts/nodes">
    The individual messages that make up a branch.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Forking" icon="git-branch" href="/concepts/forking">
    Branch from any message to explore an alternate path.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Merging" icon="git-merge" href="/concepts/merging">
    Combine messages from different branches into one draft.
  </Card>
</Columns>