--- title: Pulse Lenses, Local Document Intelligence, and Resilient Workspaces published_at: 2026-08-12T20:00:00Z version: v2026.08.12 slug: v2026-08-12 canonical_url: https://basaltnotes.com/changelog/v2026-08-12 markdown_url: https://basaltnotes.com/changelog/v2026-08-12.md --- # Version 2026.08.12 - Pulse Lenses and Local Document Intelligence This release makes daily workspace review more adaptable, expands private document and meeting workflows, and strengthens recovery without changing Markdown ownership. ### Pulse dashboards and lenses - Use the new Pulse dashboard to bring together tasks, today's schedule, Inbox captures, recent notes, bookmarks, decisions, Quarries, and a bounded daily briefing. - Create reusable lenses for work, study, projects, or personal planning, with configurable widgets and signal priorities. - See why each signal appears, then complete, snooze, dismiss, or mark it less relevant. Reviewed feedback remains part of the workspace's durable history. - Export a Pulse view as portable Markdown and generate calm, cited briefings without re-indexing the vault. ### Local document and PDF intelligence - Extract Markdown locally from Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OpenDocument, EPUB, CSV, RTF, and PDF files. - Inspect PDFs before extraction and run local OCR only on pages that need it, avoiding unnecessary full-document OCR. - Preserve document provenance, page information, extraction method, and embedded-asset metadata for later review. - Convert supported PDFs to Markdown from the Basalt web clipper using its packaged browser-safe extraction engine. ### Meeting Memory improvements - Record meetings with explicit consent, editable speaker labels, timestamps, and recoverable local checkpoints. - Reprocess a selected audio range, translate a reviewed transcript, or discard temporary audio and transcript state. - Manage saved meeting sessions and turn a reviewed session into a portable Markdown meeting note. - Built-in extraction remains local; connected recipes receive only the bounded transcript context shown by Basalt. ### Canvas and Knowledge Graph - Organize multiple canvases into folders and add notes through a searchable vault picker. - Canvas stores references to notes instead of copying their Markdown, so expanded cards always read current vault content. - Connect cards with labeled relationships while keeping canvas metadata separate from canonical note content. - Pan and zoom the Knowledge Graph, filter by tag or title, reset the view, and open a note directly from its graph node. ### Vault identity, privacy, and recovery - Local storage, Basalt Hosted, Dropbox, Google Drive, and GitHub now appear as storage bindings beneath one logical vault instead of duplicate vaults. - Intentionally separate vaults remain separate; Basalt does not merge unrelated vaults merely because their names match. - Hosted workspace recovery restores canonical note identity, attachments, reviewed decisions, accepted memory, Pulse feedback, Forge receipts, and deletion intent before reporting the workspace fully ready. - Connected Intelligence explains when bounded workspace context will leave the device and requires acknowledgement before first use. - Encrypted vaults can automatically remove their in-memory key after 5, 15, 30, or 60 minutes of inactivity. ### Governed continuity and decision context - Intelligence conversations now begin sooner when relevant notes need to be loaded from connected storage, and streamed answers stay smoother as they grow. - Agent Studio now shows which evidence routes were selected, which sources policy omitted, and which handoffs or continuity items still need review. - Confirmed handoffs can be reused as bounded context; decisions still require Strata review and workspace-changing actions still require Forge approval. - Work sessions preserve a safe replay of selected context, validation, durable artifacts, and action status without storing hidden model reasoning. - Strata records when a decision was valid and when Basalt learned it, preserving corrections and superseded history instead of silently rewriting the past. - Daily tasks can enter a reviewed continuity lifecycle with exact source references, while low-information messages and credential-like text are excluded. ### Governed tags and portable recovery - Tag definitions can include descriptions, hierarchy, aliases, and related vocabulary while ordinary Markdown tags remain canonical. - Tag merges provide an affected-item preview and preserve redirects and merge history after confirmation. - Blueprint and workspace tag recommendations remain proposals until a person applies them. - Dropbox, Google Drive, GitHub, and Basalt Hosted vaults now carry an encrypted, integrity-checked permanent-memory recovery sidecar for reviewed decisions, policies, handoffs, continuity, work sessions, tags, receipts, and deletion intent. ### A calmer, clearer note workspace - Attach a PDF, image, or document directly from the note toolbar, then open it from the note without hunting through menus. PDFs can also be viewed inside Basalt in Reading mode. - Find notes with a complete status filter for Active, On hold, Done, and Dropped, plus a separate Pinned filter for the notes that deserve priority. - Pin or unpin notes from the file tree. Bookmarks remain a separate way to save navigation shortcuts to notes, folders, or sections. - Use streamlined note menus while moving and duplicating notes from the file tree, where their destination and surrounding folders are easier to understand. - Work with a quieter Note tools sidebar. Outline stays available by default, other tools open only when selected, and each person can pin the tools they want to keep visible. Provider, connected-intelligence, and hosted-recovery capabilities remain subject to plan access and configured services.