GNU ELPA: gnosis

Most spaced repetition tools treat flashcards as isolated units. You create a card, review it, and the system schedules the next review. The cards have no relationship to each other or to anything outside the review loop.

Most note-taking tools do the opposite: they help you build a web of interconnected ideas, but they offer no mechanism for systematically testing and reinforcing what you have written.

Gnosis bridges these two approaches. Your notes and your review material live in the same system, linked together. When you write a node about a topic, you can create themata whose questions reference that node. When you review, you can review all the questions linked to a given note, or follow the link graph to review related topics. The goal is a single system where understanding and recall reinforce each other.

Nodes are Zettelkasten-style notes stored as plain org-mode files. Each node is identified by a unique UUID stored in an Org :ID: property. Nodes are indexed in the database so that they can be searched, browsed by tag, and linked together using standard org-mode [[id:UUID]] syntax.

A thema (plural themata) is a review card. Each thema consists of a keimenon (the question or prompt), an answer, and an optional parathema (supplementary context shown after the answer). Themata are reviewed using a spaced repetition algorithm that adapts the interval between reviews based on performance.

Themata support basic, double, MCQ, cloze and mc-cloze text questions, image-region and image-occlusion questions, and optional 3D model questions.

For agent-assisted creation or repair, read the thema authoring skill before drafting. It covers source-backed questions, descriptive links, cross-topic reuse, and verified native saves. The skill is agent-neutral; load it explicitly or install its directory using your agent's skill mechanism.

Install from GNU ELPA with M-x package-refresh-contents, then M-x package-install RET gnosis RET. Emacs installs the declared compat and keymap-popup dependencies. Core Gnosis requires Emacs 29.1 or later with working SQLite support: M-: (sqlite-available-p) should return t. Python and native canvas support are not required.

Open M-x gnosis-dashboard to start, or C-h i g (gnosis) RET for the installed manual. See Installation and Setup for directories and configuration. Existing users: back up the old database, Org files and media before the first database open with upgraded code; see the manual's Database Upgrades and Rollback section for 0.12.0 (schema 10).

Gnosis works without Python or a 3D renderer. Model themata use the optional canvas-3d backend, which is not included in the ELPA package. Install it separately from a matching Gnosis source checkout; keep the whole optional/canvas-3d/ directory, not just its Lisp file.

The backend requires a graphical Emacs with canvas-refresh and the canvas image type (Emacs 32 development builds), Python 3.12–3.14, and a working EGL/OpenGL 3.3 driver. Only Linux EGL is currently verified. Installing Python dependencies does not add canvas support to an older Emacs.

Install uv, then prepare and check the backend:

cd /path/to/gnosis/optional/canvas-3d
uv sync --locked
./preflight.py

Point Gnosis at that directory in your Emacs configuration:

(with-eval-after-load 'gnosis
  (setq gnosis-model-renderer-directory
        "/path/to/gnosis/optional/canvas-3d/"))

The renderer loads only when needed. Opening a model never installs software or downloads dependencies. See the canvas-3d setup guide for preflight options, a standalone test scene, and renderer configuration. Anatomical models are not bundled.

When you write a node about a topic, you can create themata whose keimenon or parathema contains an [[id:NODE-UUID]] link to that node. Gnosis records these relationships so that you can later review all themata associated with a particular node via gnosis-review-topic.