Glossary

Terra has a few words of its own, and uses some familiar ones in a particular way. Here they are from A to Z. Coming from Obsidian? A Library is what Obsidian calls a vault, and a Sprout is a callout.

Agent

Terra Agent is the AI assistant built into Terra. It answers questions from your notes, with links to the ones it used, and can create or edit notes when you allow it. It runs on an AI provider you connect, such as Claude, OpenAI or Gemini. See Ask your Library.

Annotation

A highlight, a note on a passage or a bookmark you add while reading. For EPUB books, Terra keeps annotations in the book's sidecar and never changes the book; PDF highlights are written into the PDF itself. See Highlights and annotations.

Attachment

A file that belongs to a note, such as an image you pasted or a document you dropped in. Terra copies it into an attachments folder beside the note, and the note links to it. See How Terra stores your notes.

Backlink

A link to the note you're looking at, from another note. The Backlinks button above a note's text counts them; click it to see where they come from. See Links and backlinks.

Block

One piece of a note: a paragraph, a heading, a list item, a quote, a Sprout, a table, an image or a code block. Point at a block to show its handle in the margin; drag the handle to move the block, or click it for Turn into, Toggle, Copy link to block, Copy as, Duplicate and Delete. See Advanced formatting.

Canvas

A free-form board where you place notes, sticky notes, text, shapes and images, and draw connections between them. Canvases you make are listed under Canvases in the sidebar, and a database can be laid out as a canvas too. See Canvas, mind maps and the graph.

Capture

Saving something into Terra in a couple of seconds, from any app: press ⌃⌥⌘N, or choose File › Quick Capture…, and the capture lands in your Inbox. With enrichment on, Terra can also tidy it into a template and sort it into categories you choose. See Capture and classify.

Command palette

The search box that runs any command by name. Press ⌘K and type: it lists commands with their shortcuts, notes whose titles match, and answers from Terra's Help. See Find your way around.

Connector

A connection to an outside service, set up in Settings › Integrations: Google Calendar, Granola, Slack, GitHub, Jira and Confluence. Depending on the service, its items can appear inside your notes, arrive as notes of their own or, for Google Calendar, show on the Calendar. Keys are kept in your Mac's Keychain. See Bring in meetings from Granola for one example.

Dashboard

A note that puts live views of your databases on one page, such as a count, a chart, a table and a board. The Dashboard template starts one for you. See Build a dashboard.

Database

A live collection of the notes that match a set of conditions, such as every note in a folder or every note with a tag. Each note is a row and its properties are the columns. Nothing is copied: the rows are your notes. See Databases.

Drawer

A panel that opens beside your panes. Properties in the toolbar opens the drawer on the right, with sections for the open note's properties, comments, versions and more; AI conversations opens the chat; Database drawer is the note list. See Find your way around.

Embed

Something shown inside a note rather than linked: another note, written ![[Note title]], a view of a database, inserted with /database, or an item from a connector. See Advanced formatting.

Favorites

Notes you've marked with Add to Favorites, the flag in the editor toolbar. They're listed under Favorites in the sidebar, and you can sort them into favorites collections without moving the files. See Files and folders.

Filter

A condition that narrows a database view to the notes you want, such as status is Done or tags contain launch. Each view keeps its own filters. See Filter, sort and group.

Folder

A real folder inside your Library folder. The Folders section of the sidebar shows the same tree you'd see in Finder, and clicking a folder shows its notes. See Files and folders.

Formula

A computed property in a database you made: an expression, much like a spreadsheet formula, that Terra works out for each row from its other properties. In a table inside a note, a cell that starts with =, such as =SUM(above), is a formula too. See Formulas, threads and gathers.

Frontmatter

The block of properties at the top of a note's Markdown file, written in YAML between two lines of three dashes. Terra keeps a note's id, title, dates, tags and other properties there. See Properties.

Gather

A computed property that reads through a thread and totals, counts or picks values from the notes it links to, such as the total effort of a milestone's work items. You write it as one function, such as SUM(@work.@effort). See Formulas, threads and gathers.

Inbox

The Inbox folder in your Library, where new notes and quick captures land. It's also listed under Databases in the sidebar. See Files and folders.

Layout

How a database view arranges its notes: Table, Board, List, Cards, Feed, Calendar, Timeline, Map, Graph, Canvas, Chart or Form. Layouts such as Side by side and 2 × 2 also arrange the panes in the window. See Views and layouts.

Library

A folder on your Mac that Terra treats as one collection of notes, with its own settings, databases and templates. Any folder can be a Library, including an Obsidian vault. See Libraries.

Note

A Markdown file in your Library, with a short header of frontmatter at the top. PDFs, books, images and spreadsheets you add get a note of their own, too. See Files and folders.

Outline

The list of a note's headings shown at the right of the note when the pane has room. Click a heading to jump to it. Settings › Appearance › Note outline switches it between Table of contents, Minimap and None, and ⇧⌘O shows or hides it. See Make Terra yours.

Pane

A tile in the main part of the window that holds tabs. A window can show up to four panes side by side or stacked. See Find your way around.

Peek

A note shown over the pane you're in, so you can look at it without losing your place. Clicking a row in a database opens a peek; you can dock it left, right, center or at the bottom. See Find your way around.

Property

A named value on a note, such as a status, a due date or an owner. Properties appear under the note's title and are saved in its frontmatter, and databases can sort, filter and group by them. See Properties.

Query

A saved question about your Library, written in SQL and listed under Queries in the sidebar. You can also describe what you want in plain English and let Terra write the SQL, if you've connected an AI provider. See Queries.

Rail

The slim column of icons that replaces the sidebar when you hide it or the window gets narrow. It keeps All notes, Tasks, Calendar and anything you've pinned within reach. See Find your way around.

Reader

Terra's e-reader for EPUB books and PDFs, with your own theme, font and layout, and your place remembered in every book. A note's Read mode is something else: it shows the note without editing. See Read comfortably in the e-reader.

Recipe

One of the templates Terra puts in every Library. It turns a recipe note, such as a captured web page, into a tidy one: the title, a link to the source, the first picture, the ingredients in a Sprout and the directions as a numbered list. See Capture and classify.

Shelf

A strip at the foot of the window for panes you've set aside with Minimize to shelf. Click a pane on the shelf to bring it back. See Find your way around.

Sidecar

A file next to a note or book, with the same name and the ending .terra.json, where Terra keeps what Markdown can't hold: a book's highlights and reading position, a table's formulas, comments, a Sprout's properties. Most notes don't have one. If you move a note in Finder, move its sidecar with it. See How Terra stores your notes.

Slash menu

The menu that opens when you type / in a note. It lists blocks you can insert, such as headings, lists, Sprouts, tables, code and math; keep typing to narrow it down. The + button in the editor toolbar opens it too. See Basic formatting syntax.

Sprout

A coloured box in a note that makes a point stand out, such as a tip or a warning. It's written like an Obsidian callout, > [!tip] Title, and can carry its own properties. Every Sprout in the Library also appears in Sprouts in the sidebar. See Sprouts.

Status

A property type for where something stands. Each option belongs to a group, To do, In progress or Done, so databases know what's finished; a new Status property starts with Not started, In progress and Done. Tasks have their own statuses, written in the checkbox: [ ] open, [/] in progress, [x] done, [-] cancelled. See Properties and Task syntax.

Tab

One open item in a pane: a note, a database, a web page or Help. Right-click a tab to close it, close the others or pin it. See Find your way around.

Tag

A short label such as #reading that gathers notes from different folders. Write it in the text or add it to the note's tags property; either way the note shows up on the tag's page and in tag searches. See Tags.

Task

A checkbox line in a note, such as - [ ] Book the projector. Terra gathers every task in the Library into Tasks, where you can set due dates and change status, and the line in the note changes to match. See Tasks.

Template

A note that new notes start from, with placeholders such as {{ title }} and properties of its own. Every Library starts with a few, including Daily log, Meeting, Project, Decision and Recipe. Choose File › New from Template… to use one. See Templates.

Thread

A computed property that links a note to other notes, such as work items to their milestone. You pick the notes, or let conditions pick them. Terra saves the links in the note's relations property, and gathers and timelines can follow them. See Formulas, threads and gathers.

Toggle

A block you can fold. Folding a toggle hides what belongs to it: a heading's section, a list item's nested items, a quote's or Sprout's body, or everything after the first line of a paragraph. Turn one on with Toggle in the block menu, or press ⌥⌘7. See Keyboard shortcuts.

Trash

Where deleted notes go, in a Trash folder in your Library. Right-click a note there and choose Put Back to restore it. By default, Terra empties notes that have been in the Trash for 30 days, and emptying is permanent. See Files and folders.

Type

A property that says what kind of thing a note is, such as project, meeting or contact; you choose the names. A type can use one of Terra's models (Person, Article, Book, Location, Group, Event, Plan or Medium), which decides how its cards look. Not to be confused with a property's type, such as Text or Date. See Properties.

Versions

Terra's history of your notes, built on git. Click Save version to record how the Library's notes are now, then compare or restore any note from an earlier version, or send the history to a Git server. It's off until you turn it on. See Sync and back up.

View

A saved way of looking at a database: a layout plus its filters, sort, grouping and visible properties. One database can have many views of the same notes. The Views section of the sidebar is different: it saves arrangements of panes. See Views and layouts.

Wiki-link

A link to another note, written in double square brackets: [[Printer quotes]], the same as in Obsidian. Terra shows it as a chip with the note's title, and updates it when you rename the note. Type @ and pick a note to insert one. See Links and backlinks.

Zen mode

A way to clear the window down to your panes. Press ⌥⌘Z to hide the sidebar, note list and drawers, and again to bring them back. See Find your way around.

Related

• Get started with Terra: the basics, step by step.
• Find your way around: every part of the window.
• Keyboard shortcuts: every key.