Fien De Waele Tongeren, Belgium 1H AGO

I built Atlas to turn AI-assisted creative findings into readable project cards with source links, relationships, comments, and a calm HTML interface. Extracting creative findings is only half the job. Once fragments, metaphors, visual ideas, and research trails accumulate, I need somewhere to return to them and keep working. Atlas is that project layer over my old conversations. AI helps me revisit source material and suggests findings worth keeping. I decide what they mean, how to name them, where they belong, and which relationships matter. The results become readable cards. My harvesting system points to conversations that seem rich, and then I revisit them with AI. We identify existing projects, standalone findings, recurring material, and connections. Sometimes the review sparks new ideas. After just two rich conversations, we had 28 cards, including four collection cards and three new ideas. The harvest is the radar. The review is where interpretation happens. Atlas keeps the results usable. Step-by-step: 1. I let the harvest flag chats containing project ideas, unusual language, visual concepts, or unfinished thoughts. It suggests where to look without deciding what matters. 2. I review promising conversations with AI and ask, “What here deserves a place in the creative system?” AI suggests findings and connections, while I correct interpretations, separate unrelated material, and decide what belongs together. The card structure grows out of that dialogue. 3. I create readable cards with information such as a name, category, description, findings, sources, relationships, questions, and comments. The contents depend on the material: a story needs different information from an essay. The goal is to recognise and understand the work when I return. 4. I group recurring fragments into collection cards for language finds, story material, or visual motifs. Individual items stay visible without turning Atlas into hundreds of tiny, barely distinct cards. 5. I link each card back to the original conversations so I can access exact wording, context, and how an idea developed. Several conversations can feed one card, giving me a stable starting point while its source history grows. 6. I record meaningful relationships that I recognise, such as shared themes, predecessors, spin-offs, fictional worlds, or research overlaps. Similar words alone do not establish a meaningful relationship. Categories provide visual orientation, while relationships let me move across them. 7. When I remember a source but cannot find it yet, I leave a comment: “Find and link the old conversation about XYZ.” When it turns up, I attach it and update the comment: “Found it, now linked.” This turns imperfect memory into a useful breadcrumb, so missing sources do not have to stop the work. 8. I use a small green indicator to mark cards with updates I have not viewed yet, such as a new source, finding, relationship, or resolved comment. This shows me where something changed without requiring me to check every card. 9. I let cards stay unfinished. One paragraph, one source, and an open question can already make a useful card, and more context can accumulate later. Reviewing old material can also spark new work, making the archive generative through fresh interpretation. 10. I keep the HTML environment calm and make it feel like a reading room: Browse → recognise → open → read → follow a source or relationship. Code handles IDs, CSV rows, statuses, and consistency checks underneath while I work with readable cards. Each layer answers a different question: the harvest tells me where to look, the collaborative review tells me what is there and what it means, and Atlas keeps the result usable. AI helps me notice and organise, while I assign meaning. Atlas preserves the results with the original conversations available underneath. I can navigate backwards to the source and sideways to related work, starting wherever I am. The harvest tells me where to look, the review tells me what I found, and Atlas makes sure I can use it again.