Edit Cards and Structure

Edit has the model plan changes to your document as a list of steps: copy a card and translate the copy, move cards, add tags or placeholders, or rebuild a story as acts, sequences and scenes on a new board. You review every step before anything changes, and the steps you keep are applied together as one undo step.

Before you begin, set up a connection. The panel itself is described in Draft, rewrite and ask.

Plan changes

1. Select the cards the request is about, then right-click → AI Assist → Edit cards with AI, or choose Edit cards with AI at the top of the panel’s Edit tab. You can also start from one card. In the command palette, Edit cards with AI uses the focused card or, without one, the focused column. In Story Map, choose AI Assist → Edit → Plan changes….
2. If the request covers more than that, choose a wider Scope: the column, the board, or the Whole document. The Can change line shows what the plan may modify, for example this card and new content created from it or cards and structure in “Act 1”.
3. Describe what should happen, for example “Duplicate this card below itself and translate the copy into English.” The Duplicate and translate starter is a ready-made version of this request.
4. Select Plan edits.
5. Review the plan (see below), then select Apply with the number of changes, for example Apply 3 changes.

Edit is not offered while you’re editing a card’s text. Use Rewrite there.

What a plan can do

The review names each step by its kind:

Step	What it does
Duplicate	Copies a card with its images, tags and other metadata, optionally with new text such as a translation. The copy goes directly below the original unless the plan places it elsewhere. Like the Duplicate command, it tags the copy #duplicate, except on a board the same plan creates. On another board, the copy still shows the original’s images
New card	Adds a card. The review shows it the way FlowBoard will store it
Edit text	Replaces a card’s text. Its tags and metadata stay
Move	Moves a card, or a group together with its cards. On another board, its images, PDFs and audio keep pointing to the same files, and the review shows any path FlowBoard changes for that
Delete	Deletes a card
Tags	Adds or removes tags. Nothing else on the card changes
Cue	Adds a story cue line, such as @BG, to a card without changing its prose
Placeholder	Inserts an @TK{…} placeholder right after a phrase in a card
Split card	Divides a card into several cards where the plan says, keeping its text exactly. The card keeps the first part, and the new cards follow it directly, in the same group, with the card’s tags and settings
Heading	Adds a Markdown heading line inside a card, before the words the plan names, without changing the text around it
New board	Creates a board with the columns the plan names, plus its own Archive column
New column	Adds a column to a board
New group	Adds a group. Cards the plan puts into it follow it

A plan can hold up to 400 steps.

Review the plan

• The summary and the interpretation. Under How the model understood the request, the model says how it applied your request to the document, for example “acts as columns, sequences as groups, scenes as cards”. Check this first: if it’s wrong, the steps will be too.
• Questions. If the request can be read in ways that lead to different results, the model may ask instead of guessing. Its questions appear under The model asks before planning, with no steps. Add your answers to the request and select Plan edits again.
• Each step says what it changes and where, for example To: Story / Act 1, after “Arrival”. Text changes appear as a comparison, and new cards the way FlowBoard will store them.
• Split card lists the cards the split makes, in order, with the exact text each one will hold. Heading gives the heading’s title, level and place, for example “Adds “Arrival” as a level 2 heading before “The gate creaks””. Below the steps, Card preview after included steps shows each card that gets headings once, with all its included changes: additions in green, removals in red. An excluded heading drops out of that preview.
• Exclude leaves a step out. FlowBoard then checks the whole plan again, so a step that needed the excluded one becomes blocked.
• Blocked steps are outlined in red and say why. To apply the plan, exclude them or generate it again.
• Long plans are grouped by kind, such as all Move steps together. Each group has Exclude all.
• Result. A plan that adds boards, columns or groups, and any long plan, shows the boards it creates or changes as small boards. What the plan adds is green, and what it moves is in the accent color.

A plan that would break the story, for example by deleting a scene that another scene follows, can’t be applied. The review lists the story errors it would introduce.

If the model returns a summary without any steps, generate the plan again or choose a stronger model.

What a plan can change

• Only what Can change says. A plan changes, moves, tags, copies or deletes only the cards you selected, or the cards of the column or board you choose as Scope. With Whole document, that’s every card.
• Context is only read. Cards that the request includes as supporting context, such as with All cards — full text, a route or a character sheet, help the model plan. A plan can’t change, move, copy or delete them, place new cards directly before or after them, or connect a new scene to them. To change one of those cards too, include it in the selection or choose a wider scope.
• New places are fine. A plan can move or copy the cards it may change to another column or board, and add new cards, groups, columns and boards. The cards already in that column or board don’t become changeable.
• Text needs its full text. The cards of your scope are sent in full, as far as the model’s context allows. With Whole document, the request includes only an overview, so a plan can move or tag cards there but can’t change or delete their text until you add All cards — full text under + Add context.
• No changes to existing story structure. The scene IDs, connections, routes and presentation directives of existing cards can’t be changed in Edit. Use the AI Assist proposals in Story Map for those.
• New cards as written. A new card is blocked if part of its metadata wouldn’t be stored as written, for example because of an unescaped quote mark in a quoted value, or if it carries a link ID (::id:mk-…).
• Media stays with its board. A card whose story tags name files stored with its board, such as a background or music, can’t be moved or copied to a board that keeps its media in another folder. Move it yourself and check its files. A new board can’t get a name whose media folder an existing board already uses: folder names keep only Latin letters and digits, so “Act 1” and “act-1” would share one.
• What you review is what’s applied. A step that would change more of a card than its review shows is blocked. If the plan’s result wouldn’t come back the same after saving and reopening the document, the review says what and where, and the plan can’t be applied.
• Cue types of your document. A cue step can use only cue types the document defines. Add types under Settings → Appearance → Story cues. Cue and placeholder steps quote a few words from the card to mark the place. If those words don’t occur in the card exactly once, the step is blocked.
• Splits and headings keep your text. For these, the model only names the places, by quoting a few words from the card. FlowBoard divides the card or inserts the heading itself, so the model never writes your text again: every character stays where it was, including the indentation of a line. The only thing a split takes out is the space or line break where the card is divided, with any blank lines there: that’s now the boundary between the two cards. If the quoted words don’t occur in the card exactly once, begin in the middle of a word, or fall inside an image, link, code or comment, the step is blocked and names the words it couldn’t place. A split or heading that would cut through a passage with an author comment is blocked too.
• Story cards can’t be split yet. A card with story tags, or one whose group gives it story tags, would need its connections divided among the new cards. Headings can divide it into sections instead. A card is split or given headings in one plan, not both. Apply the plan, then ask again.
• A heading at the very start becomes the title. A card’s first line is its title on the board, so a heading placed before it becomes the new title. A heading placed before the second line leaves the title as it is.
• New names. A new board or column needs a name that isn’t taken. If two boards or two columns share a name, a step that names them is blocked. Rename one and plan again.
• Groups don’t nest. A new group can follow a group, but not split one.

Organize a story into acts, scenes and beats

Four Edit starters reorganize a draft according to your document’s story organization: Organize into acts, Organize into sequences, Split into scenes and Split into beats. What each one asks for depends on what your cards represent and where your acts are:

Your organization	Organize into acts	Organize into sequences	Split into scenes	Split into beats
Scenes as cards, acts as columns	Columns	Card groups	Splits a card into scene cards	Level-2 headings inside the card
Scenes as cards, acts as boards	Boards	Columns on the act’s board	Splits a card into scene cards	Level-2 headings inside the card
Beats as cards, acts as columns	Columns	Not offered: there’s no sequence level	Groups beat cards into scene groups	Splits a card into beat cards in its scene group
Beats as cards, acts as boards	Boards	Columns, keeping scene groups	Groups beat cards into scene groups	Splits a card into beat cards in its scene group

The starters ask the model to keep your text exactly, to reuse structure that’s already there, and to move cards rather than copy them. The plan shows the actual steps, such as New column, New group, Move, Split card or Heading, and you review them as usual. Where a scene or beat begins is the model’s judgment, so check it in the review.

A starter is offered only where it can work:

• Organize into acts needs a board or the whole document as Scope.
• The starters that arrange cards into columns, boards or groups need at least two cards, and every group they touch must be included whole.
• The starters that split cards need a card with prose that can be split. Story cards can’t be split, but they can get beat headings.

For a board or the whole document, these starters add All cards — full text under Can read, so the model reads every card. You can remove it before you send.

Examples

Translate a copy. Select a card with German text and ask “Duplicate this card below itself and translate the copy into English.” The plan is one Duplicate step with the English text. The copy keeps the card’s images and tags.

Restructure a story. On a board with a draft, set Scope to the board and ask “Check this story and structure it into acts, sequences and scenes. Save the result into another board.” A typical plan adds a New board with one column per act, a New group for each sequence and a Duplicate for each scene. Because the scenes are copied, the draft stays as it is. Result shows the new board before you apply anything.

Split a long scene. Select a card that holds a whole scene and ask “Split this scene into one card per narrative beat. Keep the text exactly.” The plan is one Split card step, and the review shows each new card’s text before you apply it.

Mark sections inside a scene. Ask “Add level-2 headings before each narrative beat. Don’t rewrite the prose.” Each Heading step adds one line. This works on story cards too.

Mark open questions. With the board as scope, ask “Add @TK placeholders where a scene relies on something the story hasn’t established yet.” Each Placeholder step marks one spot, and the prose stays as it is.

A large plan can run as a background AI job while you keep working.

More requests to try are in Example requests.

Next

• Saved prompts and story style keeps an Edit request you use often.
• Background AI jobs explains how to run a request in the background and review the result later.