Commentarii Roamani

We continue our series Pages/Systems Worth Building, shifting focus from isolated pages to full systems that help your Roam graph grow more powerful day to day.

This issue is useful for students, but also for any learners who are serious about mastering what they study. We’ll show you how to combine a couple of Roam Depot extensions into a study workflow that uses AI to leverage spaced repetition for learning.

🌀 Systems Worth Building: [[Learnloop]]

Studying with AI lets you ask questions, go deeper, and clear up confusion. Add spaced repetition and you get the [[Learnloop]]: a system for understanding and remembering, to prevent forgetting at an exponential decay rate. From Gwern's post on spaced repetition:

🧰 The Tools

To install an extension, go to the left sidebar, and open Roam Depot. Search for the extension and click Install (see all the details in the video below). Each extension comes with a description from its creator. For this workflow we used:

• ​Memo by Jose Browne: to turn any block into a spaced repetition card.
• ​Live AI by Fabrice Gallet: to have an AI assistant right inside Roam.

🧱 (optional) Structure for your Notes

Each large topic gets its own page, with subtopics and subcategories linked inside.

Within those, you can create individual note pages: one per concept, idea, or question (think [[Permanent Notes]]!). This keeps your graph navigable, layered and atomized.
For example, in a page like [[Philosophy]], you might link to [[Aristotle]], then to [[The Four Causes]] – a permanent note.

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🌊 The Workflow

Here is a simple two-part workflow for taking and studying notes.

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• Part I: [[Flashcards]]

While reviewing notes, use Live AI to generate flashcards by writing a prompt, selecting it, and clicking the ⚡️ icon. Once the AI suggests questions, format them as flashcards: tag the question block with #memo, and indent the answer underneath.

To review, open the Memo extension from the left sidebar and click Review. Rate your recall and Memo will handle the scheduling by bringing due cards back to your sidebar automatically (very neatly color-coded).

• Part II: [[Exploration]]

Take your conversations with the AI assistant right under the [[Exploration]] block in the permanent note you're studying. Use it to enrich your notes, ask questions, test your understanding, or follow threads of curiosity, by typing or using your voice (!). It’s a lightweight way to explore ideas while staying in context and neatly tracking tangents you go on.

This balance between review and curiosity makes your notes active: part memory system, part thinking partner, all without leaving Roam 🏠

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