Sifted: Your AI Research Notebook with Clear Provenance
A consumer-grade research workspace that keeps your original notes, cited sources, and AI-generated summaries in three separate layers — so when you use AI to summarize a paper or draft a chapter, you always know what is yours, what is evidence, and what is still a draft.
Independent nonfiction authors, graduate students, and journalists who research and write for a living
- Three-layer vault with enforced separation of personal notes, sources, and AI drafts
- Citation checker that flags any AI-generated sentence relying on a source you have not actually read
- Staging workflow where AI drafts sit in a review queue before they can join your polished notes
- One-click publish that promotes reviewed drafts and locks originals behind them
The repo hit GitHub Trending at 101 stars by surfacing a problem most knowledge workers feel but few tools solve — AI auto-blending into your original notes and corrupting your source of truth — and Obsidian-based provenance setups are out of reach for non-technical writers.
Multiple 'top academic AI note-taking tools' listicles and Authors Guild AI best practices show active, vocal demand from grad students, nonfiction authors, and academics worried about losing source fidelity — but Google NotebookLM is already absorbing much of the attention for free.Top 9 Academic AI Note-taking Tools for Research and Writing ↗AI Best Practices for Authors - The Authors Guild ↗
Narrow: borthwick/obsidian-provenance literally implements block-level author/timestamp tracking with AI-block highlighting inside Obsidian, and NotebookLM's source-grounded RAG addresses the same fear at the consumer level for free.GitHub - borthwick/obsidian-provenance: Obsidian plugin: Track and ... ↗Google NotebookLM | AI Research Tool & Thinking Partner ↗
Writers do pay (Notion AI ~$10/mo, Jenni subscription model exists), but competing head-to-head with Google's free NotebookLM and Notion's bundled AI is a tough sell; willingness to pay for provenance alone is unproven.NotebookLM vs Notion AI — Compare AI Tools | TryAnAI ↗Jenni | AI Academic Writer & Research Tool for Students & Academics ↗
Source-verification pressure is durable: AI hallucination concerns, journalism ethics standards, and academic integrity rules are all tightening — provenance is a structural need that grows as AI use grows.AI Writing Accuracy: Where Tools Fail and How to Verify ↗Analyzing the Pros and Cons of AI Writing Tools ↗
The borthwick/obsidian-provenance plugin demonstrates the three-layer separation (original notes / sources / AI drafts) with block-level decoration is technically straightforward; wrapping it in a non-technical consumer UI is buildable by a small team.