From three browser tabs to an AI prompt: keeping research notes tied to their sources

When comparing technical approaches, collecting information is only half the job. A quote in a notes document can lose its source, and an AI chat can blur together what a page said and what I thought about it.

I'm building MindContext, a Chrome side panel that keeps research notes and saved quotes connected to source pages and prepares context for an AI chat. This is a small workflow you can try—not a claim that it verifies sources or guarantees accurate AI answers.

A three-source experiment

Choose one real question, such as comparing two libraries for a project. Open three relevant sources and use a consistent note structure:

• Source claim: What does this page actually say? Save the useful passage.
• My observation: What constraint or question does that raise for my project?
• Still unknown: What evidence would I need before deciding?

MindContext lets you keep a note attached to the page URL, save selected text from the right-click menu, and group related pages into a research project. The aim is to keep the relationship between a note and its source visible.

Review the context before sending it

Bring the relevant page context, your notes, and saved quotes together, then review the prepared prompt before sending it to ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. Remove material you don't want to share.

A useful request for that chat could be:

Compare these sources against my project constraints. Separate claims from the sources from my own observations. Point out disagreements and missing evidence. Don't invent a conclusion where the supplied material isn't enough.

That instruction isn't a reliability guarantee. Check the answer against the original sources, especially when it changes a technical decision.

What this workflow doesn't solve

Notes and quotes are stored locally in Chrome and are tied to the browser profile; there is no cross-device sync in the version described here. Local note storage does not mean the material stays local after you choose to send it to an external AI service.

MindContext organizes the context. It does not establish whether a source is true or whether an AI comparison is correct.

Try one research question

If you regularly research across browser tabs, I'd appreciate a small trial:

1. Collect passages and notes from three sources on one topic.
2. Group them into a research project.
3. Review the context you would bring into an AI chat.
4. Tell me which step still feels cumbersome or makes you return to your old workflow.

Would you organize by source page, by question, or both? That is the part I'd particularly like feedback on. Please use non-sensitive material for the trial.

Try MindContext on the Chrome Web Store

I'm the developer. I'm looking for concrete workflow feedback, not claiming a measured productivity improvement.