01 — For readers

A shelf forwhat you read.

Save articles, videos, and podcasts to files you own — Notion, Obsidian, Logseq, or plain Markdown. Local-first. No account. No telemetry.

Install on Chrome See what it does

Version

v0.1

Year

2026

Platform

Chrome

A real essay · The Atlantic · 14 min read

Notes on Marginalia

By Emily LaBarge

A book half-read is twice owned. Every annotation, every pencil-mark in the margin, is a record of having been there — a debt the reader owes their future self. To keep the file is the first act of patience.

shelf 12

Today's pick

On Marginalia

  • Building a personal knowledge graph that actually compounds

    article nytimes.com · 8 min

  • Why the second brain rarely becomes the second brain

    article are.na · 12 min
    📚 Reading
    pkm essay long-form
    +3
3 unread · 34 read
Shelf, mid-capture. The article lands in Notion three seconds later.

02 — How it travels

Save now,
file later.

Four steps. No setup beyond installing the extension. Everything else stays in your browser until you choose to export.

  1. 01

    Save

    Press Alt+S anywhere

    Or right-click. Captures title, excerpt, thumbnail, reading time. Local storage, no account.

  2. 02

    Organize

    Collections, your way

    Group by project, topic, or intent. Free nests one level deep; Pro deepens trees up to five.

  3. 03

    Export

    Send to your tools

    One click fans out to Markdown, Obsidian, Logseq, and Notion. Native paste-token integration — no OAuth, no servers.

  4. 04

    Habit

    Streak, Daily Pick, Inbox Zero

    Duolingo-style reading streak with weekly freeze. Daily Pick notification at 9am. Empty-inbox reward when you clear the queue.

obsidian / vault
●●●

2026-05-11-building-a-personal-knowledge-graph.md

---

url: https://nytimes.com/...

tags: [pkm, essay, long-form]

saved: 2026-05-11T10:32:00Z

---

Building a personal knowledge graph that actually compounds

> The article you were skimming, now a markdown file you own. Drop it into a folder, link it to other notes, never lose it.

— excerpt + 3 AI bullets follow in the page body —

notion / reading list
●●●

Building a personal knowledge graph that actually compounds

URL nytimes.com/2026/... Tags pkm essay long-form Kind Article Saved May 11, 2026

AI Summary

  • —Knowledge graphs compound when retrieval is easier than re-reading.
  • —Tag systems decay without enforcement; queries do not.
  • —Local files beat hosted notebooks for ten-year horizons.
Same article, two homes. No lock-in — the markdown file is yours either way.

03 — What you get

Every reader gets the full library.

01

Save anything

  • — Articles, videos, and podcasts
  • — YouTube transcript with timestamps
  • — Highlights captured as you select
  • — Pocket and CSV import

02

Export anywhere

  • — Markdown files
  • — Obsidian vault (URL handler)
  • — Logseq graph (URL handler)
  • — Notion (paste integration token, no OAuth)

03

Stay in the habit

  • — Reading streak with weekly freeze
  • — Daily Pick notification at 9am
  • — Empty-inbox reward
  • — Unread counter on toolbar

04 — Pricing

Free now. Pro when it earns it.

One indie maker. No funding, no metrics theatre. Free tier stays generous because the value is the export, not the lock-in.

Free

Forever

  • — Unlimited saves
  • — Export to Markdown, Obsidian, Logseq, Notion
  • — Up to 2 simultaneous destinations
  • — Collections with 1-level nesting
  • — YouTube transcripts and highlights
  • — Streak, Daily Pick, Inbox Zero

Pro

For the long-term reader

€4.99 / month

or €49.99 / year

  • — Everything in Free
  • — AI auto-tag (Gemini Nano + Groq cloud fallback)
  • — AI auto-summary (concise bullets, in page body)
  • — Unlimited simultaneous destinations
  • — Collections nested up to 5 levels deep
  • — Multi-database Notion routing per collection
  • — Smart Rules (auto-tag and auto-collect on save)
  • — Library backup (ZIP and JSON, fully portable)
  • — Bulk operations (filter, tag, delete in one shot)

Founder Lifetime

€99.99

Pay once. Pro forever.

Limited to the first 200 supporters. After that, the door closes.

05 — Questions

What people ask first.

  • 01 Does Shelf sync between my devices?

    Not yet. Saves live in your browser's local storage on each device. Cross-device encrypted sync is on the Pro roadmap. For now, the export-anywhere model means your library can live in Notion or your Obsidian vault — those sync themselves.

  • 02 Will my data leave this computer?

    Only when you choose to. Saves stay in chrome.storage.local until you export. Notion exports go directly from your browser to Notion using your token. AI auto-tag runs on-device via Chrome's Gemini Nano by default; cloud fallback is Groq, with your own API key.

  • 03 Why "Founder Lifetime"?

    Indie maker, no funding. The first 200 buyers fund the runway in exchange for Pro forever — their license is lifetime and stays lifetime. Once the cap is hit, the offer closes for new buyers; new sign-ups go to the standard subscription. No mystery, no extension of the deal.

  • 04 What happens if Shelf shuts down?

    Your saved items are markdown files on your machine — they don't depend on Shelf existing. The Pro license is processed by LemonSqueezy (US merchant of record), so support continuity for billing is theirs even if the maker steps away.

Travels with

Markdown is the lingua franca. Everything else is a destination — Shelf speaks them all without phoning home.

  • Chrome

    Where it runs

  • Notion

    API · paste token

  • Obsidian

    URL handler

  • Logseq

    URL handler

  • Markdown

    .md file export

End of edition · 2026

shelf