Use codebooks and AutoCode
Tag quotes by hand or let the model propose tags from your codebook.
A codebook is a set of tags organised into groups, each group with a colour. You can tag quotes by hand, install a ready-made codebook, or let the model propose tags. This page covers the mechanics; for what to tag for and how codes turn into findings, see Tag quotes to find meaning.
Tag by hand
On the Quotes page, press t on a quote and start typing. Suggestions come from your codebook, grouped and colour-coded. Press r to apply the last tag again — to the quote you're on, or to every quote you have selected. Focus stays where it is.
Find your way around
Open Codebooks and the panel on the left lists everything in the project, in three groups:
- Manual tags — your own codebook, named after the project. Tags you make by hand live here.
- Default — what every project starts with.
- Frameworks — the research codebooks you have installed, each with its author underneath.
Click a row to open that codebook. A number on a row is the count of model proposals still waiting on you.
Install a codebook
Choose Browse Library at the top of the page. Each codebook in the catalogue shows its title, its author, what it is for, and how big it is — 23 tags for one you haven't installed. For one you have, it also shows how far that codebook has reached in this project: 28 tags · applied to 2 quotes in Ikea.
Install adds that codebook's groups and tags to your project, and starts AutoCode straight away (see below). For what each codebook brings and the authority behind it, see Codebook frameworks.
Create and edit your own
In your own codebook you can add groups and tags, drag tags between groups, click a tag or title to rename it, and drop one tag onto another to merge them. Changes are saved to the project.
An installed framework is read-only. Its groups and tags are the author's and stay as published — you tag your quotes with them freely, you just don't rewrite the framework itself. Keep your own thinking in your project's codebook alongside.
Turn a codebook on or off
Every codebook except your own carries a switch on its row in the left panel. Switch one off and its tags stay on your quotes, but their badges are hidden across the report and the codebook drops out of the tag sidebar and out of tag suggestions until you switch it back on. Its page dims to show it isn't in play.
This is fully reversible and keeps every result. It is what to reach for when a lens is getting in the way but you aren't finished with it.
Uninstall, and what it costs
Uninstall takes a codebook out of the project altogether. It asks first, and the confirmation tells you what you are about to lose, because uninstalling is not the same as switching off:
- Its tags come off your quotes.
- Its AutoCode run goes too, with every proposal under it — including ones you already reviewed.
Reinstalling gives you the codebook back, empty. The model would have to code the study again, and you would review the proposals again. If you only want a codebook out of your way, switch it off instead.
AutoCode
AutoCode asks the model to suggest a tag from a codebook for each quote. It runs automatically when you install a codebook — a progress chip shows it working, and it takes a few minutes on a large study.
Proposals don't apply themselves. Each carries a confidence score, and the number of undecided proposals appears on the codebook's row and on its page, beside a Review button. Reviewing gives you a confidence histogram with two thresholds:
- Proposals above the upper threshold are accepted.
- Proposals below the lower threshold are excluded.
- Those in between are left for you to accept or reject one at a time.
Tags accepted from AutoCode are recorded as coming from the model rather than from you. AutoCode needs a cloud provider — the default local model does not hold enough context to run it.