Working with Timelines

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A timeline is the top-level container for an investigation. Everything you build — events, claims, sources, entities — lives within or connects through a timeline.

Creating a Timeline

Hobby tier limit: Hobby accounts can create up to 10 timelines. If you reach the limit, you'll see an upgrade prompt when attempting to create another. Your current timeline count is shown next to the New button on the home page. Upgrade to Professional for unlimited timelines. See Account and Subscription.

From the Home Page

1. Navigate to the home page (click the logo or Timelines in the sidebar).
2. Click the + New Timeline button.
3. Fill in the dialog fields:

1. Click Create.

You will be taken to the new timeline detail page, which will be empty.

Keyboard Shortcut

• G then T — Go to Timelines list from anywhere in the application

The Timeline Detail Page

The timeline detail page has five main areas:

1. Header Bar

The sticky header at the top shows:

• Timeline title — with the status badge next to it. Status colors:

- Amber — fact-finding
- Blue — verification
- Emerald — ongoing
- Slate — resolved

• Action buttons (for non-read-only timelines):

- History (clock icon) — View the timeline's revision history
- Edit (pencil icon) — Modify the timeline's metadata
- Entity Graph (fork icon) — Open the timeline-specific entity relationship graph
- Map (map pin icon) — Open the timeline-specific geographic map of event locations
- Timeline Graph (list tree icon) — Open the timeline-specific chronological graph visualization
- Delete (trash icon) — Delete the entire timeline (requires confirmation)

• Toolbar buttons (right side):

- + Event — Create a new event on this timeline
- Filters — Toggle the filter panel
- CSV — Download the timeline as CSV
- JSON — Download the timeline as NDJSON

2. Filters Panel

Click Filters to reveal the filter panel. It appears as a sticky bar below the header.

Available filters:

• Text search — Filter events by title or description containing your search term
• Status filter — Show only events with a specific status (confirmed, alleged, disputed, reported, etc.)
• Confidence filter — Show only events with claims at a specific confidence level (high, medium, low)
• Zoom slider — Adjust the density of event cards (10% to 200%)

Click Filters again or the chevron to collapse the panel.

3. Timeline Health

Below the filter bar, a collapsible health summary shows aggregate statistics:

• Total events — and how many have no claims attached
• Claim coverage — percentage of events that have at least one claim
• Total claims — across all events
• Unique sources — distinct sources cited across all claims
• Status breakdown — count of events by status

Click the bar to expand or collapse the detail view. A claim coverage progress bar gives you at-a-glance understanding of how sourced your timeline is.

What you'll see: If some events lack claims, the "no claims" count appears in amber. This is a prompt — those events need sourcing.

4. Event Sequence (Infinite Scroll)

The main content area displays events in chronological order, loaded in pages of 50.

Each event appears as a card showing:

• Title — with a status badge and time precision indicator
• Canonical time — formatted as YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM in monospace
• Description — truncated preview (expand the card to see full description)
• Claims count — how many claims are attached
• Entity count — how many entities are linked

Click an event card to select it. The right-side context panel updates to show that event's details.

Keyboard navigation within the timeline:

5. Context Panel

The right sidebar shows details for the currently selected event:

• Event metadata — title, status, time, precision
• Linked entities — entities connected to this event
• Location — an interactive map if the event has coordinates
• Claims — all claims for this event, with source links and confidence scores

Editing a Timeline

1. On the timeline detail page, click the Edit (pencil icon) button in the header.
2. The Edit Timeline dialog opens with the current values pre-filled.
3. Modify the title, slug, status, or summary.
4. Click Save.

Changing the status from fact-finding to verification is a semantic signal to your team: "we are now actively verifying claims." It doesn't enforce any rules — it's a communication protocol.

Keyboard Shortcut

• Press Escape to close the dialog without saving.

Deleting a Timeline

1. Click the Delete (trash icon) button in the header.
2. A confirmation dialog appears asking you to confirm.
3. Click Delete to permanently remove the timeline.

Warning: Deleting a timeline is a soft delete — the data is archived but recoverable through the revision system. However, it will no longer appear in your account's timeline list.

Exporting a Timeline

Tier requirement: CSV and JSON export requires a Professional or Enterprise subscription. Hobby users who click the export buttons will see an upgrade prompt. See Account and Subscription for details.

From the timeline detail page toolbar, you can export the entire timeline in two formats:

CSV Export

Click CSV to download a comma-separated values file. This format includes:

• One row per event-claim pair
• Event ID, timeline ID, event title, description, canonical time, time precision, status
• Claim text, claim status, confidence score, source title, source type

Suitable for spreadsheet analysis, data visualization, or sharing with collaborators who don't have access to the application.

JSON Export

Click JSON to download a newline-delimited JSON (NDJSON) file. This format includes:

• One JSON object per event
• Nested claims array with source references
• Entity links
• Full metadata

Suitable for programmatic processing, feeding into language models, or importing into other systems.

Markdown Export

Click Markdown to download a formatted Markdown file. This format includes:

• Event titles as headings
• Canonical timestamps and precision indicators
• Event descriptions and statuses
• Claims with source references and confidence scores

Suitable for generating reports, documentation, or handoff summaries.

The downloaded filename will be timeline-{timelineId}.csv, timeline-{timelineId}.ndjson, or timeline-{timelineId}.md.

Timeline Map

Each timeline has its own map page that shows all events with geographic locations plotted on an interactive map.

Opening the Map

1. From any timeline detail page, click the Map (map pin icon) button in the header.
2. The map page opens, showing all events with location data.

Map Layout

• Left sidebar — Lists all events that have location data, sorted chronologically. Each event is numbered, and the same number appears on its map marker.
• Map area — A full-screen interactive map with numbered markers for each event location. Markers with the same coordinates are combined into a single marker with a count badge.

Interacting with the Map

• Click a marker — Opens the event detail page in a new browser tab.
• Hover a marker — Shows a tooltip with the event title and timestamp.
• Zoom and pan — Use scroll to zoom, drag to pan, or the +/- controls in the corner.

Keyboard Shortcuts

What you'll see: If no events in the timeline have geographic locations, the map shows an empty state message. Add location coordinates to events (see Working with Events → Location) to populate the map.

Entity Graph

Each timeline has its own entity graph page that visualizes the relationship network between entities connected to the timeline's events.

Opening the Entity Graph

1. From any timeline detail page, click the Entity Graph (fork icon) button in the header.
2. The entity graph page opens, showing the entity relationship network.

Using the Entity Graph

• Click an entity in the sidebar to pin it and zoom to its relationships.
• Search for entities using the search bar.
• Drag nodes to rearrange the layout.
• Toggle layout between circle and tree view.
• Export the graph as a PNG image.

See Entities and Relationships for detailed entity graph usage.

Timeline Graph

Each timeline has a graph visualization that displays events along a vertical chronological axis with event cards branching to the left and right.

Opening the Timeline Graph

1. From any timeline detail page, click the Timeline Graph (list tree icon) button in the header.
2. The graph page opens, showing the chronological visualization.

Switching Layout

Click the Horizontal / Vertical toggle button (arrow icon) in the header bar to flip between vertical and horizontal orientation. The center line and connectors adapt to the selected layout.

Graph Layout

• Center line — A vertical line running from before the earliest event to after the latest event, showing the chronological flow.
• Event cards — Cards alternating left and right of the center line, each showing the event title, time, status, and a link to the event detail page.
• Connector lines — Horizontal lines connecting each event card to the center line.
• Time precision indicators — Each marker on the center line shows how precisely the event's time is known:

Legend

A sticky legend bar at the bottom of the graph page explains the four precision indicator styles.

Interacting with the Graph

• Click an event card — Opens the full event detail page in the same tab.
• Scroll vertically — Browse through events along the chronological axis.

Empty State

If the timeline has no events, the graph page shows an empty state message: "No events in this timeline."

Read-Only (Sample) Timelines

Timelines marked as sample have a distinctive amber badge in the header. These are pre-populated demo timelines provided with the application (Apollo 11, Watergate, Operation Ghost Courier, etc.).

On sample timelines:

• You can view all data — events, claims, sources, entities
• You can navigate with keyboard shortcuts
• You can filter and search
• You cannot create, edit, or delete anything
• You cannot export
• The + Event, Edit, and Delete buttons are hidden

Sample timelines are an excellent way to explore the application before creating your own data.

Timeline Health Deep Dive

The health panel is your dashboard for data completeness. Here's how to interpret each metric:

A healthy timeline has:

• Every event supported by at least one claim
• Claims sourced from diverse, specific sources
• Events progressing through statuses (not all stuck at reported)
• A claim coverage percentage above 75%

Next: Working with Events →