---
title: "Sources"
description: "Every way to get your material in, and what happens to it once it's there."
source: https://hiy.ai/docs/sources
---

# Sources

A twin answers from your sources and nothing else. This is how material gets in.

## Where this lives

Knowledge is three panels, and they're listed across the top of the page
whichever one you're on:

- **Sources** — everything your twin has learned from, what state each one is
  in, and a way to remove any of them. Past eight sources you also get a filter
  on title and type, because a list you have to scroll is a list you stop
  checking.
- **Add** — the ways in below, plus bulk import.
- **What it knows** — the summary your twin writes from your sources, and the
  box for correcting it.

The sidebar also lists the three underneath Knowledge while you're on it, when
the sidebar is showing names rather than icons — that's a shortcut to the same
three places, not the only way to reach them.

Each panel has its own address, so the one you use is linkable and
bookmarkable: `/app?view=knowledge&panel=sources`, `…&panel=add`, and
`…&panel=base`. A plain `/app?view=knowledge` link — including every one you
saved before the panels existed — still works and opens Sources. Buttons that
mean *add something* take you straight to **Add**.

## Ways to add material

**Paste** — the fastest start. Drop in text and it's stored immediately, and answerable from the next train.

**A blog or a site** — give it a URL and it reads the pages it finds there.

**YouTube** — it uses the transcript, so a talk you gave becomes something your
twin can quote.

**Files** — documents you upload.

**LinkedIn or a CV** — the fastest way to give a twin your background.

**Bulk import** — several sources at once, when you're starting from an archive
rather than a blank page. Point it at a blog or a YouTube channel, pick what you
want, and the import runs on our servers: you can close the page as soon as it
starts, and it will finish, rebuild your twin's knowledge, and be there when you
come back. If a page or a video can't be read, that one is listed with the
reason and the rest still come in.

**[An assistant's memory](/docs/from-your-assistant)** — the facts ChatGPT,
Claude or Gemini already hold about you, pasted in and reviewed fact by fact.
It answers questions but never shapes your twin's voice.

**Starting from nothing** — until your twin has its first source, your Overview
opens with four starting points rather than a list of instructions: import a
page you wrote, paste something you wrote, upload a PDF or a doc, or bring what
ChatGPT or Claude already knows. Each one opens into a single field and adds
the source from that page, so the first source never depends on finding this
tab. They go away as soon as one exists.

## What happens after you add one

Adding a source doesn't rebuild your twin on the spot. The source is stored and
counted straight away, and it joins what your twin knows at the next
[**train**](/docs/training). Until then the twin keeps answering from the
material it already had — adding something never takes a working twin offline.

**Trains run overnight by themselves,** in your own timezone, and gather up
everything waiting into one rebuild. You can also start one whenever you like
from **Train → Train now**, which takes minutes rather than waiting for
tonight. Nothing is lost in between: the queue just grows, and the Train stage
shows how many changes are in it.

**The first source is the exception.** A twin with no index yet can't answer
anything at all, so its first material is built immediately rather than
waiting for the night — you add it, the page comes back, and it is answerable.
The message you get on adding always tells you which happened, so you never
have to guess.

While a change is waiting, the row carries a **Waiting** chip and asking about
it can still get an honest *I don't know*. The chip clears when the train
lands. Bulk import is the one thing that still rebuilds by itself: it runs on
our servers and trains once at the end, because "import this archive" is
already a batch and splitting it across two waits would help nobody.

A source you untick in **Train** reads **Held back** instead, and keeps reading
it until you tick it back on. Held material stays in your list and stays out of
every train — it is not waiting for anything, and it costs nothing against what
your plan holds. Ticking it back on puts it in the queue like any other change,
so the next train picks it up.

A source with no chip is live and answerable, which is most of your list most
of the time. That's why the settled state is the one with nothing to say: a
badge on every row would be furniture, and the state worth interrupting you for
is the one where your twin can't answer yet.

**Removing works the same way, and that matters more.** A removed source reads
**Removing** and leaves the index at the next train — until then your twin can
still answer from it. If you need it gone now rather than tonight, remove it
and then press **Train now**; that rebuild is what actually takes the material
out.

**Removing is never paused.** Your plan includes a number of trains a month,
and running out pauses the overnight ones — but never a train that is taking
something out. A source you delete leaves the index at the next night whatever
your month looks like, and **Train now** stays available for it. Taking your
own material down is not something you can run out of.

Deleting the last source empties the index and takes the page off the air at
the same time — at that train, not at the moment you press delete, so a twin
you have shared keeps answering until the rebuild lands.

Your material trains your twin alone. Never a shared model, never someone
else's twin, never sold.

## If a rebuild fails

Rebuilds retry on their own, and most problems clear themselves. When one runs
out of retries, Knowledge says so at the top of the page: **Last rebuild
failed**, when it happened, and — the part that actually matters — the date of
the index your twin is still answering from.

Nothing is lost and your twin does not go offline. The previous index keeps
answering the whole time, because the swap only happens at the end of a build
that worked. What you lose is the newest material: anything added since that
date is not in its answers yet. **Try the rebuild again** starts a fresh one,
and the notice clears itself when that finishes.

If it keeps failing, the source added just before it is the usual cause —
remove it, rebuild, and add it back on its own to see.

## Sources and citations

A grounded answer cites the passage it used, and a visitor can open it and read
the surrounding text. hiy's own summary of your material is never quoted to a
visitor and doesn't count as one of your sources — only what you actually wrote
does.

You choose whether visitors see the sources behind answers at all. Hiding them
hides the citations from visitors — your own test chat still shows you
everything. What no setting hides is an honest gap: when your twin says it
doesn't know, it still shows how many searches it ran first.

## When your sources don't cover something

The twin says so rather than guessing, and shows how many searches it ran first. That
question then queues for you, and answering it once turns your answer into a
source the twin cites from then on.

Removing a source takes it out of the next rebuild. Correcting one is
authoritative — it overrides the outdated claim outright. Either way, fix it
once and the old claim is gone.