4 · Review modes

A mode decides how a card is tested — from “reveal it and be honest with yourself” to “type it exactly.” alix has six. Set one with --mode on the command line, or per deck or card with a % mode: directive; the effective mode resolves --mode flag > card’s % mode: > deck’s % mode: > the default (flip). A small badge above the answer always shows which mode is in play.

The point of having several is to match the test to what you’re training — recognition, exact recall, or understanding.

flip — reveal and self-grade (default)

You read the question, recall the answer, reveal it, and grade yourself: again (missed), good, or easy (easy jumps the card two Leitner stages instead of one). It’s the Anki-style default, and the right choice whenever you can fairly judge your own answer — conceptual questions, explanations, anything open-ended.

# Why is UDP described as connectionless?
    It sends datagrams with no handshake and no delivery guarantee.

typing — type it exactly

You type the back of the card character by character, with instant green/red feedback. Tab reveals the next two characters as a hint (press again for two more), but a card you needed a hint on counts as failed. Use it where the answer must be exact — syntax, spellings, command flags, a formula.

# Stage every change in git, including deletions?
    git add -A
    % mode: typing

fuzzy — type it, typos forgiven

Like typing, but you submit a whole line with Enter and small typos are tolerated (the tolerance is configurable; --max-typos defaults to 2). When the answer is several lines, each is checked and their order doesn’t matter. Reach for it when you want the effort of producing the answer without being failed for a slipped key.

A wrong answer in typing or fuzzy drops the card to stage 1 and brings it back later in the same session until you get it.

choice — pick from four

You choose the answer from four options with 1–4. The three wrong options are sampled automatically from the other cards’ answers (preferring similar-looking ones — years compete with years), so you never have to write distractors. Recognition is easier than recall, so a correct pick grades good (never easy) and a wrong pick fails. If a session has fewer than four distinct answers, the card falls back to flip.

AI distractors. For wrong options written by Claude instead — plausible, tempting answers the kind a half-learned mind would fall for — augment the deck ahead of time:

alix deck augment mydeck.txt --target choices --with "use common misconceptions"

This is a deliberate, one-off command: it generates the distractors once and caches them by card id (in augment.json beside your progress). Review reads the cache automatically, so study stays instant and fully offline — Claude is never called while you study. A card without cached distractors falls back to the sampled ones above, so it never loses its options; and because the AI brings its own wrong answers, choice mode works even on a deck too small to sample from. See the augmentation chapter for --target notes and the rest.

line — one line at a time

The back is revealed one line at a time: press the reveal key (Space), recalling each line before you uncover it; once the whole card is shown you grade yourself like flip. It’s for ordered material — lyrics, poems, a sequence of steps. Pair it with % order: sequential so the deck walks top to bottom (one card per verse, say).

explain — open prompt, key points

The back lines aren’t a string to reproduce — they’re the key points a good answer should cover. You optionally type an explanation, reveal the points, and grade yourself on whether you hit them. It’s for cards aimed at understanding rather than recall. The typing is never checked — a self-graded mode can’t verify your answer, so it doesn’t pretend to; it’s there to make you commit before you peek. explain pairs with the ask-Claude tutor and is the everyday, self-graded tier beneath the AI exam (a later chapter).

# Explain why spaced repetition beats massed review.
    Retrieval just before forgetting strengthens memory the most.
    Spacing forces effortful recall; cramming lets you coast on short-term memory.
    % mode: explain

To drop a card mid-session, press the remove key (Ctrl-X by default) instead of grading it: it leaves the session and is deleted from the deck file when you finish.