Glossary

Terms and names used throughout Recall and this documentation.

A

Advanced Word Integration. macOS-only alternative Word integration mode that uses a task-pane add-in instead of Apple Events. Requires trusting Recall's HTTPS certificate and installing a manifest. Use this only if the Recommended mode doesn't work on your Mac.

Apple Events. macOS inter-application messaging. Recall's Recommended Word integration mode on macOS uses Apple Events. Controlling another app this way requires an Automation permission granted by the user.

Assist. The chat half of Clerk. You ask questions; Clerk answers using the documents in the current matter as context. Supports several task modes — Chat, Summarize, Explain, Research, Draft.

Auto-Updates. The background update checker built into Recall Core. Checks for updates 30 seconds after launch and then every 4 hours. Never downloads or installs without your confirmation. See Auto-Updates.

C

Category. A free-text tag you can apply to documents or pins. Useful for filtering and grouping within a matter. A document can have multiple categories; a pin has one.

Citation. A formatted legal reference like Smith v. Jones, 123 F.3d 456, 789 (9th Cir. 2024). Recall auto-detects citations inside documents and generates citations for documents you insert.

Citation Style. Per-matter setting that controls how Recall formats generated citations. Two values: federal (default) and california.

ChatQA. Optional retrieval-planning model used by the experimental Retrieval LLM feature. Two quantizations are available for download in Settings → Enhancements; nothing else depends on it.

Clerk. Recall's AI assistant. Lives in the Write-mode right pane. Has two sub-panels: Edit (rewrite selected text in one of several styles) and Assist (chat-style Q&A over the documents in the matter).

COM Automation. Windows inter-application messaging. Recall's Word Bridge uses COM to control Word on Windows. No user permission is required — it just works as long as Word is installed and running.

Context-Aware Citation. A citation generated for a pin that takes the surrounding document text into account (e.g., picking short form over full form when the same authority was just cited). Generated by Recall Core on demand.

Core, Core Service, Recall Core. The background service that powers Recall. Runs on your computer in local mode or on a shared machine in server mode. The Flutter UI talks to it over HTTPS.

Custom Model. A .gguf embedding or generator model file you supplied yourself. Drop it into custom_models/embedders/ or custom_models/generators/ under the data root, then click Refresh Custom Models in Settings to expose it.

D

Data Root. The single folder Recall uses for all on-disk data. %LocalAppData%\Recall\ on Windows, ~/Library/Application Support/Recall/ on macOS, or a server-configured path.

Distribution. A specific build of Recall. There are four — Windows Full, Windows UI-Only, macOS Full, macOS UI-Only. Full bundles CoreService and models; UI-Only bundles just the Flutter UI and is used with a remote server.

Document. A PDF you've uploaded to a matter. Recall extracts text, runs citation detection, and indexes it for search.

E

E5 / E5-Large-Instruct. An optional embedding model. General-purpose, multilingual, 768-dimensional vectors. ~1.4 GB. Downloaded on demand from Hugging Face.

Edit. The rewriting half of Clerk. Select text in a document, pick a style (Lengthen / Shorten / Formalize / Simplify / Fix Grammar / Summarize), generate alternatives, send the chosen one back into Word.

Embedder, Embedding Model. The model that converts chunks of document text into vectors for semantic search. Recall ships with ModernBERT bundled; E5 and all-MiniLM are optional downloads.

F

Full Citation. The first, complete form of a legal citation (e.g., Smith v. Jones, 123 F.3d 456, 460 (9th Cir. 2024)). Subsequent references typically use short forms or Id./Ibid.

Full Install. The distribution that includes everything — Recall Core, bundled models, Flutter UI, llama binaries. About 1.2 GB.

G

Generator, Generator Model. The LLM that writes text for Clerk Edit, Clerk Assist, and parenthetical generation. Llama 3.1 8B is bundled; Phi-3.5 Mini is an optional download; remote OpenAI-compatible endpoints are supported in server deployments.

GGUF. The quantized model file format used by llama.cpp. All optional downloadable models and all custom models in Recall are GGUF files.

I

Id./Ibid. Shortened citations referring to the immediately preceding authority. Recall detects Id. citations during in-document extraction and links them to their antecedent.

Invite PIN. An 8-character code an administrator generates to invite a user to register on a server-mode Recall deployment. PINs expire after 7 days and can be revoked before they're consumed.

K

Keyword Search. Full-text matching against the exact terms you typed, against the document's extracted text.

L

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct. The bundled generator. About 4.7 GB.

Local mode. Recall Core runs on your computer. No network required after first-run setup. The default for the Full install.

M

Matter. A container for a single case, research topic, or project. Documents, pins, and the Notes editor are all scoped to a matter. Create a new matter for each distinct piece of work.

ModernBERT. Recall's bundled embedding model. A legal-domain fine-tune. ~570 MB.

N

Notes. A per-matter WYSIWYG editor in the Write-mode right pane, built on SuperEditor. One notes document per matter; saved automatically.

O

Organization. The unit of data isolation in server mode. Each organization has its own database, its own documents directory, and its own users. Data from one organization is never visible to another. In local mode, there is a single built-in organization called local-org.

P

Parenthetical. A short explanatory phrase appended to a citation, e.g. (holding that summary judgment is appropriate when the movant demonstrates no genuine dispute). Recall can generate these from a pinned excerpt.

Pin. A saved excerpt from a document — usually something worth citing. Includes the excerpt text, page number, pinpoint, source document, optional category, optional notes, and an insertion count.

Pinpoint. The specific page or section reference inside a cited source — e.g. 789 or *123. Recall derives pinpoints from text selections using the document's page-range metadata.

Phi-3.5 Mini Instruct. An optional smaller generator model. ~3.8 GB.

R

Rebuild Index. Re-embed every document in every matter using the currently selected embedder. Required after changing embedders. Can take a while depending on your document set.

Recall Core. See Core.

Research mode. The workspace mode focused on search and reading. The top bar's Write / Research toggle switches to this mode. Layout: document list left, PDF viewer center, search results right.

Retrieval LLM. Experimental feature that uses a downloaded ChatQA variant for query planning. Off by default.

S

Semantic Search. Vector-similarity search. The query is embedded and compared against document chunks using cosine similarity.

Server mode. Recall Core runs on a shared machine; the Flutter UI connects to it over HTTPS. Supports multiple users and organizations, invite-gated registration.

Session token. The authentication credential Recall issues on login in server mode. Tokens last 24 hours; once expired, you're prompted to log in again.

Setup Wizard. The first-run flow that covers certificate trust, Word integration, model downloads, creating your first matter, and a getting-started screen. Can be re-run anytime from the gear menu.

sqlite-vec. The open-source SQLite extension Recall uses for vector search.

Short Form. Abbreviated reference to an authority already cited in full (e.g. Smith, 123 F.3d at 790). Recall detects short forms during in-document citation extraction.

SmartScreen. Windows' download-reputation warning. Recall's Windows installer isn't code-signed yet, so SmartScreen shows a warning the first time you run it — click More info → Run anyway.

SuperEditor. The Flutter WYSIWYG editor package Recall's Notes feature is built on.

Supra. Reference to an earlier full citation elsewhere in the document. Recall detects supra references and links them back.

T

Test Connection. A Settings button that runs a small health check against the current target — a server reachability check in Connection settings, a Word integration self-test on macOS.

U

UI-Only. A distribution that contains only the Flutter UI. Pointed at a remote Recall Core server. About 63 MB. Use this if your organization hosts Recall Core centrally.

Update, Auto-Update. See Auto-Updates.

User. An account in server mode. Belongs to exactly one organization. Identified by an email address.

V

Velopack. The open-source framework Recall uses to package installers and ship delta updates. You don't interact with it directly.

W

Word Bridge. The Windows-only component that bridges Recall to Microsoft Word via COM automation.

Write mode. The workspace mode focused on drafting. Layout: Pins/Suggested left, PDF/Clerk/Notes right. Toggle with the top-bar Write / Research segmented control.