anki-recipes

name	anki-recipes
description	Use this skill when adding, querying, or updating cards in Alp's Anki collection — especially the German "Deutsch: 4000 German Words by Frequency" deck. Covers the custom Grammar/Notes/Conjugation fields and their card templates, the anki MCP workflow, the schema-change → full-sync gotcha, the HTML/CSS conventions, and the content style for grammar notes.

Alp's Anki

For reading and enriching cards in Alp's Anki collection via the mcp__anki__* MCP server (a wrapper around the AnkiConnect add-on). Anki desktop must be running with AnkiConnect installed, or every call fails.

The anki MCP tools are deferred — load schemas with ToolSearch before calling, e.g. ToolSearch("select:mcp__anki__findNotes,mcp__anki__notesInfo,mcp__anki__updateNoteFields,mcp__anki__sync"). Commonly needed: listDecks, modelNames, modelFieldNames, modelTemplates, modelStyling, findNotes, notesInfo, updateNoteFields, addModelField, updateModelTemplates, updateModelStyling, sync.

The German deck

• Deck: Deutsch: 4000 German Words by Frequency
• Note type (model): Memrise - 4000 German Words by Frequency
• Two card templates: English -> German and German -> English (each note makes 2 cards).
• Original Memrise fields (don't restructure these): German, Picture, German Alternatives/Hidden/Typing Corrects, English (+ same trio), Plural and inflected forms (+ trio), Sample sentence (+ trio), Part of Speech, Audio, Level, Thing.

Custom fields added for this workflow (indices 21–23)

Field	Renders as	Purpose
Grammar	always-visible callout box on the back	terse structured facts (case, prep type, principal parts)
Conjugation	▸ Conjugation collapsible (<details>), back only	verb paradigm as an HTML table
Notes	▸ Notes collapsible (<details>), back only	freeform prose explanation

All three are wrapped in {{#Field}}…{{/Field}} conditionals, so a card with the field empty renders exactly as before — no clutter. Back-of-card order: Grammar box → Conjugation → Notes. Fronts were never modified.

Enriching a card — the standard flow

1. sync first (pull latest; Alp reviews on iPhone).
2. Find the card — match the headword against the German field exactly:
   • deck:"Deutsch: 4000 German Words by Frequency" German:werden → exact field match.
   • German:zum* → prefix; a bare word (German:ins) returning 0 means the card doesn't exist.
   • A plain term (copilot.microsoft.com) is full-text across all fields.
3. notesInfo to read current field values (append to existing Notes, don't clobber).
4. updateNoteFields with only the fields you're changing.
5. sync again to push.

Rules of engagement (learned from Alp's preferences)

• Never create duplicate cards. If the headword already exists (even niche ones like sondern, nicht nur...sondern auch, both am cards), enrich the existing note. Only create new notes when Alp explicitly asks — and confirm first, since content edits vs. note creation are different commitments.
• Don't "litigate the cards" — do not renumber or rewrite the English / Part of Speech / typing-corrects fields. They ripple into audio/typing expectations. Put clarifications in Grammar/Notes instead. (E.g. zu's messy "1) to, at; 2) too / to" gloss was left alone; the 3-sense split went in Notes.)
• Clean up Copilot links. Early cards had <a href="copilot.microsoft.com/..."> jammed into Sample sentence. Strip them and move any real content into Notes.
• Watch phone line-wrapping. A mid-phrase wrap can mislead (e.g. ist geworden looked like ist was a separate principal part). Keep multi-word units glued / labeled.

Content conventions

• Grammar (plain text + light <b>/<i>): one or two dense lines. Lead with the caveat when a card invites overgeneralization (e.g. im = in + dem only (dative m/n) — NOT a general "in the").

• Notes (HTML): use <br/> for line breaks, <b>/<i>, · (·) as a separator,    to indent. Be accurate and honest — if English can't disambiguate two words (auf vs an), say so and give the real cue (geometry: auf = horizontal top, an = vertical/edge).

• Conjugation (HTML table): pronouns down the side, tenses across the top. Standard template:

  <table>
  <tr><th></th><th>Präsens</th><th>Präteritum</th><th>Konj. II</th></tr>
  <tr><td>ich</td><td>…</td><td>…</td><td>…</td></tr>
  <tr><td>du</td>…</tr>
  <tr><td>er/sie/es</td>…</tr>
  <tr><td>wir</td>…</tr>
  <tr><td>ihr</td>…</tr>
  <tr><td>sie/Sie</td>…</tr>
  </table>
  <b>Perfekt:</b> ist/hat …<br/>
  <b>Imperativ:</b> …! &middot; …! &middot; … Sie!
  

  Include Konjunktiv II (the würde-conditional) and note the perfect auxiliary (sein vs haben). Whenever adding/enriching a verb, fill in this Conjugation table.

Sync rules & the schema-change gotcha

Anki syncs at the object level: reviewing a card (scheduling/revlog) and editing its fields (note object) are different objects, so a normal sync merges both — Alp's phone review progress and Mac content edits coexist with no conflict, no direction to pick.

Content-only edits (updateNoteFields) sync cleanly via mcp__anki__sync.

Schema/structural changes — addModelField, updateModelTemplates, adding a note type — bump the collection's schema time and force a full one-way sync. mcp__anki__sync then returns Sync status 2 (ChangesRequired) and cannot proceed. Recovery, in order (avoids losing un-synced phone reviews):

1. Alp syncs the iPhone first (push its reviews to AnkiWeb).
2. Make the schema change on the Mac via MCP.
3. Alp opens Anki desktop → Sync → chooses Upload to AnkiWeb.
4. Alp re-syncs the phone to pull.

Always tell Alp this is coming before a schema change, and have him sync the phone first. The Grammar/Notes/Conjugation fields already exist, so routine verb/word enrichment is now content-only (no upload dance).

Gotchas

• findNotes over a whole deck can exceed the output token limit — it saves to a file. Probe with jq 'length' <file> / extract IDs with jq '.noteIds[0:3][]' rather than reading raw; or hand it to a subagent.
• Don't view a note in the Anki browser while updateNoteFields runs — the update won't stick. Close the browser / switch notes first.
• updateModelStyling replaces all CSS — always pass the full stylesheet, not a fragment.

Card template & CSS reference

Back-side blocks appended after the plural block (both templates):

{{#Grammar}}<div class="grammar-note"><span class="label">Grammar:</span> {{Grammar}}</div>{{/Grammar}}
{{#Conjugation}}<details class="conj"><summary>Conjugation</summary><div class="conj-body">{{Conjugation}}</div></details>{{/Conjugation}}
{{#Notes}}<details class="notes"><summary>Notes</summary><div class="notes-body">{{Notes}}</div></details>{{/Notes}}

CSS classes in the model (with .nightMode variants for the phone): .grammar-note + .grammar-note .label (blue-tinted callout, left border); .notes / .conj + their summary (blue, bold, clickable) and -body; .conj table th, td (bordered, padded, 14px, header row tinted). If you ever need to rebuild them, modelStyling / modelTemplates return the current source.