Generating Cards

There are multiple ways to add cards to Amber.

Creating cards manually

You can create cards directly in the web app. Each card has a front (the question/prompt) and a back (the answer/explanation), both stored as plain text that may include code snippets.

Importing from other apps

Amber supports importing decks from Anki (.apkg) and Mochi (.mochi). See Importing & Exporting for details.

Automatic generation via the Claude Code plugin

If you use Claude Code, the optional plugin generates flashcards automatically. A stop hook fires after each Claude Code turn and starts a background timer (default: 10 minutes). When the timer fires, the plugin:

Reads the full conversation transcript
Fetches your existing cards to avoid duplicates
Generates new flashcards from key concepts
Uploads them to your Amber account

Cards appear silently in the web app — no in-conversation interruption.

Using the CLI

You can also upload cards manually via the CLI:

amber upload [file]

Pass a JSON file of cards, or use it inline.

What gets extracted?

The card generator (whether via plugin or CLI) looks for:

New APIs or libraries you learned about
Debugging techniques and solutions
Architectural patterns and design decisions
Configuration and setup steps
Language features or syntax you encountered

Card quality

Cards are generated to test understanding, not surface-level recall. Instead of “What does Array.map do?”, you’ll get questions like “How would you transform an array of user objects into an array of just their email addresses?”

Deduplication

If a concept already exists in your collection, it won’t create a duplicate card. The generator compares against your existing cards before uploading.