Documentation
Examples

Examples

Practical examples demonstrating IWE workflows and patterns.

Journal example

Let’s take this Markdown journal as an example.

journal-2025.md

## Week 3 - Coffee week
This week, I tried three types of coffee: the **cappuccino** with its bold espresso and frothy milk offering a delightful texture, the **latte** which envelops espresso and milk in a comforting embrace perfect for leisurely mornings, and the **cortado**, a balanced blend of espresso and milk that brings peace to the taste buds.
### Jan 26, 2025 - Cappuccino
It's cappuccino day. The classic Italian masterpiece, where espresso meets a frothy cloud of milk, creating a delightful contrast of bold and creamy. It's like sipping on a caffeine-infused cloud, perfect for anyone wanting to add a little texture to their daily routine.
### Jan 25, 2025 - Latte
As warm as a hug from an old friend, the latte wraps espresso and milk in a snug embrace. With a canvas for barista art, it's not just a drink, but a little piece of serenity in a cup for those more leisurely mornings when taking it slow is the only option.
### Jan 24, 2025 - Cortado
I had an amazing cortado today. It's when espresso and milk meet halfway in a charming truce, the cortado emerges. It's the perfect compromise, bringing balance to your coffee routine and peace to your taste buds.

The problem

This kind of document can grow very fast. As you add more weeks and days, the file becomes unwieldy and difficult to navigate.

The solution: extract

IWE can transform it by extracting sections into separate files linked via block-references. This transformation maintains the document hierarchy while reducing the level of details.

After extraction, your journal looks like:

journal-2025.md

# Journal, 2025
## Week 3 - Coffee week
This week, I tried three types of coffee: the **cappuccino** with its bold espresso and frothy milk offering a delightful texture, the **latte** which envelops espresso and milk in a comforting embrace perfect for leisurely mornings, and the **cortado**, a balanced blend of espresso and milk that brings peace to the taste buds.
[Jan 26, 2025 - Cappuccino](jan-26)
[Jan 25, 2025 - Latte](jan-25)
[Jan 24, 2025 - Cortado](jan-24)

And three daily files:

  • jan-26.md - Contains the cappuccino entry
  • jan-25.md - Contains the latte entry
  • jan-24.md - Contains the cortado entry

Going further: multi-level extraction

You can repeat this again, adding as many levels as necessary:

journal-2025.md

# Journal, 2025
[Week 3 - Coffee week](2025-W3)

Now you have:

  • journal-2025.md - Top-level yearly overview
  • 2025-W3.md - Weekly summary with links to daily entries
  • jan-26.md, jan-25.md, jan-24.md - Individual daily entries

Benefits

As a result of this decomposition:

  • Each document is much simpler and focused
  • The original hierarchy is preserved through links
  • It’s perfectly valid markdown with no additional syntax
  • Navigation is easy using go-to-definition
  • Backlinks show you what references each note

Reversing: inline

IWE supports automated actions for graph transformations like this. It can just as easily reconstruct the original document by inlining the extracted content together, preserving correct headings structure.

How to use

  1. Place cursor on the header you want to extract (e.g., ### Jan 26, 2025 - Cappuccino)
  2. Open code actions (Cmd+. in VS Code, space+a in Helix)
  3. Select “Extract section”
  4. The section is moved to a new file and replaced with a link