Case files & RAG

Case files panel

The Case Files panel lets you query your documents in natural language, with clickable citations back to the sources.

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Index a directory

1. Click Open a folder
2. Select the directory containing your documents (PDF, DOCX, scanned files)
3. Indexing starts — seconds to minutes depending on volume
4. Processed files appear in the status bar

Supported formats: PDF (text and scanned), DOCX, DOC, TXT, Markdown, images (PNG, JPG, TIFF)

Note

The index (.scribe_index file) is created in your case directory. It contains only mathematical vectors — not a copy of your documents.

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Query the case file

Type your question in natural language and press Enter (or click the magnifying glass).

Examples:

• “What does witness Martin say about the night of March 12th?”
• “What amount is claimed by the opposing party?”
• “Is there a non-compete clause in the contract?”
• “Which documents mention the date of the incident?”

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Reading citations

Each answer is accompanied by clickable citations showing:

• The source file (document name)
• The page (for PDFs)
• The exact extracted passage

Absolute rule

Scribe Local never answers without citing a source. If no relevant passage is found, the app says so explicitly rather than generating an unsupported answer.

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Insert a citation into the document

Click Insert into document → below a citation — the excerpt is added to the editor with the document reference.

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Incremental update

If you add documents to the indexed directory, click Change folder and reselect the same directory — only new files are re-indexed.

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Index privacy

The RAG index is stored locally in your case directory:

• On macOS: in the selected directory, file .scribe_index
• On Windows: same

No document content or case material transits over the internet. All processing (OCR, vectorisation, search) happens on your machine.