Every couple of weeks, Mark and Matt walk through the best updates and community questions from the Tana Slack. Week 23 covers a few features that just shipped, Mermaid diagrams, part-of breadcrumbs, and the new docs site, then two reader questions about driving field and tag changes with commands.
Mermaid diagrams [0:00]
You can now render Mermaid diagrams directly in Tana. Ask AI chat for, say, a left-to-right flowchart and it returns a Mermaid diagram. It works on the code block feature: the code sits behind a render button, so you can edit it inline, or paste your own Mermaid code in and set the language to Mermaid to render it. Beyond flowcharts you get ERDs, pie charts, bar charts, and more, so you can turn numbers in your fields into a visual. There's a workflow mapping systems lab that goes deeper on this.
Part-of breadcrumbs [2:06]
A field can now carry the semantic function "part of", toggled in its advanced settings. With it enabled, a node shows the breadcrumb of that part-of field above it, on top of its normal location breadcrumb, so you get multi-dimensional parents. For example, a project that's part of a marketing area shows that marketing path as a breadcrumb, and these chains expand across multiple levels. It pairs with the downstream searches part-of already enables, like finding every task under an area.
New docs site [4:12]
The docs you're reading are a brand new site. Two things to know. First, you can give feedback right on the page: hit the thumbs button, leave a note about anything unclear or missing, and that feedback gets collected, run through AI into edit proposals, and reviewed to update the docs quickly. Second, search is upgraded, type a word like "field" and you'll find every mention across the docs, not just the one feature page, so it's easier to see how features connect.
Updating a parent field from a child field [6:14]
Maggie asked how to update a parent's field when a child's field changes, for example marking a topic as "final copy" once its draft is. There's a way to run a command automatically on field change, but it's fiddly and fires on every keystroke, so a command node you trigger is more reliable.
Build a command whose node context targets the parent (or grandparent) and whose action is set field value, setting the same field to the same value. The original node has to live as a child of the topic for this to work. Then put a command on the draft tag that only appears when the draft's status is "in progress", and have it both update the parent's value and set its own status, which also clears the button once it's done.
Conditional commands [11:23]
Jim's question was similar but about changing the tag itself. Say a "claim" should become a "supported claim" once an evidence field is filled. Using the same node-filter idea, make a command that only shows when the evidence field is set, then have it add the supported-claim tag and remove the claim tag. You can wire the reverse too, so removing the evidence flips it back. Depending on your schema there are other routes, inheriting tags, or building the name from a type field, but this command approach works well for scanning and searching by state.
What's coming up [14:33]
The events calendar keeps its usual every-other-week rhythm: drop-in sessions for the new Tana, the MCP help sessions for Outliner, and Systems Lab events digging into real MCP use cases. Find the latest at tana.inc/community, and share your own workarounds in the Slack.