StratoSort Core — End-to-End Walkthrough

A visual guide to every screen and feature in StratoSort Core, captured from the production Linux AppImage (latest release). Each section maps to one phase of the app workflow.

Platform shown: Ubuntu Linux, AppImage distribution. Launch command: ./StratoSortCore-X.X.X-linux-x86_64.AppImage

First Launch & Model Setup
Welcome Phase
Setup Phase — Smart Folders
Discover Phase — File Analysis
Organize Phase — Review & Execute
Complete Phase — Summary
Search & Knowledge OS
Settings — Full Reference
Videos

1. First Launch & Model Setup

On first launch, StratoSort checks for AI models in ~/.config/StratoSort Core/models/. If required models are missing, a setup wizard guides you through downloading them.

Model Selection

The wizard presents installation profiles and lets you choose which models to install:

Model Type	Purpose	Required?
Embedding Model (Nomic Embed Text v1.5)	Converts text to vectors for semantic search	Yes
Text Analysis Model (Qwen / Llama)	Analyzes documents and generates descriptions	Yes
Vision Model (LLaVA)	Analyzes images and screenshots	Optional

AI Model Setup Wizard — choose Base or Better Quality profile and start the one-time download

Model download wizard, per-model progress bars, and background installation

The wizard shows installation status for each model (Installed / Not installed) with download size estimates. Three action buttons are available:

Download Models — begins downloading selected models
Refresh — re-checks local model availability
Continue with limited AI — skips setup and enters the app immediately

Download Progress

During download, you see per-model progress bars with download speed and completion percentage. You can continue using the app while models download in the background.

2. Welcome Phase

After model setup (or if models are already present), you land on the Welcome screen.

The top bar is always visible and contains:

StratoSort logo with connection status indicator (green = AI engine ready)
Phase tabs: Welcome → Setup → Discover → Organize → Complete
Search button — opens the floating search widget / Knowledge OS
Settings gear — opens the configuration panel
Window controls — minimize, maximize, close

Welcome Actions

Action	What It Does
Organize files now	Jumps straight to Discover with smart defaults
AI & model settings	Opens the Settings panel to the AI Configuration section
Configure smart folders	Goes to the Setup phase
How does StratoSort work?	Opens a modal explaining the 3-step flow

Clicking “How does StratoSort work?” reveals the three core steps:

How StratoSort Works — ‘How it Works’ onboarding modal — three-step flow overview for new users

Discover — Drop folders, run system scans, or watch Downloads automatically
Analyze — Local AI reads file contents, context, and prior choices
Organize — Approve suggestions, rename intelligently, undo instantly

3. Setup Phase — Smart Folders

Smart Folders are the destinations the AI uses to organize your files. Each folder has a name, path, and description that the AI reads to decide where files belong.

Default Folder

A default “Uncategorized” folder is created at ~/StratoSort/Uncategorized for files that don’t match any other folder.

Adding a Smart Folder

Click + Add Folder to open the Add Smart Folder dialog:

Field	Description
Folder Name (required)	Display name — e.g., “Invoices”, “Photos”, “Projects”
Target Path (optional)	Filesystem path. Auto-fills based on name and default location
Description	Plain-language description of what files belong here. The AI uses this to match files.

The Generate with AI button can auto-create a description based on the folder name.

Tips

Create folders around real outcomes: Invoices, Receipts, Screenshots, Contracts
Write descriptions as if telling a coworker what goes in each folder
You can edit or delete folders anytime
Reset to Defaults restores the default folder set
At least one folder is required before continuing

Click Continue to Discovery when finished.

4. Discover Phase — File Analysis

This phase is where you add files for AI analysis. StratoSort reads file contents, extracts meaning, and generates organization suggestions.

Adding Files

Two methods to add files:

Select Files

Opens a file picker. Navigate to any directory, select individual files or use Ctrl+A to select all, then confirm.

File Selection — File selection dialog — pick individual files to import into the analysis queue

Scan Folder

Opens a folder picker. Select any directory and StratoSort automatically discovers all supported files within it.

Analysis Progress

Once files are added, AI analysis begins automatically:

Analysis In Progress — AI analysis in progress — confidence score, suggested name, and category shown per file

The progress bar shows:

File counter — “Analyzing X of Y” with percentage
Current file — which file is being processed
Stop Analysis button — halt processing at any time

Toast notifications confirm actions:

“Added N new files for analysis”
“Starting AI analysis of N files…”

Analysis Complete

When analysis finishes, a completion banner appears with:

Green status dot with “Analysis complete · 5 ready”
Toast notification: “Analysis complete! 5 files ready”
Results summary: “5 successful, 0 failed”
Clear Queue button to reset

The app automatically advances to the Organize phase once analysis is done.

Naming Strategy

Click Naming Strategy in the upper right to configure how files are renamed:

Setting	Options	Default
Convention	subject-date, date-subject, subject-only	subject-date
Date Format	YYYY-MM-DD, MM-DD-YYYY, DD-MM-YYYY	YYYY-MM-DD
Case	kebab-case, snake_case, camelCase, Title Case	kebab-case
Separator	dash, dot, underscore, none	dash

A live Preview shows the resulting filename format.

Knowledge OS Panel

Click Knowledge OS to open the semantic search and relationship panel:

Three tabs are available:

Discover — Search your files using natural language
Understand — View document summaries and extracted concepts
Relate — Explore relationships between files via the Knowledge Graph

The panel requires file embeddings. Click Build File Embeddings to generate the vector index from your analysis history.

5. Organize Phase — Review & Execute

After analysis, the Organize phase shows AI-generated suggestions for each file. You review and approve where each file should be moved and what it should be renamed to.

Note: The Organize tab is only accessible after files have been analyzed in the Discover phase. Navigation is enforced — the tab shows a count badge and a tooltip explaining why it may be disabled.

File Grid with AI Suggestions

Organize Phase — AI suggestions panel — review proposed moves and renames, then confirm or dismiss each

Each file card shows:

Original filename with “Ready” badge
Suggested Name — AI-generated filename following your naming convention
Category dropdown — editable destination folder
Confidence level — color-coded percentage (green = high)
Details link — view the full AI analysis

Example AI suggestions from a real analysis:

Original File	Suggested Name	Confidence
invoice-2026-0042.txt	consulting-invoice-2026-02-27.txt	100%
meeting-notes.txt	product-plan-session-notes-2026-02-27.txt	95%
onboarding-checklist.txt	onboarding-checklist-2026-02-27.txt	100%

Batch Operations

Click Select All to check all files, then use:

Approve Selected — Accept AI suggestions for all selected files
Bulk Edit — Change category or name pattern for multiple files at once
Deselect All — Clear the selection

Additional Features

Status Overview — Summary modal showing ready/pending/conflict counts
Conflict Detection — Highlights files with duplicate destination paths
Execute Organization — Moves and renames files according to approved suggestions
Undo/Redo — Full undo history for all organization operations
Processed Files — History of already-organized files

6. Complete Phase — Summary

After executing organization, the Complete phase shows a summary of:

Total files organized
Destination folders used
Any errors or conflicts encountered
Option to start a new session or undo recent changes

7. Search & Knowledge OS

Click the Search button in the navigation bar to open the floating search widget:

The widget provides:

Quick explanation of Knowledge OS capabilities
Open Knowledge OS button to launch the full interface
Keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+K from anywhere in the app

Knowledge OS Full Interface

After files are analyzed and embedded, Knowledge OS shows indexed content:

Knowledge OS Indexed — Knowledge OS with index ready — file count badge and search input active

The status bar shows “1 folder · 5 files indexed” confirming embeddings are built. Search tips guide users on natural language queries.

Searching for Files

Type a keyword or natural language description in the search bar:

Keyword search — “invoice”:

Invoice Search — Keyword search results for ‘invoice’ — file type badges and relevance scores displayed

Found “Consulting Invoice.txt” with 100% confidence
Tags extracted: consulting, invoice, business, consulting services, amount, due, March 15 2026
File preview shows full content and path
Action buttons: View in Graph, Ask AI, filter by Type

Natural language search — “meeting notes about product planning”:

Found “product_plan_session_notes.txt” with 95% confidence
Tags: product planning, meeting notes, action items, redesign homepage, update API docs
Full content preview with original file path
Open File button to launch the file directly

Discover Tab (Default)

Search bar — Describe what you’re looking for in natural language
Results list — Files ranked by semantic relevance with confidence scores
File preview — Content preview, tags, and actions on the right
Status indicators — Folder count and indexed file count
View in Graph — Visualize relationships between search results

Understand Tab — AI Conversational Chat

The Understand tab is a RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) chat interface for asking questions about your documents in natural language.

Features:

New Chat button to start a conversation
Search chats to find past conversations
Chat input — “Ask a question about your documents (e.g., ‘Summarize my tax returns’)…”
Ctrl+Enter to send messages

When you ask a question, the AI:

Searches your indexed documents for relevant sources
Shows “Searching documents…” then “Found N relevant sources…”
Generates a contextual answer using the matched content

AI Searching — AI retrieval in progress — the model fetches relevant chunks from the local vector index

AI Found Sources — AI response with cited sources — each answer links back to the originating document

Relate Tab — Knowledge Graph Visualization

The Relate tab provides an interactive Knowledge Graph for exploring relationships between your documents. The interface has three panels:

Left Panel — Graph Controls:

Current graph stats (Nodes, Links, Filters)
Insights — AI-generated organizational analysis
Add to Graph — Search and add files to the visualization
Explore / Actions / Advanced sections

Center — Graph Canvas:

Interactive node-link diagram with clusters
Clusters On/Off toggle
Zoom (+/−) and pan controls
Double-click clusters to expand into individual files

Right Panel — Legend & Node Details:

Node type legend: Cluster (orange), File (blue), Query (purple)
Connection types: Shared Tags, Same Category, Content Match, Vector Similarity
File category colors: Documents, Images, Audio, Spreadsheets, Code, Videos
Cluster confidence indicators

Cluster Exploration

Cluster Details — Cluster detail panel — why files were grouped together and per-file connection reasons

Clicking a cluster shows:

File count and confidence level
WHY THIS CLUSTER — Common tags/themes across files
WHY CONNECTED — Per-file connection reasons (Related content, Similarity connection)
Show only cluster / Show neighbors buttons

Expanded Cluster View

Cluster Expanded — Expanded cluster view — individual file nodes with relationship edges visible

Double-clicking a cluster expands it to show individual file nodes with relationship edges. The tooltip reads “4 related files. Right-click cluster to organize them.”

Graph Insights

The Insights panel provides organizational health metrics:

Topic clusters count
Bridge documents — files connecting different topic areas
Near-duplicates — potential duplicate files detected
Scattered files — orphan files without clear grouping
Organizational Health score (A through F, with percentage)

Full Graph with Legend — Full Knowledge Graph with legend — filter clusters, file types, and confidence levels

Building the Search Index

Knowledge OS requires embeddings to function. Embeddings are generated automatically during analysis when “Embedding Timing” is set to “During analysis” (the default). Two manual rebuild options are also available:

Build Folder Embeddings — Index files in Smart Folders
Build File Embeddings — Index all analyzed files

8. Settings — Full Reference

Click the gear icon (⚙) in the navigation bar to open Settings. The panel is organized into six collapsible sections.

Settings Panel — Settings panel — navigation overview with all configuration categories listed

8.1 AI Configuration

Local AI Engine

Status badge — Shows “Ready (cpu)” or “Ready (gpu)” with model count
GPU Acceleration — Toggle between CPU-only and GPU-accelerated inference
Refresh Models / View All Models — Manage available GGUF model files

Default AI Models

Text Model — The LLM used for document analysis (e.g., Qwen, Llama)
Vision Model — The model used for image analysis (e.g., LLaVA)
Embedding Model — The model used for vector search (e.g., Nomic Embed)

Model Management

Download additional GGUF models by entering the exact filename from the model registry.

Embedding Behavior

Embedding Settings — Embedding maintenance — timing controls and Rebuild All button after switching embedding models

Setting	Options	Default
Embedding Scope	All analyzed files, Organized files only	All analyzed files
Embedding Timing	During analysis, After organization	During analysis
Default Embedding Policy	Embed locally, Skip	Embed locally
Auto-generate Chunk Embeddings	On/Off toggle	On

Rebuild All Embeddings — Use after changing embedding models. Preserves analysis data while regenerating the search index.

8.2 Performance

Performance Settings — Performance settings — concurrent analysis limit, file size caps, and auto-organize toggle

Auto-Organize

Auto-organize Downloads — Automatically analyze and organize new files in your Downloads folder
Smart Folder Routing — Choose routing strategy:
- Auto (starts LLM-only, shifts to hybrid as embeddings build)
- LLM-only
- Embedding-first
- Hybrid

Background Mode

Background Mode — Keep StratoSort running in the system tray when the window closes

Processing Limits

Concurrent Analysis — Maximum simultaneous file analyses (default: 1)
Max file sizes — Separate limits for general files (100 MB), images (100 MB), and documents (200 MB)

Graph Retrieval

Enable Graph Expansion — Use relationship edges to pull related files into search results
Graph Expansion Weight — Slider (0–100%) controlling how much graph neighbors influence ranking (default: 20%)
Graph Neighbors Limit — Maximum neighbor files per query (default: 120)
Contextual Chunk Expansion — Use adjacent chunks for more context

8.3 Default Locations

Default Smart Folder Location — Base path where new Smart Folders are created (default: home directory)
Browse button — Select a different base path

File Naming Defaults

Controls how files are renamed by Download Watcher, Smart Folder Watcher, and Reanalyze All Files. Same options as the Naming Strategy modal in Discover.

8.4 Application

Application Settings — Application settings — launch on startup, minimize to tray, and theme preferences

Application Preferences

Launch on Startup — Auto-start StratoSort when you log in
Software Updates — Check for new versions with one click

Notifications

Enable Notifications — Master toggle
Display Mode:
- App and system tray (Recommended)
- App only (in-window toasts)
- System tray only
Notification Events:
- Auto-analyzed files — Notify when smart folder/download watchers analyze files
- Low confidence files — Notify when confidence is below the auto-organize threshold

Settings Backup & Restore

Create Backup — Save current settings to backup history
Export to File — Export settings as a portable file
Import from File — Restore settings from an export
Available Backups — List of timestamped backups with restore and delete actions

8.5 Analysis History

View Analysis History — Opens a viewer showing past analysis results and statistics
Useful for reviewing what the AI detected and how files were categorized

8.6 Diagnostics

Troubleshooting Logs

Open Folder — Opens the log directory in your file manager
Export Logs — Creates a log bundle for support tickets

Backend API Test

Test All APIs — Runs connectivity checks against all core services (LLM, vector DB, file system, etc.)

9. Videos

Here are some end-to-end walkthroughs showing real user interactions:

1. Welcome & Setup Walkthrough

Welcome screen, "How it works" modal, Setup phase, Add Folder dialog

2. Discover Phase & Analysis

Naming Strategy modal, Knowledge OS panel, file selection, multi-file import

3. Organize & Knowledge OS Demo

Working AI analysis results, Organize phase with suggestions, Knowledge OS semantic search

4. Knowledge OS All Tabs Complete

Discover search, Understand (AI chat with RAG), Relate (Knowledge Graph with clusters, insights, legend)

Linux-Specific Notes

Running the AppImage

# Make executable
chmod +x StratoSortCore-X.X.X-linux-x86_64.AppImage

# Launch
./StratoSortCore-X.X.X-linux-x86_64.AppImage

Models Directory

Models are stored in ~/.config/StratoSort Core/models/. The app creates this directory automatically and downloads models on first launch.

Settings Location

Application settings are stored in ~/.config/StratoSort Core/settings.json.

System Tray

On Linux, Background Mode places StratoSort in the system tray. Requires a tray-compatible desktop environment (GNOME with AppIndicator, KDE, XFCE).

E2E Walkthrough