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Every piece of AI-produced content in Tessera, whether a tutor reply, a drafted course block, or a summary, uses the same markup. The markup says what the content is; a switchable stylesheet decides how it looks.

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The markup contract

Every style keeps these rules:
  • A text label (.ai-who) is always visible and says what the AI is and what it’s working from, for example “AI draft · from Week3_slides.pdf p. 4–7”.
  • Sources are always shown.
  • Review state (data-state="draft" or "kept") is legible without relying on color.

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Marginalia, the current style

The AI writes the way a scholar annotates a book: in the margin, with no box and no stripe.
  • A gutter glyph in violet marks who is speaking: ※ for the tutor and co-author, ¶ for drafted content blocks, † for summaries and insights.
  • The attribution is set in small caps in Fraunces.
  • The body is set in the reading serif, so AI text reads differently from interface text (IBM Plex Sans) even in grayscale.
  • Sources are numbered footnotes, with superscript markers in the text.
  • Review state is spelled out in words (“not yet reviewed”, ”· kept”).
Never use a sparkle icon, a colored left stripe, or a gradient to signal AI. Research by Nielsen Norman Group found no participant associated the sparkle icon with AI, and the colored left-stripe card was rejected as generic.

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Alternative styles

Three more styles are kept and can be switched in: index tab, perforated slip, and Tessera tiles. Add ?ai=tabs, ?ai=perforated, or ?ai=tiles to any page on the live site to preview one, or compare them all on the AI style exploration page.

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Draft-first behavior

  • AI output lands as a draft with Accept, Revert, and Regenerate. A person must mark it kept before learners see it.
  • A review-coverage meter shows what share of AI blocks a person has checked.
  • Adaptive choices show a one-line reason and an Undo, for example “Moved up because it is due in 26 hours”.
  • Bulk changes from the command palette appear as a change set: what the values were, what they’ll be, how many learners are affected, and any conflicts, before Apply.