Are.na for Raycast

Search your collections, save references, and connect ideas on Are.na without leaving Raycast. Browse channels and blocks, preview text and images, or use Raycast AI to organize your research.

Getting started

1. Open any Are.na command in Raycast.
2. Sign in to your Are.na account when prompted.
3. Start with My Channels to browse your collections or Search Everything to discover content.

Prefer a personal access token? Create one in Are.na’s token settings and enter it in the extension’s Personal Access Token preference. Leave that preference blank to use browser sign-in. Your token needs write access to create, edit, or remove content.

The extension supports macOS. Available content and editing actions depend on your Are.na account’s permissions.

Commands

Command	What you can do
Search Everything	Search channels, blocks, and users together. Save queries and revisit recent searches.
Find Channels	Discover channels, sort results, and browse their contents.
Find Blocks	Search text, images, links, attachments, and embeds with type filters and sorting.
Find Users	Find people on Are.na and browse search results.
My Channels	Browse channels you created, with more results loaded as you scroll.
My Profile	View your profile and account counts.
Create Channel	Create a public, closed, or private channel with an optional Markdown description.
Create Block	Save a URL or Markdown text to one or more channels.
Open Are.na Link	Open a channel or block directly in Raycast using its URL or ID, or a channel slug.

Save and organize

Save a reference

Open Create Block, paste a URL or write text in Markdown, and choose the destination channels. You can add an optional title and description.

The Channels field accepts up to 20 channel URLs, slugs, or IDs, separated by commas. For example: design-notes, reading-list. Use your own channel identifiers. Are.na processes URLs into the appropriate block type.

To add an existing block to another channel, use Connect Block to Channels from the block’s actions.

Work with your collections

From search results and channel views, you can:

• Preview text and images, open source links, and download images or attachments.
• Create blocks in a channel or edit a block’s title, text content, and description.
• Connect blocks to other channels or remove them from the current channel.
• Edit a channel’s title, description, and visibility, manage collaborators, or delete a channel.

Remove from This Channel removes only that connection. Delete Block deletes the block itself. Removal and deletion actions ask for confirmation.

Choose channel visibility

Visibility	Meaning
Public	Visible to everyone and open to contributions.
Closed	Visible to everyone, with contributions restricted.
Private	Access is restricted.

Use with Raycast AI

Mention the Are.na extension in Raycast AI to search, read, create, and organize content through your connected account.

Try these prompts, replacing example channel names and block IDs with your own:

• “Find image blocks about typography in my Are.na content.”
• “Save the text ‘A note about typography’ to my design-notes channel.”
• “Connect existing block 123 to my references channel.”
• “Change the description of design-notes to ‘Typography research’.”
• “Give me a sampled overview of my design-notes channel.”
• “Which channels contain block 123?”
• “Remove block 123 from design-notes, but keep the block itself.”

Available AI tools

Workflow	Tools
Discover	Search Are.na, with content type filters and scopes for all content, your content, or accounts you follow
Your account	Get My Are.na Profile, List My Channels
Explore people	Get User, Get User Contents
Read channels	Get Channel Details, Get Channel Contents, Get Channel Digest
Read blocks	Get Block Details, Get Block Connections
Create	Create Channel, Create Block
Organize	Update Channel, Update Block, Connect Content to Channels, Remove Connection

AI actions that change content ask for confirmation in Raycast. Creating a block saves new content; connecting content adds an existing block or channel to another collection.

Results load in pages. Channel digests summarize a sample of up to 100 items and identify partial coverage. Long block text may be shortened, with truncation indicated in the tool result.

Preferences

Preference	Default	Purpose
Personal Access Token	Empty	Use a token instead of browser sign-in.
Default Page Size	24	Number of search results fetched per page.
Default Search Sort	Best Match	Choose Best Match, Recently Updated, or Recently Created for discovery.

Development

npm ci
npm run dev

Validate changes with:

npm test
npm run build
npm run lint
npx ray evals

API regression tests use mocked HTTP responses and do not modify an Are.na account. AI evaluations use the scenarios in ai.json and require Raycast’s AI evaluation service.

The extension uses the Are.na v3 API. Its AI capabilities draw on the official MCP tools and SDK reference; no separate MCP server setup is required.

Credits

Developed by Alvin Ashiatey with contributions from the Raycast community. For feedback, contact Alvin.