Finish the books you start.
Paste a table of contents — get a dated reading schedule, 3·2·1 reflection prompts after every chapter, and a Markdown export you can drop into Notion, Obsidian, or just a folder of text files.
Most readers abandon technical books around chapter three.
Same readers will finish a 40-hour video course in two weeks. The difference isn’t discipline — it’s structure.
Hands you a schedule. Checkpoints. A finish line.
- Episodes split into 8-minute lessons
- Progress bar that fills as you watch
- Next-up auto-queued every time
- “Resume where you left off”
Hands you a table of contents. Good luck.
- 500 pages, no schedule, no markers
- “Read at your own pace” — i.e., never
- Bookmark drifts, momentum dies
- Six months later: a half-read book
IndexSprint gives the book the same structure the course had — without changing the book.
Four ways in. Same plan out.
Whatever shape your book takes — physical, PDF, EPUB, or just a name in your head — there’s a path that doesn’t make you retype it.
Search by title
We pull structure from Open Library and our own cache of technical books. Type the name, pick yours, the TOC drops in.
Paste the contents
Any text, however formatted. Roman numerals, dot-leaders, weird indentation — the parser figures it out.
1. Reliable… ··· 1
2. Data Models · 27
3. Storage ····· 65
Upload a PDF
Drop in the book or just the contents page. We extract chapter structure and page ranges. Files stay in your browser.
Snap a photo
Hold the contents page of a physical book up to your camera. On-device OCR reads the chapter list — nothing leaves your browser.
Watch it parse Designing Data-Intensive Applications. Then yours.
Same parser, real output — and it’s live. Edit the sample on the left or paste your own book’s contents, and the plan rebuilds as you type. Three reading days a week, dated from the coming Monday.
Your book next. Right here.
The same parser you just watched — search a title, paste a ToC, upload a PDF, or scan a page. No account, no email.
Find any book and pull its table of contents automatically.
A reflection short enough you’ll actually do it.
After every chapter, IndexSprint inserts a small scaffold — three lines, plus blanks. Not an essay. Not an app. Six lines that make a re-read in six months actually stick.
- 3
Takeaways
Three things you want to remember six months from now. One sentence each — not a summary.
- 2
Questions
Two things the chapter didn’t answer, or you don’t yet believe. Where doubt lives, learning sticks.
- 1
Application
One thing you’ll try in your work this week. Concrete. Cancellable. Today, not “someday.”
- Documents win when access patterns match shape.
- Joins are easy in code, hard at scale.
- Schema-on-read ≠ no schema.
- When does graph beat document for us?
- Cypher vs SPARQL in practice?
- Try MongoDB for the sessions-table spike.
Plain text. Yours to keep.
A single .md file. Drop it in Notion, Obsidian, Logseq, Bear, iA Writer, or just a folder on your desktop. No proprietary database. No “premium import” six months in.
# Designing Data-Intensive Applications ## Week 1 - [x] **Mon · May 11** — Ch. 1 · Reliable, Scalable, Maintainable pp. 1–26 - [x] **Wed · May 13** — Ch. 2 · Data Models & Query Languages pp. 27–64 - [ ] **Fri · May 15** — Ch. 3 · Storage and Retrieval pp. 65–112 ### After Ch. 2 — 3·2·1 **3 takeaways** 1. Documents win when access patterns match shape. 2. Joins are easy in code, hard at scale. 3. Schema-on-read ≠ no schema. **2 questions** 1. When does graph beat document for us? 2. Cypher vs SPARQL in practice? **1 application** 1. Try MongoDB for the sessions-table spike. ## Week 2 - [ ] **Mon · May 18** — Ch. 4 · Encoding and Evolution - [ ] **Wed · May 20** — Ch. 5 · Replication, part 1 - [ ] **Fri · May 22** — Ch. 5 · Replication, part 2
Designing Data-Intensive Applications
3 takeaways — Documents win when access patterns match shape · joins are easy in code, hard at scale · schema-on-read ≠ no schema.
2 questions — When does graph beat document for us? · Cypher vs SPARQL in practice?
1 application — Try MongoDB for the sessions-table spike.
The free version isn’t a teaser.
Everything in the free column works today, in your browser, without an account. Premium adds saving, sync, focus sessions, and spaced-repetition retrieval — but the core tool is free forever.
The whole plan.
$0 · no account · no email · no install
- ●Search thousands of technical booksOpen Library + our own cache. Title + author is enough.
- ●Paste, upload PDF, or scan a pageWhatever’s closest at hand.
- ●Generate a dated reading schedulePick days/week, minutes/day, start date.
- ●3·2·1 reflection scaffolds inlineSix lines per chapter, ready to fill.
- ●Markdown exportOne file. Open it anywhere.
Above, plus memory.
$8/month · or $6/month billed annually
- ●Save plans to your accountResume on any device.
- ●Persistent progress checkboxesWithout committing a markdown file each night.
- ●Timed focus sessionsDistraction-free reading blocks that resume across reloads and feed your reading stats.
- ●3·2·1 reflections, in-appSame scaffold, less friction.
- ●AI retrieval prompts from your reflectionsYour own takeaways become flashcards on a spaced-repetition schedule.
- ●Obsidian-style chapter notesMarkdown notes on any chapter, linked together with [[wiki-links]]. Autosaved as you type.
- ●Revision-notes export — Markdown or PDFNotes, reflections, and recall prompts bundled per book, in chapter order. The .md keeps your [[links]].
Honesty, in four columns.
The status of every part of the product, told straight. “In development” is what other companies call “coming soon.” We won’t promise things we haven’t built.
Ships now.
- Title search (Open Library)
- Paste-TOC parser
- PDF upload + extract
- Photo OCR for physical books
- Dated schedule generator
- 3·2·1 reflection scaffolds
- Markdown export
- Premium: saved plans, focus sessions, spaced review
- Premium: chapter notes & revision-notes export
Building now.
- Reading analytics
- Reading groups (≤6 people)
Maybe, someday.
- Calendar integration (.ics)
- Audiobook timing mode
- Browser extension
- Self-hosted version
Not happening.
- Streaks & gamification
- Public profiles / leaderboards
- “Speed reading” features
- AI-generated book summaries
- Mobile app (web works)
FAQ.
How do the focus timers work?
Premium includes a Pomodoro-style focus timer per chapter: pick a length (25 minutes by default — it’s configurable in your account), start a block, and read. Sessions survive page reloads, so an accidental tab close doesn’t erase the block.
Finished blocks feed your reading stats, and every chapter still ends in the same 3·2·1 scaffold. The free tier has no timer — the plan and Markdown export work fine without one.
Can I take notes in the app, like Obsidian?
On premium, yes. Every chapter takes markdown notes, and [[wiki-links]] connect chapters the way notes link in an Obsidian vault — click one in preview and you jump to that chapter’s note. Everything autosaves as you type.
When you’re done, export the whole book as revision notes — chapter notes, 3·2·1 reflections, and recall prompts in chapter order, as Markdown or PDF. The Markdown keeps your [[links]] intact, so it drops straight into a vault.
How is this different from a Notion template?
A template is a blank form. IndexSprint is a parser plus a scheduler — you bring the book, it builds the plan. The Markdown export does drop into Notion, but the work that happens before the drop (extracting chapter structure, calibrating to your pace, dating each session) is the actual product.
Where does my data go?
On the free tier — almost nowhere. PDFs and photo scans are processed on your device, the schedule is generated in your browser, and the Markdown is downloaded straight to your machine. Pasted text is sent to our server only for parsing and isn’t stored permanently.
On premium, saved plans, reflections, and chapter notes live in your account so you can resume on a different device — they’re never shared or used for anything else, and deleting your account deletes them.
What happens to the free tier now that premium exists?
Nothing. Free stays free. The five things in the free column are the core of the tool, and removing any of them would make IndexSprint worse. Premium is additive — saving, syncing, sessions, notes, retrieval — not a paywall on what already works.
Why no customer logos or testimonials?
Because we don’t have customers yet. Putting up made-up logos or quotes attributed to “John D., software engineer” would tell you we’re the kind of team that fakes things, and that’s information you’d be right to weigh against us.
Who built this?
Two engineers who kept buying technical books and not finishing them. We tried calendar reminders, reading apps, Notion dashboards, paid courses with a “book companion” tier, and bullet journals. Nothing stuck past a chapter. So we built the smallest tool that solved the problem for ourselves first, then made it usable for anyone else.
Read the book on your shelf. Finish it this time.
No account. No email. Paste a table of contents — you’ll have a plan in about fifteen seconds.