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description: "Maintaining concept nodes in Jotaid: renaming rewrites every note that cites it, how duplicate nodes merge, AI enrichment, and backfilling plain-text mentions into links."
---
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# Managing Nodes

Nodes change after you create them: names get corrected, duplicates need merging, bodies grow. This page is about what each of those actions actually does.

## Renaming

A node's name is not a display label — it is the text between `[[ ]]` in your notes. So renaming **rewrites every note citing it**, and the confirmation says exactly how many:

> Rename "attention residue" to "task-switching cost"? This will update 12 notes.

Afterwards every `[[attention residue]]` across those 12 notes carries the new name, with no link lost.

Which is why the name is worth settling early: a node's name **lives inside your prose**.

## Merging Duplicates

Concepts drift apart as you write: "user retention" and "retention rate" turn out to be one thing. When a name collides, Jotaid raises **Duplicate Node Found** with two actions:

| Action | What it does |
|--------|--------------|
| **Merge Nodes** | Two nodes become one; both sets of references combine |
| **Merge Contents** | Merges their bodies along with them |

Merging **cannot be undone**, so it is worth opening both nodes first.

## Enriching Content

A node's body is written like any other note. When it stalls, **Enrich Content** on the node's detail page has the AI draw on the notes referencing it to expand that concept into a first draft you can build on — rather than a blank page.

Needs [Pro](https://docs.jotaid.com/en/guide/pricing) and an API key.

## Backfilling Mentions Into Links

You have written "attention residue" across a dozen notes, but only one or two actually carry `[[ ]]`. Those **plain-text mentions** do not count as links: they stay out of backlinks and out of the graph.

Two buttons backfill them:

| Button | Where | Scope |
|--------|-------|-------|
| **Link** | Beside an unlinked mention in a note | Converts the mentions in that one note |
| **Link All** | On a node's row in the node list | Converts this node's mentions across **every** note at once |

Once backfilled, those notes appear under the node's backlinks immediately, and the graph and matrix update with them.

This works on **exact literal matches** — no AI, free on every tier. See [Unlinked Mentions](https://docs.jotaid.com/en/guide/unlinked-mentions).

## Deleting a Node

Deleting a node removes the concept and its body. **Your notes are untouched** — the `[[ ]]` in them reverts to ordinary text.

If the goal is simply to get a node out of the graph, [merging](#merging-duplicates) it into the more accurate concept is usually the better move.

## Next Steps

- [Node Types](https://docs.jotaid.com/en/guide/node-types) — What Core / Bridge / Emerging mean
- [Backlinks](https://docs.jotaid.com/en/guide/backlinks) — The structure of links
- [Unlinked Mentions](https://docs.jotaid.com/en/guide/unlinked-mentions) — Where they come from