Fix your flashcards by talking to them

Every deck starts out tidy. Then it grows. You add cards in a hurry, import a few from somewhere else, rephrase the same idea twice in different months. Six months later, some cards have answers too long to remember, some are so vague any answer seems right, and a few are near duplicates.

Cleaning that up by hand means opening each card, one by one. It's the kind of job everyone means to do and nobody does.

With the Braineos connector, Claude can read a whole deck and edit it for you. Point it at a deck, say what's bothering you, and review the changes.

Start by asking Claude to read the deck

Read my "Organic chemistry reactions" deck on Braineos and tell me which cards are weakest.

Claude reads every card in the deck and reports back. Some of what it can spot:

Cards that test more than one thing. "Describe SN1 vs SN2" is really several cards hiding in one.
Answers too long to recall: a paragraph where a sentence would do.
Vague questions, where several answers could reasonably be right.
Near duplicates that ask the same thing in different words.
Possible mistakes. Claude can flag a card it thinks is wrong, though you should double-check those yourself.

Nothing changes until you say so.

Fix cards in place

Once you've agreed what to change:

Go ahead and tighten the five cards you flagged. Keep the meaning, cut the answers to one sentence.

Claude edits those cards directly. The card keeps its place in your spaced-repetition schedule, so a card you've been getting right for weeks doesn't get reset just because its wording got clearer.

Here's the sort of change to expect:

Before: Term: SN1 · Definition: A nucleophilic substitution reaction that proceeds via a carbocation intermediate in a two-step mechanism and is favoured by tertiary substrates and polar protic solvents, with first-order kinetics.

After: Term: What intermediate does an SN1 reaction go through? · Definition: A carbocation.

The rest of the original answer isn't lost. It becomes its own cards (tertiary substrates, protic solvents, first-order kinetics), each testing one thing.

Turn flashcards into multiple choice

Some things are easier to learn when you have to choose between close alternatives. Capitals, dates and drug names are classic cases:

Convert my "European capitals" deck to multiple choice. Use plausible wrong answers from the same region, and add a one-line explanation where there's a common mix-up.

Claude converts each card in place, writing distractors that are actually tempting (Sydney vs Canberra, not Sydney vs Paris), and adds a short explanation that appears after you answer.

Clear out duplicates

Find cards in my Spanish verbs deck that ask the same thing, and remove the duplicates. Show me the list first.

Claude finds the overlapping cards and suggests which to keep. Ask it to show you before deleting: deleting a card also deletes its review history, so it's worth a quick look.

Tidy the deck itself

The deck's name, description and tags matter too. They're how you (and anyone browsing public decks) find it later:

Give this deck a clearer name, a one-line description, and better tags.

Things to keep in mind

Claude can only edit your own decks. It can read any public deck, but to build on someone else's, it'll make you a new deck instead.
Making a deck private through Claude follows the same rule as the website: it's a premium feature.
Review the changes. Claude is good at this work, but it's your deck and your learning. Ask to see the changes before they're made whenever it matters.

Prompts to try

"Read my [deck name] deck and list cards that test more than one idea."
"Split the long cards in my [deck name] deck into one-fact cards."
"Rewrite the vague questions in my [deck name] deck so there's only one right answer."
"Convert my [deck name] deck to multiple choice with tempting wrong answers."
"Find and remove duplicate cards in my [deck name] deck, but show me first."
"Retag my [deck name] deck so it's easier to find."

Try it

Add the Braineos connector in Claude with this URL:

https://braineos.com/api/mcp

On claude.ai, go to Customize → Connectors → Add custom connector, paste the URL and sign in to Braineos. In Claude Code, run claude mcp add --transport http braineos https://braineos.com/api/mcp, then /mcp to sign in. If you added the connector before, reconnect it to pick up the editing tools. Full details are on the Claude connector page.

Then pick the deck you've been meaning to clean up, and ask Claude to take a look.