# Reading activity from providers

> How a provider's status, rating and dates reach your notes: filling blanks, and showing differences you can accept.

Some providers know what you did with a book: whether you are reading it or have finished it, when, and how you rated it. Library Hub can bring that into your notes, with one rule: **your note always wins.**

## Filling blanks

If a book note has no `reading_status` (or `started`, `finished` or `rating`), a provider that has a value fills it in on the next sync. A value already in your note is never replaced by a provider's.

## Differences

When your note holds a value and a provider says something different, nothing changes. The sync preview lists it under **Differences from providers**, with a switch for each, off:

> **The Salt Keeper · reading_status**: yours: read · hardcover: reading

Switch on the ones you want and choose **Apply**. The values you chose are written with the rest of the sync, logged, and undone with it. A resync (the automatic one) never applies a difference; the Library panel's **Needs you** list counts them so you know to open **Sync: Notes from your providers** and look.

## Choosing which providers and which fields

The default template takes `reading_status`, `started`, `finished` and `rating` from your own note first and then from a provider. Edit it in a template of your own (see [Templates](templates.md)): list the providers you want in `sources`, in the order that should win a blank, and set `differences: show` on a field to see differences for it, or leave it out to see none.

```yaml
fields:
  - name: reading_status
    sources: [user, hardcover:status]
    update: fill
    differences: show
```

## Highlights

A provider can also hold your highlights. They are added to the book's highlights note, each with a link to where the provider keeps it, and never added twice. See [Highlights](highlights.md).