Chat
Chat lets you ask TOW questions grounded in workspace context. It can reason across memory, docs, tickets, decisions, risks, snapshots, web tools, and file attachments depending on the selected sources.
Use Chat for analysis, synthesis, planning, and follow-up. Use Inbox and pending actions for changes that should affect workspace state.
Start a conversation
Open Chat and type a message. The first message becomes the conversation title unless you rename it later.
You can:
- Start a new chat.
- Search prior chats.
- Open an existing chat.
- Star important conversations.
- Rename a chat.
- Delete a chat.
- Retry the last response.
- Stop a streaming response.
Chat conversations are scoped. When you switch project scope, TOW starts a fresh chat view for that scope.
Project scope: A project-scoped chat is saved separately from an All Projects chat. If you cannot find a prior conversation, check the project picker and the chat search.
Choose a Chat Assistant
The Chat Assistant picker controls the operating style of the answer.
| Chat Assistant | Best for |
|---|---|
| Default | General use when you want TOW to pick the right stance. |
| Chief of Staff | Focus, operating cadence, priorities, risks, blockers, and execution synthesis. |
| CTO | Technical architecture, implementation tradeoffs, system design, and engineering review. |
| Memory | Direct questions about remembered facts and workspace memory. |
| Weekly Review | Review-style summaries, progress, drift, and planning. |
Your default Chat Assistant can be saved in user settings.
Choose source groups
The source picker controls which tool groups TOW may use.
| Source group | What it can contribute |
|---|---|
| Web | Web search or page retrieval when enabled by the app configuration. |
| Memory | Active priorities, durable facts, conflicts, and recent memory. |
| Docs | Workspace docs and knowledge search. |
| Tickets | Ticket search, ticket details, and ticket write proposals. |
| Decisions | Decision context through knowledge search. |
| Risks | Risk context through knowledge search. |
| Snapshots | Current and historical snapshot context. |
Disable a source group when you want a narrower answer. For example, turn off Web when you want an answer based only on internal workspace context.
AI review: Source selection changes what Chat can see. A confident answer with important sources disabled may be incomplete.
Use references and attachments
Chat supports references to workspace items and file attachments.
Useful patterns:
- Mention a ticket, snapshot, doc, decision, risk, or memory item by its visible reference.
- Attach a file when the answer should use content that is not already in workspace memory.
- Ask TOW to explain what evidence supports its answer.
The Sources panel can show basis items from the latest answer, alongside relevant priorities, tickets, decisions, and risks.
Understand streaming status
While Chat is answering, you may see status such as:
- Checking memory.
- Tool calls running.
- Saving.
The answer may stream in sections. Tool calls and pending actions can appear before the final answer is saved.
Pending actions
Some chat answers include pending actions. Pending actions are write operations that require a person to apply them.
Examples include:
- Create a doc.
- Update a doc.
- Archive a doc.
- Create a ticket.
- Update a ticket.
- Comment on a ticket.
- Link tickets.
Select the action only after reading the summary and confirming the intended target.
Review-sensitive action: Applying a pending action writes to the workspace. Check the conversation, selected project, target item, and action summary before applying it.
Memory diffs after chat
After a chat turn completes, TOW can review the conversation for possible memory diffs. Those diffs are proposed for review rather than automatically accepted.
Open Inbox or Memory Diffs after conversations that contain new facts, decisions, risks, or strategy changes.
Job queues: Chat can finish streaming before memory extraction finishes. Wait for AI status to return to idle if you are expecting a memory diff from the conversation.
Role availability
| User type | Availability |
|---|---|
| Organisation member | Can use Chat in accessible organisation and project scopes. |
| Project viewer | Can ask project-scoped questions when project access allows, but write actions may be unavailable. |
| Project member, lead, or admin | Can apply project write actions where permitted. |
| Organisation admin, owner, or server admin | Broad access across organisation and project scopes. |
Chat write actions may require project write access. If an action fails, check scope and permissions.
Hidden gotchas
- Chat answers are only as good as the selected sources and current workspace state.
- Applying a pending action may not create a separate Inbox item because the confirmation happened in Chat.
- Deleting a conversation removes the conversation record from your chat history.
- Starred conversations sort ahead of unstarred conversations.
- If you change project scope mid-work, start a new question so TOW uses the intended project context.