Chat

Chat is the primary interface for interacting with AI in Cosmo. Send messages, ask questions, generate artifacts, and use your connected tools — all through natural language.

How Chat Works

When you send a message, Cosmo processes your request through its AI engine. Depending on the request, it may:

Respond with text directly
Call one or more tools (integrations, task management, artifact creation)
Create or update artifacts in the Hub
Manage your workspaces and tasks

Responses stream in real-time so you see results as they're generated, not after a long wait.

Live Activity Indicators

Cosmo shows you what's happening at every stage so the chat never feels stuck.

When Cosmo is processing your request — before the first response token arrives or between tool calls — you'll see a subtle "Thinking" indicator with animated dots. This tells you the AI is working, not frozen.

Tool Calls

When Cosmo uses a tool (like creating a task, searching Notion, or updating an artifact), you'll see an activity badge showing the tool name and a spinner. For example:

Tasks: Create — creating a new task
Workspaces: List — checking existing workspaces
Notion: Search — searching your connected Notion workspace

Once a tool finishes, the spinner changes to a checkmark. You can click the badge to expand and see a preview of the tool's result.

Streaming Text

As Cosmo generates its response, text streams in word-by-word with a blinking cursor. You can read the response as it forms rather than waiting for it to finish.

Multi-Step Responses

Complex requests often involve multiple steps. Instead of showing one long message at the end, Cosmo breaks its response into visual segments:

First text block — Cosmo explains what it's about to do
Tool activity — badges show tools being called (e.g., listing projects, creating an artifact)
More text — Cosmo summarizes what happened or asks follow-up questions

This makes it easy to follow along with multi-step operations like "create a workspace, add some tasks, and generate a proposal."

Web Search

Cosmo can search the web to answer questions about current events, look up facts, or find information that isn't in your connected tools.

Web search is built-in and always available — you don't need to configure anything. When Cosmo determines that a web search would help answer your question, it searches automatically and incorporates the results into its response.

Example prompts:

"What are the latest trends in AI-powered workspace management?"
"Look up the current pricing for Notion's team plan"
"What did Anthropic announce this week?"
"Find the best practices for running remote standups"

When a web search happens, you'll see a "Web Search" activity badge in the chat with a spinner, just like any other tool call. Once the search completes, the badge shows a checkmark and Cosmo uses the results to write its response.

What web search is good for

Current events and recent news
Fact-checking and looking up specific data
Finding documentation, guides, or best practices
Researching competitors, pricing, or market trends

What it's not for

Searching your own connected tools (use integrations like Notion, Google Drive instead)
Private or internal company information (web search only finds public data)

Command Permissions

Sometimes Cosmo needs to run a command on your system — for example, checking git status, installing a package, or listing files. Every command goes through a permission system that keeps you in control.

How It Works

Before any command runs, Cosmo shows you:

A plain-English explanation — what the command actually does, in everyday language (e.g., "List files in the current folder")
A risk badge — color-coded so you can decide at a glance:
- Safe (green) — read-only commands that don't change anything
- Moderate (yellow) — commands that modify files within your workspace
- Dangerous (red) — commands that affect things outside your workspace or have system-wide impact
The raw command — the exact command that will run, for transparency

You can Allow or Deny each command. If you deny, Cosmo stops immediately — it won't try to work around your decision or keep going with other commands.

What Gets Blocked Automatically

Some commands are too risky to even ask about. Cosmo blocks these silently and tells you it can't proceed:

Deleting system directories (/usr, /etc, /System)
Touching sensitive files (SSH keys, AWS credentials, GPG keys)
System-level operations (formatting disks, shutting down, rebooting)

These commands never reach you as a prompt — they're stopped before that.

Directory Sandboxing

Commands that modify files (copy, move, delete, create) are checked against your workspace folder. If a command tries to write or delete files outside your workspace directory, it's flagged as dangerous so you can make an informed decision.

For more details, see Command Security.

Context Window

Every AI model has a finite context window — the maximum amount of text it can process at once (conversation history, system instructions, and response combined). Cosmo tracks this for you.

Context Meter

The chat header shows a context meter next to the model name. It displays:

Current usage (e.g., "32k / 200k")
A color-coded progress bar: green (under 60%), yellow (60-80%), red (over 80%)

Hover over the meter to see exact token counts.

Auto-Compaction

When your conversation nears the context limit (80%), Cosmo automatically compacts older messages by summarizing them. This keeps the conversation going without losing important context.

What happens during compaction:

Recent messages (last 3 exchanges) are kept as-is
Older messages are summarized into a compact context block
The summary preserves key facts, decisions, and context

Compaction happens transparently — you don't need to do anything. Your conversation continues without interruption.

Model Switching

You can switch AI models mid-conversation using the model selector in the chat header. Click the current model name to open a dropdown with available models grouped by tier (Fast, Balanced, Premium).

Different models have different strengths:

Fast models (Haiku, GPT-4o Mini) — quick responses, lower cost, great for simple tasks
Balanced models (Sonnet, GPT-4o) — best for most work
Premium models (Opus) — maximum reasoning capability for complex tasks

See AI Providers for the full model list with context windows and capabilities.

Stopping a Response

If Cosmo is generating a response you no longer need, click the Stop button in the chat header. Any partial response will be preserved as a message.

Sessions

Each conversation is a session. Sessions persist across app restarts and maintain full conversation history.

New session — click the new chat button in the sidebar to start fresh
Switch sessions — click any session in the sidebar to resume a previous conversation
Delete sessions — right-click a session to delete it

Be specific — "Create a bar chart of Q1-Q4 revenue" works better than "Make a chart"
Reference workspaces by name — "Add this to the ACME workspace" helps Cosmo find the right place
Ask for modifications — Don't recreate artifacts from scratch. Say "Update the proposal to include a timeline section"
Use natural language — You don't need special syntax. Just describe what you need as you would to a colleague
Watch the activity indicators — They tell you exactly what Cosmo is doing, so you know if it's still working on your request