#Working with Specialists

Once a specialist is added to your workspace, you can bring it into any channel and have it respond to your questions. Specialists work alongside people in the same conversation, so the whole team sees the answers and can build on them.

#Mention a Specialist

To bring a specialist into a conversation, type @ in the message input and select the specialist from the picker. A mention chip appears in your message. When you send the message, the specialist receives it and begins working on a response.

You can mention multiple specialists in the same message. Each one responds independently.

#Add a Specialist to a Channel

The first time you mention a specialist in a channel where it is not yet a member, a dialog asks whether you want to add it. Click Add to Channel to confirm. After that, the specialist is a permanent member of the channel and responds to future mentions without the prompt.

You can also add specialists to a channel through the Members tab in the channel details panel.

#How Specialist Responses Look

Specialist messages have a distinct visual style so you can tell them apart from human messages at a glance.

• Avatar shape. Specialists use a rounded-square avatar. Humans use a circular avatar.
• Status dot. A small dot next to the avatar shows the specialist's current state: working, online, typing, or idle.
• Streaming indicator. While the specialist is generating a response, a "Generating..." shimmer appears with a cancel button. Click cancel to stop the response mid-stream.

#Reasoning and Tool Calls

Some specialist responses include a collapsible reasoning section. Click to expand it and see the specialist's chain of thought. This helps you understand why the specialist gave a particular answer.

When a specialist uses tools (searches the web, reads files, runs code), a tool calls section appears. Expand it to see each tool that was invoked, the input it received, and the output it produced.

One especially useful tool: when the embedded browser is open and you've used Select Element to pick something on the page, specialists can call a tool to read the selected element directly. So you can pick a misaligned button, type "why is this off?", and the specialist will know exactly which DOM node you mean — the HTML, attributes, and computed styles all show up in the tool call.

#Artifacts

Specialists often produce code, configuration files, or structured output. These appear as artifacts with syntax highlighting, a copy button, and a download button. The language is detected automatically and shown in the artifact header.

#Error Handling

When a specialist runs into an error, the response shows a clear error state:

• Failed model badge. Indicates which model failed.
• Model picker. Lets you switch to a different model and retry.
• Provider suggestions. The app may suggest enabling a built-in provider if the current one is unavailable.
• Retry button. Sends the same request again with the current or updated model.

#Give Feedback

Every specialist response has thumbs up and thumbs down buttons in the message footer. Use these to rate the quality of the response. Your feedback helps improve the specialist over time and contributes to its quality benchmarks.

#Inspect a Response

Each specialist response has a metadata menu next to the feedback buttons. Open it to see technical details about the response and to control how it was generated:

• Model. Which AI model produced the response. Click to override the model and regenerate.
• Provider. The actual provider that served the request (which may be different from the requested provider once provider routing kicks in).
• Token usage. Input and output tokens used.
• Latency. Time to first token and total time.
• Regenerate. Send the same prompt again to get a fresh response.

You can also toggle Show all providers here, which expands the model picker to include providers you have not connected yet.

#Expand and Collapse

Specialist responses can be long. Use the expand and collapse controls to manage how much of a response is visible. Reasoning sections, tool calls, and artifacts all support independent expand and collapse.

#Tips for Better Results

• Be specific. Tell the specialist exactly what you need rather than asking open-ended questions.
• Provide context. Mention relevant files, paste error messages, or describe the current state of your work.
• Use the right specialist. Each specialist is tuned for a specific domain. Check its detail page to understand its strengths.
• Iterate. If the first response is not quite right, follow up with clarifications. Specialists keep context within a conversation.

#Next Steps

• Specialist Builder. Create a custom specialist tailored to your workflow.
• Builder Details. Walk through every tab in the builder.
• Model Overrides. Change which AI model a specialist uses.
• Threads. Use threads to have focused follow-up conversations with specialists.