Chat

Orbi and agent chats

Orbi is the general assistant: a conversation with no agent attached. Its composer reads Message Orbi..., and its mascot pulses while it is thinking. You can also chat with one of your own agents. In an agent chat, the agent's avatar replaces the model picker, because the agent brings its own model, tools, and skills.

On the home screen, a Chat / Studio switch in the composer moves between chatting and generating media. See Studio. Under an empty composer, suggestion chips (such as Summarize my inbox each morning) fill in a detailed request without sending it.

What you can ask

In a single thread, you can ask Orbi to:

• Build a workflow, an agent, a table, or an app from a description of the job.
• Change a step: swap an integration, adjust a condition, shorten a prompt.
• Run the workflow and show you the results.
• Inspect a past run to explain what happened or why it failed.
• Connect an integration or wrap the workflow in an app.

A workflow always starts with a trigger. If you describe the steps first, Orbi adds a trigger before them. It tells you what it just did and what it suggests next.

Running and debugging from chat

Ask Orbi to run the workflow and the run trace streams into the thread, step by step, with each node's output. If something fails, ask “why did that fail?”. Orbi reopens the run and reads it node by node, so it can tell you which step broke and why (a bad credential, a missing field, an empty result) and offer a fix.

You:   Run it with a test contact.
Orbi:  The run stopped at "Send welcome email". The first three steps
       succeeded, but the mail server rejected the credential.
       Want me to point the step at a different one?

Two kinds of steps do the work. Plain steps (an integration call, an HTTP request, a data transform, a bit of code) do exactly one predictable thing. Agents reason: they decide, summarize, classify, or handle open-ended input. Use an agent when the task needs judgement, and a plain step when the operation is fixed. Plain steps are faster, cheaper, and easier to audit.

The composer

The message box grows as you type. Enter sends, and Shift+Enter adds a new line. While Orbi is answering, the send button turns into Stop, and pressing Escape also stops the answer (unless Escape is closing a menu or dialog first).

As Orbi works, its progress renders live in the thread:

• A thinking indicator shows while it prepares its next move.
• Each tool call renders as a tool card that updates as the call completes. Back-to-back calls to the same tool share one card. Only the latest steps stay expanded; older ones fold behind a toggle.
• Results that are more than text render as previews: tables, interfaces, applications, generated images and files, workflow diagrams, and run traces. Several previews in a row are grouped into a carousel. Click a workflow diagram to open it in the side panel.

On a narrow screen or a narrow side panel, the attach and tools buttons merge into a single More actions (+) menu.

Model picker and reasoning effort

The model picker sits in the composer. Each model shows its provider icon, what it can do, and an info popover with more detail. Models covered by the Free plan's monthly credits carry a Free mark. The footer of the menu has Tier and Provider filters, remembered in your browser, and a Reset button.

Your model choice applies across the whole app, not only to the current conversation: it is used for your next message in any chat, and your browser remembers it.

When the selected provider supports it, a Reasoning effort control appears in the menu footer, next to the filters. Like the model, it applies app-wide, but it resets to Auto when you reload the page. The chat in the side panel has no effort control.

The levels are Auto (the model's own default), then minimal, low, medium, high, xhigh, and max, from the lightest to the deepest reasoning. Deeper levels are slower and cost more. When a model does not support a level, the nearest level it supports is used instead.

Using your own API key

On the cloud, you can run chats and agents on your own model provider key from Settings > AI Providers > Your keys. It requires the Pro plan or higher. Your provider bills the tokens, and LiveContext charges a small fee per turn. See Models & providers.

Attachments

Attach files (the paperclip) adds files to a message. You can attach several files to one message, along with your text.

On LiveContext Cloud, each file can be up to 10 MB. Images get a thumbnail that opens full size on click. PDFs have their text extracted so the model can read them, and text files are read as they are. If an upload fails, the error shows on the file's chip in the composer.

Tools, skills, and chat settings

The Tools button in the composer opens a panel with three tabs:

• Tools: the integration tools available to the conversation.
• Skills: turn skills on or off for this conversation. Untouched, the list follows the platform's default skills. In an agent chat, this tab edits the agent's own skill list instead. See Skills.
• Options: the chat settings described below.

The settings apply at one of three scopes: Conversation settings, Agent settings (in an agent chat), or Defaults for next conversation. Workspace defaults for new Orbi and agent conversations live on the Agents page, in its Settings tab.

Advanced limits are per-turn safety stops that prevent runaway loops:

A microphone button (shown when your browser supports speech recognition) dictates into the composer and adds the transcript to what you already typed.

Approvals: authorization cards

Before Orbi does something sensitive, a card asks you to approve or deny it. That includes: installing or running an application, continuing a paused interface, resolving a pending approval step, running or restarting part of a workflow, setting or removing a production version, running an agent, calling an integration directly, sending or deleting email, and creating or updating an agent with a schedule. Installing an application shows its marketplace listing in the card.

• Approve lets the action go ahead. If the assistant had already paused, it resumes as soon as it is free.
• Deny blocks that one action. The assistant is told you refused and continues with the rest of its work.
• The “don't ask again in this conversation” checkbox turns on the same setting as Run sensitive actions without asking.

A separate card groups the external services a workflow needs. If every credential is already connected and healthy, it approves and closes itself. If one may be expired or invalid, it stays open with a way to manage or retry it.

Connecting an app from a card

When a tool needs a credential you have not connected, a connect card opens the credential wizard for that service. After an OAuth sign-in, you come back to the conversation with the wizard showing the connected state. The services card resumes the assistant automatically. After a plain connect card, tell the assistant to continue if it does not pick up on its own. When several cards are open, each one resolves on its own.

When the assistant asks you a question

When it needs a decision, the assistant can put a question card in the thread, titled The assistant has a question. A card holds 1 to 4 questions, each with 2 to 4 options.

• Each question says Choose one or Choose one or more. Other lets you type your own answer.
• Move with Back and Next, then Send answer. Skip tells the assistant to continue without your answer.
• Number keys pick an option and arrow keys move between options.
• If the assistant's turn already ended, your answer starts it again. Your answers stay visible in the thread afterwards.

When nobody is in the chat (for example an agent running on a schedule), questions and approvals go to your linked chat channel instead. See Chat channels.

Conversation activity

The Conversation activity button in the chat header opens a view of everything the conversation ran: one group per message you sent, with the agent and tool calls it triggered. Each group shows its tokens, iterations, and cost (credits on the cloud, a dollar amount on a self-hosted instance), and Go to message jumps back to it in the thread. Whether the view is open is remembered in your browser for all conversations.

Sharing, search, and message actions

Sharing a conversation from the chat header creates a read-only public link. Your workspace has one quota for all shared links: conversations, applications, and chat and form endpoints. Disabled links still count. Only deleting a link frees its slot.

The Shared tab of the notification bell lists every active link, with copy, open, and revoke actions.

Search finds past conversations by content or title, and the conversation list can be filtered to all conversations, agent chats, workflow chats, or Studio threads.

Each assistant message has these actions:

Your own messages have Copy only.

Memory

Within a conversation, context compaction summarizes older turns so the assistant keeps the gist without carrying the whole transcript. That is separate from long-term memory: durable facts agents save while they work, which you can view, edit, pin, or delete from the Memory tab of the Agents page. See Agents.

Sending while the assistant works

You do not have to wait for an answer before sending the next message. While the assistant is working, new messages are queued instead of interrupting it. The queue holds up to 5 messages. You can Edit, Remove, or reorder a queued message, or use Send now, which stops the current answer first and then sends it.

The queue and your unsent draft are kept per browser tab. Text-only queued messages and drafts survive a page reload for up to 30 minutes. Queued messages with attachments are kept only until you reload.

Notifications and generation

The notification bell in the header has four tabs: Inbox (pending approvals, failed runs, expired credentials, invitations, and more), Triggers (your live automations and when they run next), Activity (recently edited items), and Shared (your shared links). See Notifications.

To generate media from a conversation, turn on Generation in the Options tab. For a dedicated space, switch to Studio, or use the Generate an image, video or sound button in the side-panel chat. On a self-hosted instance, generation stays unavailable until an administrator enables it.

Troubleshooting

Related pages