Step by step

A long ask — a customer email with five questions, a brief with a dozen deliverables — is hard to answer in one reply. Step by step splits it into a tree of steps, lets you work each one on its own with the model, validate the results one at a time, and then consolidates them into a single final answer you can file back into the topic.

A plan mid-way: two steps validated, one waiting for review, the others still to do. Each step has its own artifact and discussion.

Starting a plan

• From a topic, type /steps: the plan is built from the topic's latest message, the model proposes the first steps, and the plan opens in Step by step.
• From the section itself (or the command palette), choose New step plan and paste the ask. Untick Let the model propose the steps to write them yourself.

The ask is frozen into the plan, so every later model call is grounded in it — and the plan keeps working even if the topic is edited or deleted.

Drafting the tree

Model suggestions are proposed until you accept or dismiss them; only accepted steps are work to do. Drag steps (or use the move/indent/outdent buttons) to reorder or nest them, edit titles and instructions, add your own, or ask the model to suggest missing steps with optional guidance. Start moves the plan to working.

Working a step

Each step has:

• an instruction — what it must produce;
• a Markdown artifact, with an editor, preview and version history you can revert to;
• a Discussion tab: a chat with room to breathe (the title and instruction fold away above it). It knows the ask, the source topic (its summary and recent conversation), the requested output, where the plan stands, and what the other steps have produced so far (validated artifacts in full, drafts as excerpts), so you can refine the result without reloading everything. The same context grounds Draft from discussion.

The model can draft the artifact, and can suggest sub-steps when a step should be split: use Split next to the status buttons (add a steer in its popover if you want). A step that has sub-steps becomes a group: its status is derived from its children.

Status	Meaning
Proposed	A model suggestion waiting for you.
Open	Accepted, not started.
In progress	Being worked.
To validate	Has an artifact and waits for your review. A model draft lands here.
Validated	You approved the artifact. It needs a non-empty artifact.
Cancelled	Left out of the final output.

Editing or reverting a validated artifact sends it back to To validate and marks the final output stale, so you always know when the consolidation no longer matches the steps.

Consolidating

Review plan asks the model to check the steps against the original ask and point out gaps. Once every step is validated or cancelled, Consolidate drafts the final output from the validated artifacts (following the output instructions you set, such as tone or format). Edit it by hand or discuss it in the consolidation chat, then Send to topic to file it back into the topic the plan came from.

Good to know

• Plans have at most 200 steps, nested up to 6 levels deep.
• Model actions are one-shot and tool-less; a garbled reply shows an error and leaves the plan untouched. They use the default model, not a conversation's model preset.
• Step chats stay out of your chat list; they live inside their step.
• Deleting a topic keeps its plans; they simply lose their link.
• Plans are listed under Step by step in the sidebar and the command palette, and the state is kept in sync across windows (step-plan.changed on /api/events).