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Ask

/ask is the chat surface for asking metadata questions. It reads from the DB profile catalog, the document RAG index, and the codebase RAG index, and threads its answers with tool-call traces so you can audit how an answer was reached.

Sessions

The left sidebar (above the chat on mobile, side-by-side on md: and up) holds the Sessions list.

  • + New session creates a fresh chat with the default scope.
  • Each existing session row shows a title (auto-named from the first question, or manually renamed), the last-active timestamp, and a delete button.
  • Click a row to resume the conversation. The agent replays the prior 4 question/answer turns into its context so follow-ups like "the second one" resolve without re-explaining.
  • An End session control closes the current chat (it stays in the list, but the agent forgets in-flight state).

Scope dropdown

The selector above the textarea lets you pick which DB profiles /ask queries:

  • Multi-select checkboxes (one per saved profile)
  • All profiles option (default for a new session)
  • Per-session sticky — the selection persists until you change it
  • Focus auto-detection — when ≥60 % of the last three turns mentioned the same profile, Studio shows a Focus: <profile> (auto) hint to indicate the system prompt is biased toward it. The biasing doesn't lock out cross-profile questions; it just shapes the default answer when the question is ambiguous.

A small 📄 N docs · 💻 M code badge above the dropdown shows how many doc / code profiles are in scope for the active DB selection — useful when /ask answers seem under-grounded and you're not sure whether the right RAG profiles are linked.

Chat bubbles

  • User turn — left-aligned bubble, light background.
  • Assistant turn — right-aligned, Markdown-rendered with GFM tables and code blocks.
  • Cancelled — thin pill marker on the turn the user interrupted.

Tool-call trace

Every assistant turn that called tools (search_docs, search_catalog, list_schemas, list_volumes, find_joinable_across_profiles, compare_runs, …) renders an expandable trace under the bubble:

  • Tool name + collapsed JSON arguments
  • Tool-call latency in milliseconds
  • Result preview (truncated to a few lines)
  • Citations, when present, as a collapsible block

Asking about variations and mode

describe_run returns each result row with alternatives_mode at the top level and a variations[] array of v2 / v3+ descendants for that asset. Each variation entry carries its own mode (semantic / lexical), the seed_alternative_text the user picked, the descendant_run_id, and the variation's own alternatives. The agent is taught the semantic vs lexical contract: semantic means paraphrase of the seed (same factual content, different surface form); lexical means re-use of the seed's vocabulary with a distinct candidate meaning a reviewer can tell apart. Example prompts:

  • "What variations did we try for public.country.abbreviation in run #99 — were they semantic or lexical?"
  • "Evaluate the lexical variations on sales.orders.status in run #142 and name the distinct candidate meaning each version proposes."
  • "Compare v1 and v2 of users.email_status in run #67 — what changed and what does the mode imply about the agent's reasoning?"

For Re-Run descendants the seed_alternative_text is null (Re-Run regenerates from scratch rather than anchoring on a seed); the agent still surfaces kind: "rerun" and the descendant's mode so you can reason about diversity decisions across versions. See Variations and Alternatives diversity mode.

Below each assistant turn:

N profiles · X.Ys · focus: WAREHOUSE · 1 234 tokens · $0.0042

Profile count, total latency, current focus, total token count, and the per-turn cost. The cost is computed at the rates active when the turn ran, not at current rates.

Message input

  • Textarea with markdown syntax highlighting
  • Submit with Ctrl/Cmd-Enter (or the Send button)
  • A Cancel button replaces Send while the agent is streaming — pressing it sets the cancel token; the answer stops at the next tool-call boundary

A state.seedPrompt hand-off from other pages (e.g. the Compare page's Ask AMX button) pre-fills the textarea and auto-submits.

Cross-references

Studio CLI
Ask chat /ask
Sessions list /session list
Resume session /session resume <id>
End session /session end
Scope dropdown /session scope [profiles] and /use-db <profile> [<profile>…]
Tool-call trace CLI prints tool names inline in the answer