The Athena Guide · 02

The chat

Writing, attachments, «/» commands, directions while she works, long conversations

Writing and attaching

The «+» next to the bar offers Attach file (images, PDF, Word, text), Take a photo (camera on a phone, webcam on a computer) and Record meeting. Attachments go with the next message. Images are read by the default chat model; with a model that doesn't see them (DeepSeek) they aren't sent, and Athena tells you she can't see them instead of guessing.

The files Athena hands you open from their card: sounds and videos play right there, in the chat; Download saves them. On iPhone and iPad «Download» opens the share sheet (Save to Files, AirDrop, an app): once the sheet closes, you are still in Athena.

«/» commands

Type / and the menu appears. The main ones:

• /new opens a new conversation; /fork opens one that starts again from the last answer.
• /summary and /compact: a summary of the chat, or freed context (see below).
• /goal: a goal for the chat, which Athena can work on by herself.
• /remember and /forget: memory. /search searches the web, /library your documents.
• /agent creates an agent through an interview. /canvas opens the canvas, /meeting records.
• /translate translates the last answer; /effort chooses how much Athena reasons (quick, high, maximum, automatic).

Giving a direction while she works

While Athena thinks or uses tools, the bar stays active: what you write (or say holding the microphone, when she is not speaking) becomes a direction, such as «skip the web, search only my documents».

• She reads it at the next step, after the tool in progress, without starting over. In the chat it shows as your message, marked «while she was working».
• If she is already writing the final answer, the direction waits and goes out by itself as the next message.
• If you stop her before she reads it, the text comes back to the bar.

Scrolling

At the bottom the chat follows everything that arrives. If you scroll up to read, it stays where you are and «back to last ↓» appears at the top. When you write, it goes back to the bottom by itself.

The ring next to the chat has a segment for each message: Athena's answers inside, your questions as notches outside. Dragging the cursor jumps from one question to the next. In long chats, such as those of agents that run every hour, the ring shows the last 40 messages, fainter as they get older; the earlier ones sit in a faint arc at the start, and tapping it takes the chat to the first message.

Rereading, changing, listening

Under each message there are copy and read (read aloud). On your questions there is edit: Athena answers again from that point, and what came after leaves the conversation (a copy stays in the Archive).

Figures and sources

Before giving you an answer, Athena checks where prices, percentages, temperatures and times come from: they must be in what you wrote or in the results of her tools (the web, mail, documents). She also checks the attempts she reports, such as «I tried and it gives an error»: they must really have happened. A figure given as an estimate («about €700») is fine.

If something doesn't add up, Athena rewrites the answer and, when she can, looks the figures up with her tools; meanwhile the line «figures without a source: checking them again…» appears. Next to the time of the answer you'll find checked again: hover over it to see what she checked. If a figure is still without a source, ⚠ No source appears under the answer: it is Athena's estimate, to be checked. Figures read from a photo or an attached document are not checked this way.

Polishing the text

When a written answer has the tics of machine writing (the «it's not this, it's that» contrast, colons that build suspense, long dashes, filler sentences, an English word in the middle of Italian), Athena revises only those sentences before handing it over. Under the answer you see «Polishing the text…» for a few seconds, then the text updates. Facts, numbers and links stay the same. Spoken answers are not revised. With Athena-Engine there is also a filter in the engine: while Athena writes, it avoids the «it's not this, it's that» contrast, colons in the middle of a sentence and long dashes. The revision and the filter can be turned off in Settings → AI Engine → Writing, for the whole account.

For long texts (documents, articles, important emails) Athena uses the scrittura skill: first she decides who she is writing for, then she writes, then she checks the text against the sources and cleans it up.

Verifying an answer

Under each of Athena's answers there is verify. Athena takes up to six public facts from the answer (prices, dates, times, names, places, rules), looks each one up on the web and checks it against the pages found. She judges every fact on its own, without rereading the answer, so she doesn't repeat its mistakes. The list appears under the answer: ✓ confirmed, ✗ contradicted (with the right value) or ? uncertain, each with a link to the source. It takes about half a minute.

Personal data is never searched on the web: mail, files, accounts, appointments and addresses stay out. If a fact is contradicted, Athena knows it in the following answers too. Web search must be on (Settings → AI Engine).

Reminders

Ask Athena, by voice or in writing, to remind you of something: «remind me tomorrow at 9 to call Luca», «in half an hour tell me to leave», «every Monday at 8 remind me of the meeting». Athena confirms the exact day and time. At that time the reminder appears in the chat you asked from («⏰ Reminder: call Luca») and arrives on Telegram, if you connected it in Settings → Alerts: the reminder text goes through Telegram. They can repeat every day, week or month. To see them: «what reminders do I have?»; to remove one: «remove the Luca one». If the server was off at reminder time, it arrives as soon as it restarts, marked as late.

If a device is listening to you (microphone on), Athena also says the reminder aloud; if she's speaking, as soon as she finishes. The other devices have it in writing. On the Agents page, the Reminders tab shows the upcoming ones: New reminder creates one without going through the chat (it arrives as an alert in Athena and on Telegram), Change edits text, day, time and repetition, the bin removes one.

Long conversations

When a chat fills 80% of the engine's context (the administrator sets the threshold in Settings → AI Engine), Athena compacts it: the engine receives a summary of the old part, with the exact references (addresses, figures, dates, paths). The chat marks it, and you can do it yourself with /compact.

The goal

With /goal you give the chat a purpose Athena always keeps in mind. With «Let her work on it» she works on it in rounds (usually up to 10, within 30 minutes) and tells you where she is. While she works on her own, talking to her does not stop her: your sentence becomes a direction for the current round.

Organizing

In each chat's ⋯ menu: Pin to top, Move to a project, Share, Rename, Archive, Delete. The search in the left column also finds chats inside projects.