> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.jinn.so/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Ask a question > Ask a question in plain words and get an answer from your recordings and docs, with links back to where it came from. Ask Jinn a question the way you'd ask a colleague, and it answers from what your team said and wrote: the transcripts of your recordings, the [write-ups](https://docs.jinn.so/meetings/review-a-meeting.md) written over them, and your [docs](https://docs.jinn.so/docs/write-a-doc.md). Every answer shows what it read, so you can check it instead of trusting it. ![The message box of a chat in Jinn, with a chip naming the project it reads and a question typed into the box](https://mintcdn.com/jinn/hoR78y1EDmHjEXya/images/find/ask-a-question-chips.png?fit=max\&auto=format\&n=hoR78y1EDmHjEXya\&q=85\&s=b8d10efa8e261ce46072f9820b22f41d) A chat that reads one project, and the question being asked of it Chat starts from the bar along the bottom of every screen. Click **Ask Jinn** at its right end, or press **⌘J** on a Mac (**Ctrl+J** elsewhere), and a new chat opens on the right, beside what you're looking at, with the cursor already in the message box. The shortcut works from anywhere in the workspace, even while you're typing in a doc. The new chat starts out reading whatever you have open: * **A recording**, open or docked over the page: that one recording. * **A [project](https://docs.jinn.so/workspace/projects.md)**: that project. * **An [agent](https://docs.jinn.so/agents/add-an-agent.md)**: that agent, as a chip in the message box. * **Anything else**: the whole workspace. **AI** in the left sidebar opens the chat as a page of its own, across the workspace. On a narrow window, where there's no room beside the page, **Ask Jinn** opens that page too. ## Start a new chat A new chat opens on **Ask Jinn about your work**, and the line under it says what that covers: **It searches every meeting, doc, and project you can open**. The start page stays until you send your first message. A chat you come back to opens on its conversation instead. Under the heading sit starters, each with a message ready to send. Click one and Jinn sends it as yours, so you see what an answer looks like before you write your own: * **Chat** asks *What can you do in this workspace?* * **Research** turns on [Research](https://docs.jinn.so/find/research-a-question.md) and asks *How should we run our weekly meetings?* * **Create** asks Jinn to make a skill, or a doc if you can't make skills. It's there only if you can [create something from the chat](#create-an-agent-a-skill-or-a-doc). Below the starters, a row for each button in the message box says what it does: **+** adds a source or a file, **Research** searches before it answers, and **What Jinn can do** lists the chat's abilities and the workspace's skills. ## Ask a question Type your question in the message box and send it. You don't need keywords or the name of the meeting. Say what you want to know. > [!TIP] > > For example: *What did we decide about pricing?* or *Who owns the launch, and what did they > commit to?* When the answer needs your meetings or docs, the reply shows **Searching your workspace** while Jinn looks. A question that doesn't need them — rewording a paragraph, say — is answered straight away. Either way you can keep going: a follow-up question in the same chat builds on what came before. If the reply opens with a folded line called **Thinking**, that's the reasoning behind the answer. It folds itself away once the answer starts, and you can open it whenever you're curious. Chat answers a question. When you're after the passage where a word was said, that's [search](https://docs.jinn.so/find/search.md). A question that needs several searches, or the web, is a job for [Research](https://docs.jinn.so/find/research-a-question.md). ## Choose what the chat looks through A question asked of the whole workspace gets an answer from the whole workspace. Often you want less than that: one meeting, one project, one doc. What the chat is reading shows as chips in the message box. A chat opened from a project starts with **Project:** and the project's name, and one opened from a recording starts with **Recording:** and its title. Remove a chip to stop reading that source, or open the menu that adds sources, in the message box, to pick something else: * **The whole workspace.** The chip reads **Workspace: All Projects**. * **Your projects.** Turn on **My projects only** and the chat reads only projects you're a member of. The chip changes to **Workspace: My Projects Only**. Jinn remembers the switch for you between chats. * **A project.** The menu lists the five most recently updated. Type a name to find any other. * **A recording.** The chat reads its transcript and the write-ups written for it, and nothing else. * **A doc**, or everything carrying a tag. Add more than one and the chat reads them together. **My projects only** narrows whatever you've added too: a tag that spans six projects comes down to the ones you're on. What you pick applies from your next question, and the chat keeps it when you come back later. A narrow choice stays narrow. If nothing in it matches your question, the chat says it found nothing. It doesn't quietly widen to the rest of the workspace. Chat never reads what you couldn't open yourself. A private project you're not on stays out of every answer, whatever you pick. See [people and access](https://docs.jinn.so/workspace/people-and-access.md). ## Add a file to the chat The chat can read a file you bring in: a PDF, a text file, a CSV export, a screenshot. Open **+** in the message box and choose **Upload files (pdf, txt, csv)** or **Upload images**. The file sits in the message box as a chip, and when the chat reads it the reply says **Read a file**. A file can be up to 50 MB, and a message can carry up to nine images. A file isn't a place to search, the way a project or a doc is. It's material for the chat to work with, so adding one doesn't change what else the chat looks through. ## Check an answer Each reply that searched your workspace carries one search result. It says how much Jinn found, and of what kind, and lists every recording and doc it drew on, each one once. ![An answer in Jinn chat with its search result open, listing the doc and the recordings it drew on](https://mintcdn.com/jinn/48W-8QqP6SyFhGB7/images/find/ask-a-question-answer-sources.png?fit=max\&auto=format\&n=48W-8QqP6SyFhGB7\&q=85\&s=c041ad275153b481a91035fd4c7b0e74) What the answer read to get there * Click a recording and it opens, transcript and write-ups included. * Click a doc and it opens too. * A row named after an agent — **Default's insight**, say — tells you which agent wrote what the chat read. * A file shows by name. There's nothing to open. Links inside the answer work the same way: a reference to something said in a meeting opens that recording. When the result says **No results found**, nothing you can reach matched, and the reply isn't grounded in your workspace. **Workspace search failed** and **Workspace search didn't finish** mean the search broke. Ask again before you conclude it isn't there. ## Add an agent to the chat An [agent](https://docs.jinn.so/agents/add-an-agent.md) reads work through one role's eyes. Bring one into a chat and every answer from then on comes back the way that role would give it, shaped by the agent's description and instructions. Pick the agent from the same menu that adds sources. It appears as a chip, **Agent:** and its name. Two things come with it: the agent's voice, and what it has already written in projects you can reach, which the chat can now draw on. You can also start from the agent. Open it under **Agents** and click **Ask Jinn** in the bar at the bottom: a chat opens beside the agent with only its chip in the message box, ready for your question. That works for any agent that's saved and switched on. A chat holds one agent at a time. Pick another and it replaces the first. Remove the chip and the chat goes back to answering plainly. Either change applies from your next message. Answers you already have aren't rewritten. An agent isn't a choice of what to read. Adding one doesn't narrow the chat to a project or widen it to the workspace, so set that separately. If an agent is switched off or deleted while it's in your chat, its chip is marked unavailable and answers stop being shaped by it. See [switching an agent off](https://docs.jinn.so/agents/manage-agents.md). ## Use a skill A [skill](https://docs.jinn.so/skills/use-skills.md) is a piece of your team's know-how written down once — how you run a discovery call, what goes into a follow-up email. The chat knows every skill in the workspace by name and description, and when your question fits one it uses it without being asked. To choose the skill yourself, type **/** in the message box and pick from the list or open **+** and then **Skills**, or pick it on the **Skills** tab of [What Jinn can do](#see-what-jinn-can-do). The skill sits in your message as a chip, and Backspace removes it whole. A message can carry up to five. A skill you pick applies to that message only. Ask a follow-up that needs it too, and pick it again. ## See what Jinn can do **What Jinn can do**, the lightbulb button in the message box, opens a list of what the chat can do for you, with a search box over it. It's there in any chat, not only a new one. **Abilities** lists the chat's tools in two groups: * **Find**: **Search docs**, **Search meetings**, **Read a whole doc**, **Read a file you attach**, and **Look things up online**. * **Create**: **Write a doc**, **Edit a doc**, **Make an agent**, **Make a skill**, and **Build a mini app**. The list is yours. An ability you can't use isn't on it: **Look things up online** is missing when web search isn't available, and **Make an agent** when you're not a workspace admin. There's nothing to switch on. Ask in your own words and Jinn picks the tools. **Skills** lists the workspace's skills, under **Type / in the chat, or pick one here.** Click one and its chip goes into the message box, the same as picking it with **/**. The chat can also make things for you: an agent, a skill or a doc to review and save, or a small one-page tool. See [creating with the chat](https://docs.jinn.so/find/create-with-the-chat.md). ## Find a past chat The clock button at the right end of the bottom bar, next to **Ask Jinn**, opens your chats in this workspace, newest first. Click one and it opens on the right where you left it; the chat you're looking at is marked. A chat keeps what it was reading when you started it. While Jinn is still answering, it won't switch you away mid-answer: **Ask Jinn** and the other chats in the list wait, and say **Jinn is still answering**. Close the chat while it works and a dot appears on the clock button. It stays until you open that chat again, so you know an answer is waiting. For a longer look, open **Home** and go to the **Chats** tab. Your chats are there, newest first, under **Today**, **Last 7 days**, **Last 30 days**, and **Older**. Click one and the conversation opens where you left it. A chat that never got a title shows as **New chat**. To start fresh, click **Ask Jinn**, click **AI** in the left sidebar, **New chat** on the **Chats** tab, or **New chat** at the top of the AI page. **Delete chat** on a row removes it. Jinn asks first, because a deleted chat can't be recovered. ## Where to go next > [card] [Manage agents](https://docs.jinn.so/agents/manage-agents.md) > > Put an agent on the projects it should be reading, and keep the set tidy. > [card] [Research a question](https://docs.jinn.so/find/research-a-question.md) > > Let Jinn plan the research and cite every source, in your workspace and on the web. This documentation is built and hosted on [Mintlify](https://mintlify.com), a developer documentation platform.