Skip to main content

Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.brunelagent.ai/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

The chat interface is where you collaborate with Brunel’s AI to build structured plans. It’s designed to feel familiar — a message thread with persistent history — but purpose-built for planning work rather than general conversation.

​
The Interface

The workspace is organized into three areas:
  • Sidebar — your projects and sessions. Click any session to open it as a tab
  • Session tabs — multiple sessions open simultaneously at the top of the workspace. Switch between them instantly
  • Chat area — the active session’s message thread, input box, and file panel

​
Writing a Good First Message

The quality of your plan depends heavily on your first message. The more context you give upfront, the less back-and-forth is needed and the more useful the exported plan will be for your coding agent. A strong first message includes:
  • What you’re building or fixing — a clear description of the task
  • Relevant constraints — existing services, patterns, or libraries that must be used
  • What to avoid — approaches that won’t work for your codebase or team
  • Acceptance criteria — how you’ll know the work is done
Add rate limiting to our API

​
Quick Reply Buttons

As the conversation progresses, Brunel surfaces Quick Reply buttons — pre-built prompts that help you move the planning conversation forward without typing. These might include options like “Add more detail on dependencies”, “Show acceptance criteria”, or “I’m ready to export this plan.” Click any button to send that message instantly.

​
Tool Call Indicators and Thinking Blocks

When Brunel’s AI is doing background work — reading context files, searching for patterns, or processing complex requirements — you’ll see a tool call indicator showing what it’s working on. This is normal and means the AI is gathering the information it needs before responding. For complex planning tasks, you may also see a thinking block — a collapsible section showing the AI’s reasoning process before it delivers its response. You can expand this to understand how the AI arrived at its plan.

​
Message Actions

Every message in the chat supports:
  • Copy — click the copy icon on any message to copy its full content to your clipboard. Useful for pasting plan text directly into a coding agent
  • Timestamps — hover over any message to see its exact timestamp. Messages display relative time by default (e.g., “5m ago”)

​
Uploading Files in Chat

You can attach files directly in the message input using the attachment button (paperclip icon). Files uploaded this way are added to the session’s Context Files and immediately available to the AI in subsequent messages. For managing multiple context files, use the dedicated Context Files panel — see Context Files.

​
Planning Complete Banner

When the AI has finished building a plan, a green Planning Complete banner appears above the input area. It shows:
  • A confidence score indicating how complete the plan is
  • A brief summary of what the plan covers
  • A Review Docs button — opens the planning documents folder on your machine (appears when docs have been written to disk)
  • A Proceed to Implementation button — moves the session to the Execution phase

​
Sending Messages While the Agent is Working

You can type and send a message while the agent is still responding. The message will be queued and delivered automatically once the current response completes. A queued message indicator appears above the input area showing how many messages are waiting. Hover over it to preview the queued content.

​
Sub-Agent Activity

For complex tasks, the planning agent may spawn sub-agents to handle work in parallel — for example, a research sub-agent or a verification sub-agent. When a sub-agent is active, you’ll see an indicator in the session. Click it to open the Sub-Agent Panel on the right side of the screen, which shows real-time streaming output from the sub-agent, including tool calls and text output. The panel closes automatically when you switch sessions.

​
Context Window Usage

At the bottom of the session, a usage indicator shows how much of the agent’s context window is currently in use. This is useful for long planning sessions — if the context fills up, the system will compact conversation history automatically to keep the session running smoothly.