Chapter 12
Chats are conversations with Tana and your team
A chat opens as a conversation: your messages on the right, answers on the left, a message box at the bottom. You decide with one key whether Tana answers or only the people in the chat read it.
Where your chats live
Chats are documents like any other, so the Library lists them next to your tasks and notes. Filter the Library to Chats with the type pill to see only them, newest first. A meeting's private AI chat ("Private AI chat for …") shows up here too, while the chats Tana starts for its own background work stay out.
Toggle MCP chats
Every time another app asks Tana something through MCP, it leaves a chat whose title starts with "MCP:". To keep them out of the way, run ⌘K Toggle MCP chats (under Settings; its hint says Shown or Hidden). It hides them from every list and every search at once, and the setting follows you to your other Macs. A chat you open by its link still opens.
A chat reads as a conversation
Open a chat and it starts at its newest message, with the caret in the message box. It keeps following new messages as long as you stay near the bottom. Scroll up to read older ones, and the page stays where you left it.
- Who can see it "Only you can see this chat", or the faces of the people in it. The Add participants link opens the sharing page.
- Your messages In a light blue bubble on the right. Hover over one to see when it was sent.
- Thought for 14 seconds How long Tana worked on the answer below it.
- Who answered In bold over each run of replies: Tana AI, a colleague, or Codex.
- References Nodes a message mentions or attaches, as links that open them.
- Proposals What Tana suggested creating or changing, as cards.
- The message box It stays at the bottom however long the chat gets.
Tana's answers keep their shape: headings, bullets, numbered lists, quotes and code. Messages themselves cannot be edited, and anything you cannot write to says so in the box: You can read this chat but not write in it.
Thinking, and what Tana did
While Tana works on an answer, a grey line over it shimmers Thinking.... When the answer is done, the line says how long it took: Thought for 14 seconds, "2 minutes", or Finished thinking when the time is not known. The line shows only on answers where Tana used its tools.
When Tana handed part of the work to a helper, the line gets a chevron. Click it to fold out a link to that helper's own chat. If an answer failed, the reason sits in the same grey place: Error: ….
Proposals inside a chat
When Tana suggests a new document, a change to one, or an action in another system, the suggestion arrives as a card in its answer. The card names the thing, what kind of proposal it is and where it stands: awaiting your approval, approved or rejected.
While a card waits, it has the same approve and reject buttons as the Proposals page. Click the card itself to open what was proposed; ⌘-click opens it in a new tab. A change to an existing document is merged by Tana itself, so its approve button stays greyed with approve in Tana as the reason. All your pending proposals, across chats, are on the Proposals page: see Timeline, notifications & proposals.
Write a message
Type in the box and press ↩ to send. ⇧↩ starts a new line, and esc leaves the box. Three dots show where Tana's answer will appear, and the answer then streams in as Tana writes it.
Whatever you type and do not send stays in that chat's box while the window is open. If a message cannot be sent, your words go back into the box.
@ links and mentions
Type @ to link a node. Tana comes first: mentioning it asks Tana to answer, even in a chat with other people. Codex comes next, and Claude when you switched it on in Choose agents (see below), then your recent pages and search results. Pasting a Tana link turns it into the node's chip as well.
/ runs a skill
Typed as the very first character, / opens the workspace's skills. The one you pick sits as a pill in front of your text and goes with the message for Tana to run. ⌫ at the start of the text, or a click on the pill, removes it.
Add to chat …
To talk about something you are looking at, run ⌘K Add to chat … on it (or on a selection: "Add 3 items to chat …"). Pick New chat or one of your chats, and the items land at the start of that chat's message box, ready for your question. Dragging rows onto a chat's message box does the same.
To Tana, or to the chat ⇥
Each message goes one of two ways, and the empty box tells you which:
- Ask Tana · @ links · / runs a skill: Tana is asked to answer.
- Message the chat · @ links · Tab: to Tana: the message is for the people in the chat, and Tana stays quiet.
A chat starts in the mode it uses by itself: a chat that is yours alone asks Tana, and a chat with other people in it messages them. Press ⇥ in the empty box to switch. Mentioning @Tana asks it to answer in either mode. While a skill is attached, the message stays in To Tana, since the skill is for Tana to run.
When Tana asks you something
Sometimes Tana needs an answer before it goes on. Its message then reads Waiting for your input, and a question card takes the message box's place, one question at a time ("2 of 2").
- ↑ ↓ move through the options; 1–9 pick one directly.
- Space ticks an option where it says Select all that apply.
- The last row, No, and tell Tana what to do differently, takes your own words.
- ↩ is Continue, and Submit on the last question. With nothing picked, it takes the highlighted option.
- ← → step between questions.
- esc is Dismiss: Tana goes on with sensible defaults.
New chats, and bringing people in
New chat and New chat with …
⌘K New chat starts a chat with Tana that only you can see, and opens it. It is called "New chat" until Tana names it after its first answer. New chat with … lists your colleagues. Pick one, and the new chat is shared with just the two of you.
Invite to chat…
On an open chat, ⌘K Invite to chat… lists the workspace's members. The one you pick can read and write in the chat from then on. A line in the middle of the chat says so: "Sam Okafor was added to the chat." Once there are two of you, Tana answers only when mentioned, and the box moves to To the chat.
A chat that takes its audience from a meeting or a space cannot be narrowed to a list of people, so Orbital refuses the invite there and says why.
Rename
⌘K Rename on a chat you can edit lets you type a new title. The messages themselves stay as they are.
Select and delete messages ⇧⌘⌫
A chat can be read from the keyboard. ↑ at the very start of the message box selects the newest message, with a ring around it. ↑ and ↓ walk through the messages, and ↓ past the last one, or esc, takes you back to the box.
With one of your own messages selected, ⇧⌘⌫ or ⌘K Delete message removes it from the chat, for everyone in it. You can delete only your own messages, never Tana's or a colleague's.
With a message selected, ⌘K opens with that message's own rows at the top, under Message.
Ask @Codex, privately
Pick Codex after @ and your question goes to a Codex task on this Mac instead of to Tana. Codex reads the conversation and answers you alone. Nothing of it is written to Tana, so nobody else in the chat sees the question or the answer. @Claude works the same way, through Claude Code on this Mac.
Your question shows in a grey bubble among the messages, marked with a crossed-out cloud: "Only visible for you, on this device. Never saved to Tana." Codex's answer comes under it in grey, with the dots until it arrives. Questions and answers are kept on this Mac, so they are still there after a restart.
- Add to message on Codex's name line (or ↩ on the selected answer, or ⌘K Add Codex’s answer to message) puts the answer in your message box, to send as your own words.
- Click the name line, or run ⌘K Open Codex task, to open the task in Codex.
- Delete message on the question removes it and its answer from this Mac.
Codex needs to be set up on this Mac first. AI & agents covers Codex, its hosts and handing whole nodes to an agent.
Keys in this chapter
| Action | Keys |
|---|---|
| Send the message | ↩ |
| New line in the message | ⇧↩ |
| Switch between To Tana and To the chat (empty box) | ⇥ |
| Link a node, Tana or Codex | @ |
| Run a skill (first character) | / |
| Leave the message box | esc |
| Select the newest message, then walk the messages | ↑ ↓ |
| Delete the selected message (your own) | ⇧⌘⌫ |
| Question card: move, pick, tick | ↑ ↓ 1–9 Space |
| Question card: continue or submit, step, dismiss | ↩ ← → esc |
| Find a chat | ⌘S |