---
title: "Chat overview"
description: "How conversations, sources, and citations fit together."
canonical: https://ocho.bot/docs/chat/overview
last_updated: 2026-07-12
---

# Chat overview

> How conversations, sources, and citations fit together.

Chat is a conversational AI assistant grounded in your company's documents. Ask a question and Ocho searches the datasets you've selected, composes an answer, and cites the exact documents — and pages — the answer draws on.

## Key concepts

- **Conversations** — every chat is saved to your private history, listed in

the sidebar by date. You can pin, rename, delete, and search them. See   [Start and manage conversations](/docs/chat/start-and-manage-conversations).

- **Sources** — the datasets the assistant searches. You control them from

the **Sources** button in the composer; your selection applies to the   messages you send next (in any conversation) and resets to all sources when   you reload. See [Choose data sources](/docs/chat/choose-data-sources).

- **Citations** — each grounded answer shows a sources row underneath (for

example, *9 sources*). Open it for the **Citations from answer** panel,   where numbered citations link to the exact source passage in an in-app   document viewer. See   [Citations and sources](/docs/chat/citations-and-sources).

- **Modes** — a conversation can run under different instruction prompts

("modes"), and you can tune temperature, response length, and model per   message. See [Tune responses](/docs/chat/tune-responses).

- **Message actions** — copy an answer, or copy a link to it once the

conversation is saved. Users with the `document_markdown_editor` role also   get a Save to Library action. See   [Message actions](/docs/chat/message-actions).

## While Ocho responds

- A status line shows what's happening: *Searching documents*, the internal

id of a tool being run (for example, *search_knowledge*), then *Thinking* —   replaced by the answer as it streams in.

- The Send button becomes a **Stop** button during a response. Stopping halts

the streaming in your current view and temporarily marks the reply   "stopped" — but the full answer is usually generated in the background   anyway, and that complete answer is what you'll see when you return to the   conversation.

- Chat doesn't yank the page down while text streams. When you scroll away, a

floating down-arrow button (labeled "Jump to latest" for screen readers)   appears above the composer — click it to jump to the newest content.

## Good to know

- Answers can be wrong. As the composer notes: Ocho is AI and can make

mistakes — double-check responses, and use the citations to verify.

- If no relevant passages are found, Ocho says so rather than inventing a

source. If document search fails, the answer is generated without documents   and flagged with a warning.

- Very long answers can hit a length limit — a notice suggests asking a

follow-up to continue.

- File attachments in chat are not yet available. The composer shows a

paperclip **Attach file** button, but clicking it only shows "File   attachments coming soon".

- Chat has no search-only mode. To search documents without an AI answer, use

the separate **Search** page in the sidebar.

All docs: https://ocho.bot/docs

---

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