# Use the assistant

Ask the AI assistant to build or change your design, attach images, stop a request and undo what it did.

> **AI credit.** This feature uses AI credit. AI help is pay-as-you-go. No compulsory subscription. Drawing by hand is free for personal use. Prices: https://kerfcraft.app/pricing

The assistant uses AI credit. To see the price and add credit, read [Check what AI help costs and top up credit](/docs/how-to/assistant/top-up-ai-credit/).
To learn what the assistant can and cannot do, read [How the assistant works](/docs/explanation/how-the-assistant-works/).

## Open the assistant panel

1. Click **◀ AI** at the right edge of the window.
2. To close the panel again, click **▶**.

If your balance is too low for a request, the panel is closed when the app opens. You can still open it.

## Ask the assistant

1. Type your request in the text box at the bottom of the panel.
2. Press Enter, or click **Send**.

To start a new line in your message, press Shift+Enter.
While the request runs, the panel shows what the assistant does, the time and the number of actions.
Each change appears in the model and in the list of actions.

If the panel is empty, it shows example requests. For example: "Create an 800 mm wide, 400 mm deep, 18 mm thick plywood panel."

## Tell the assistant which parts you mean

The components that you select are sent with your next message. They show as chips above the text box.

1. Select the components in the model or in the **Model** list.
2. To add a component by name, type **@** and then the first letters of its name.
3. Use the arrow keys to pick a component.
4. Press Enter.
5. To remove a chip, click its **×**.

To stop the assistant from changing anything else, select **Only change these**.
The assistant can still read the whole design.

## Attach images

You can send JPEG, PNG and WebP images with a message, for example a sketch or a photo.
You can send up to 4 images in one message.

Do one of these:

- Paste an image into the text box.
- Drag an image file onto the bottom of the panel.
- Click **📎** and select the image files.

To remove an attached image, click the **×** on its thumbnail.

## See the videos and pictures that the assistant makes

When the assistant makes an AI video, restyles the view or tries another material, the result shows in the conversation.
Below it, you can read the engine, the length of a video and what the result cost.

- To play a video, click **▶** on the clip.
- To see a picture at full size, click it. To close it, click it again or press Esc.
- To save the result, click **Download**.
- To see the result in its panel, click **Open in Video panel** or **Open in Restyle panel**.

The conversation keeps a link to each result, not the video or the picture. The project keeps your last 4 videos and 6 pictures in this browser. An older result shows **No longer kept**.

To make these yourself, read [Make an AI video](/docs/how-to/pictures/make-an-ai-video/) and [Restyle a view with AI](/docs/how-to/pictures/restyle-a-view-with-ai/).

## Stop a request

1. While the request runs, click **Stop**.

The changes that the assistant already made stay in the design. To remove them, undo the last request.

If a request stops with an error, click **Retry** to continue from the step that failed.
After many steps, the assistant pauses so that you can examine the design. Click **Continue** to let it work on.

## Undo the last request

1. Click **Undo last request**.

This undoes every change that the assistant made for your last message. The panel tells you how many changes it undid.
You can also undo the changes one at a time with **↶** (Undo) in the toolbar, as for your own changes.

## Change a message and run it again

1. Click **Edit** on one of your messages.
2. Change the text.
3. Click **Save and re-run**.
4. Click **OK** in the confirmation box.

This undoes the design changes that the assistant made since that message. It also removes the conversation after that message.

## Clear the conversation

Each project has its own conversation. A long conversation costs more, because each request sends the conversation again.

1. Click **New chat**.
2. Click **OK** in the confirmation box.

This deletes the conversation of this project. You cannot get it back. Your design and the selected model do not change.

## Choose the model and the effort

The two lists at the top of the panel set the AI model and the reasoning effort.

1. Select a model in the first list.
2. Select an effort in the second list: **low**, **medium**, **high**, **xhigh** or **max**.

A higher effort is slower and more thorough, and it uses more tokens, so it costs more.
The line below the lists shows the price of the selected model. Click **pricing** to see the price of each model.
KerfCraft remembers your model and effort for the next time.

## Rate a reply

Below the last reply of a request, click **Good reply** or **Bad reply**. KerfCraft gets the rating, but not the text of the conversation.