Last updated October 24, 2026
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Chat
In Chat, you ask ProvenMap about the architecture you've already mapped, and it makes governed changes to it.
One chat, everywhere
Chat is one conversation in the right rail. A Chat button appears on the canvas, hub, aspects, work items, skills, and Pages. Opening it from any screen resumes the same thread.
What this conversation is about
Every conversation has a scope chip. The scope sets what the conversation focuses on and limits what it may change.
- 1
Click the scope chip
Every conversation has one, and clicking it changes what the conversation is about.
- 2
Widen or narrow the scope
From one selected element up to the whole workspace.
- 3
A facet scope
Open chat from a facet's screen and the conversation scopes to it.
What chat can do
ProvenMap reads nodes, edges, aspects, bound sources, and past insights.
In chat, it can:
- Answer from the graph. "Which services have no owning team?" "Where is customer data stored?"
- Trace a dependency. "What depends on the orders table?" "How does checkout reach the ledger?" ProvenMap draws the result under its reply as a dependency card.
- Draw. Ask for a diagram and it can reply with a context board built to answer the question. It appears as a live preview in the conversation without changing the board you're viewing.
- Edit the board you're on, within the scope's fence.
- Draft work items. Every work item it creates asks for your approval first, and arrives as a draft for review.
- Start an analysis, below.
ProvenMap also reads reference sources, such as an ADR, PRD, or runbook, when you ask. After you connect your own Confluence, Notion, or Jira, paste a link or name the page or issue. It reads the page through your connection and asks whether you want a board, a decision board, or work items from it. Then it drafts what you chose. See Provider Sources.
- Keep the page with the board. ProvenMap offers to bind a Confluence or Notion page as a reference source. Work items drafted after that carry a Drafted from line naming it.
- Bring in a Jira epic. ProvenMap reads an epic together with its child issues. It lists the work items it proposes, one per issue with the board it anchors to, and drafts them under an epic of the same name once you confirm. Each work item names its Jira key. To send work items the other way, see Send to Jira.
If your organization has Slack connected, ask in Chat to share a board, work item, or insight to a channel. ProvenMap first shows you the exact message and the channel, and posts only after you approve. Owners, admins and contributors can share. See Automations.
ProvenMap never changes anything in chat without telling you. A board edit or a new work item either asks in the conversation or goes to review as a staged change. It can only change boards you could change yourself.
Dependency cards
A dependency card is one of the three Dependencies types, Impact, Depends on or Route, with the panel's picture and table. The card reads the boards again each time it opens, so it shows them as they stand, not as they were when you asked.
Select an element on the card to open it. A node opens on its board's canvas; a table, endpoint, client, channel or page opens on its own screen. Select Show on canvas to dim everything on the board you're viewing that the card doesn't name; the dimming follows you between boards. To change the depth or follow an element's route, open Dependencies from the node.
Turning it on
Chat starts on your organization's trial credits. Your first message offers to turn them on. Each message you send uses one credit, and that includes answering a question ProvenMap asks you.
When the credits run out, connect one org-level model provider: open Settings → Connectors and authorize a provider such as OpenRouter; Integrations Reference covers the setup. Chat then runs on your own account and models. Plugins don't need a provider in either case.
Owners and admins choose the models chat may use in a workspace, and the default model, in Workspace settings → AI models.
Quick starts
A new thread opens with up to six quick starts chosen for where you are: the board, the screen, and what is selected on it. A quick start fills the composer and moves the scope chip to what the ask is about; edit it before sending, or type your own. A tile marked You finish the sentence waits for the rest, such as the question a context board should answer.
- On an empty workspace, only Set up this workspace appears. It interviews you about your systems, draws the landscape, and creates an empty board for each app. The boards are empty on purpose: their content comes from each repo's first push.
- On the canvas, the offer follows the selection. With one element selected, What depends on {name}? and What does {name} depend on? answer with a dependency card. With exactly two nodes selected, How does {first} reach {second}? finds the route between them, in the order you picked them.
- On the work items screen, every quick start scopes the chat to work items, so ProvenMap can draft, change and hand off work items but not redraw the board. On the root board, or after Include all layers, the scope reaches every board beneath this one.
- On the hub, the offer follows the attention queue. Rows about repos, coverage and evidence get none: their fix is outside chat, behind the row's own action.
A playbook run keeps its own order. Its chat steps are not quick starts: act on the step in the guide and its question appears in the composer, in a thread that counts as the step's proof.
Starting an analysis from chat
Chat is the one place inside the portal where an analysis starts. Ask for one, and ProvenMap matches an insight skill, or runs the one you name, over the conversation scope. Each analysis produces a batch of insights.
The canvas has no Run control. The Insights Bar lists insights as they arrive but does not start an analysis. The other triggers are in the plugins, outside the portal; Insights lists them, along with the Sentry issues that arrive as insights on their own.
What chat isn't
It is not where you commit. The amber "{n} uncommitted changes" pill in the Topbar holds every uncommitted change across the workspace. You commit or discard from the pill, not from the chat dock. MCP Access covers the pill.
It is not where large architecture work belongs. Each chat turn is bounded. To restructure a whole board tree, adopt a decision across a dozen apps, or work from a folder of local design docs, use the workspace plugin. It reaches the same boards with no turn limit.