Chatting with Zero

Zero is a conversation. You open it, describe what you want, and it either answers, shows you what it found, or proposes a change for you to approve. This page walks through everyday use.

Open Ask Zero

Ask Zero in the sidebar is the single entry point. It opens Zero's full-page chat at /a/<account>/zero. On an empty thread you'll see suggested-prompt chips — "Set up a connector", "Why is my bill high?", "Create an agent", "Any problems with my account?" — to get you started.

Ask a question

Type what you want in plain language. Some things to try:

• "What are my most expensive agents, and why?" — Zero reads your usage rollups and per-model spend and explains the drivers, with a link to billing.
• "Why did the last run of support-bot fail?" — Zero reads the run, its messages, and the audit trail and root-causes it.
• "How do I connect our Notion?" — Zero answers from the docs and can walk you through the connector setup.

Zero's answers stream in and link into the canonical dashboard pages, so you can always jump to the underlying surface.

Sending. Enter sends and Shift+Enter starts a new line. If you would rather Enter always start a new line, open the ⋮ menu in the message box and switch off Keyboard shortcuts — the checkmark disappears, Enter adds a line, and ⌘/Ctrl+Enter sends. The choice is remembered in your browser and applies to every chat box, Zero's and an agent's alike.

Dictation and microphone settings

Every composer — Ask Zero and an agent's thread alike — has a microphone button. Click it to dictate; click again to stop. While you speak the button becomes a blue pill with a live level histogram, the name of the microphone in use and a running clock, so you can see that the right device hears you. Your words are transcribed as you go and land in the box after whatever you had typed; nothing is sent until you press Send.

Choosing a microphone. On a computer, right-click the microphone button (or press Shift+F10 with it focused) for a menu of every audio input the browser can see (System default first). Pick the one you speak into — a headset, a USB interface, the laptop's own mic — and the choice is remembered in this browser. On a phone or tablet there is no menu: the system default microphone is used. If the pill shows an amber No sound from this microphone hint while you talk, the chosen device is not the one hearing you: right-click and pick another.

What the colours mean. Blue: the microphone is open, or your words are being transcribed. Amber inside the blue pill: recording, but no signal from the chosen device for a few seconds. Red: something needs you — the browser has blocked the microphone (allow it in the address bar), no microphone was found, another app holds it, the device was unplugged mid-sentence, or the transcription failed (Retry sends the same recording again; Dismiss keeps the words that already landed).

Dictation needs a secure (HTTPS) page and a browser with recording support; Chrome, Edge, Safari and Firefox all qualify. Each phrase you speak is transcribed as soon as you pause — a small tick in the pill for every phrase still on its way, and an animated "…" at the end of your text while the microphone is on — so the words appear a second or two after you stop, and a long sentence is split at a breath rather than mid-word. Each phrase is one transcription call, metered like any other credit use (a short phrase costs the same as a long one), and a single dictation stops itself after three minutes.

Browser	What to expect
Chrome, Edge	Full experience, plus a live caption preview while you speak (from the browser's own recogniser; the inserted text always comes from our transcription).
Safari (Mac, iPhone, iPad)	Full experience. Safari lists microphone names in the menu only after you allow the microphone once, and it releases the microphone when you switch tabs or apps — dictation stops with a Microphone lost notice; tap the microphone again when you are back. The caption preview appears only when Siri dictation is on. Safari older than 14.1 cannot record and shows the microphone disabled.
Firefox	Full experience, without the caption preview.

Live captions

When live captions are on for your account, dictation is live: your words appear in the pill as you say them and each sentence lands in the box the moment you pause, in every browser that can record. The pill looks the same — blue, histogram, clock — but there are no pending-phrase ticks, because nothing waits to be sent. Live captions cost about 1.2 credits per minute of speech, metered like any other credit use, and a single dictation still stops itself after three minutes.

If live captions stop mid-sentence — the connection drops, or an operator turns them off — you see Live captions unavailable — transcribing in phrases and dictation carries on the phrase-by-phrase way described above. Nothing you said is lost.

Zero knows where you opened it

Open Zero from a page — account settings, a project's connections, an agent — and it knows that page: the route, its title, and the fields on it. "Update the logo" on account settings needs no clarification; "connect Notion" on a project's connections page targets that project. From the sidebar's Ask Zero or the account's landing page (new accounts land on Zero), it works with the account's default project and says so on the card.

Actions: some apply at once, the rest you confirm

When you ask Zero to change something it renders an action card with the exact change. Two kinds:

• Applied immediately — connecting a tool, and setting the account logo from a URL. "Connect Notion" creates the connector and the card carries Continue to Notion at once; the provider's sign-in opens in a new tab, and when you finish there the conversation says Notion is connected and the tool is usable. "Download our logo from ftht.org and update the settings" fetches the site's logo, stores it, and shows it on the card. No confirm step: these are reversible from the dashboard and never spend credits on your behalf.
• Confirm first — spend caps, model assignment, creating an agent, enabling a block, buying credits. The card shows Confirm and Cancel; nothing is written until you confirm. On confirm Zero runs the change through the same service the dashboard uses and the card flips to the result with a deep link ("Spend cap set to $200/mo → view billing").

Every applied action is audited. If you're a viewer, Zero stays read-only and won't offer action cards.

The card is the answer: Zero does not describe it or tell you where it is — it is right there in the conversation, after Zero's text.

When we've done something you asked, Zero tells you

Some things you start in Zero finish later — a sign-in you completed in another tab, a reply you flagged that a person then fixed, a source you requested that we added. When that happens, Zero leaves a short note in your conversation, in its own voice: "Linear is connected — FTHT workspace, read & write." or "You flagged a reply on Sep 13 — that's fixed: connections no longer say 'click above'." A note is not a prompt: replying to it is an ordinary message, and Zero never reads the note back to itself.

If you have not opened Zero on that account for a day after a note, you get one e-mail listing that day's notes — never more than one a day — with a link back to the conversation.

Where to go next

• Zero and your data — what Zero reads to ground its answers.
• Running agents — once Zero has set an agent up, dispatch and monitor it.