/prep and /interview, Socratic questioning is always active.
Selah uses extended thinking before responding — taking a moment to reason through your question, weigh the conversation context, and consider your notes before it speaks. This means responses are more considered and better connected to what you’ve been studying.
Starting a conversation
Open Companion from the sidebar. The input field is at the bottom of the screen. Type anything and press Enter (or tap Send) to begin. Selah responds with full context from your study history. To start a fresh conversation at any time, click + New Chat in the top bar.Using the companion from the note editor
You can also open the Companion directly inside any note without leaving the editor. PressCmd+. / Ctrl+. or click the sage-green chat button in the bottom-right corner. A companion dock appears alongside your note — as a side panel on wide screens, a bottom sheet on narrow screens, or a floating window you can drag around. The dock has the current note pre-loaded as context, so the Companion can answer questions specific to what you’re writing. Your conversation persists as you navigate between notes.
Slash commands
Type/ at the start of your message to trigger a structured mode. Each command changes how the Companion responds for that session.
/prep [topic] — Sermon and teaching preparation
/prep [topic] — Sermon and teaching preparation
Starts a guided interview to help you prepare a sermon, Bible study, or devotional. The Companion asks you structured questions about your passage, your main point, your audience, personal stories, and how you plan to open. You answer in your own words — the AI listens, asks follow-ups, and builds context from your knowledge base.After enough exchanges, a “Build your message” card appears. See The prep workflow below for what happens next.Example:
/prep John 15 — the vine and branches/interview [topic] — Socratic deep-dive
/interview [topic] — Socratic deep-dive
Starts a Socratic interview on any topic or passage. The Companion asks one focused question per turn, helping you develop your thinking through dialogue rather than direct answers. When you wrap up, the conversation is saved as a full, editable interview note — your insights, verbatim quotes, scripture connections, and open questions, all in a TipTap document you can keep developing.Example:
/interview What does Paul mean by "the righteousness of God" in Romans?/pray [request] — Save a prayer request
/pray [request] — Save a prayer request
Saves your prayer request to the Prayer Board immediately, without a back-and-forth conversation. Use this when you want to log something quickly.Example:
/pray for clarity on next week's teaching/reflect — Weekly themes from your captures
/reflect — Weekly themes from your captures
Analyzes your captures from the last seven days and surfaces the recurring themes, questions, and patterns in what you’ve been thinking about. Useful for weekly review and sermon planning — it shows you what has been occupying your mind without you having to scroll back through everything.
Editing notes through conversation
You can ask the Companion to edit your notes directly — no need to leave the conversation and open the editor. Describe what you want changed in plain language, and the Companion makes the edit for you. This works from both the web companion and Telegram.What you can ask
- Append content — “Add a point about Romans 8 to my sermon prep note”
- Update a section — “Tighten up the intro on my grace teaching note”
- Undo an edit — “Undo that last change” or “Revert the edit you just made”
Every AI edit is logged with a before-and-after snapshot and a plain-English diff summary (e.g., “Added 2 paragraphs to Introduction”). You can undo any edit instantly — see undo AI edits for details.
How note resolution works
When you reference a note by name or topic, the Companion resolves it using title matching and semantic similarity against your notes. If a single clear match is found, it proceeds. If the match is ambiguous, the Companion asks which note you meant. If no match is found, it lets you know and suggests creating a new note instead.Edit cards
When the Companion edits a note, an edit card appears in the chat thread below the message that triggered the change. The card shows what happened — for example, “Appended 3 blocks” or “Updated ‘Conclusion’ section.” It auto-expands briefly after the edit lands, then collapses to a one-line pill. Hover over a collapsed card to expand it again. Each card has two actions:- Show — scrolls the note editor to the affected blocks and re-triggers the gold highlight so you can see exactly what changed.
- View change — opens a diff preview showing the note before and after the edit, with options to undo or re-apply.
Diff preview
Click View change on any edit card to open a side-by-side comparison of your note before and after the AI edit. On wide screens the panels sit next to each other; on narrow screens they stack vertically. From the diff preview you can:- Undo — reverts the edit and restores the previous content.
- Re-apply — re-applies a previously undone edit.
- Close — dismisses the preview without changing anything.
Esc or click outside the modal to close it.
Conflict resolution
If the Companion tries to edit your note while you’re actively typing, a version conflict can occur. Instead of failing silently, a banner appears in the chat:“I started to add a section, but you were editing. Want me to try again?”Click Try again to re-apply the edit against the current version of your note, or Skip to dismiss the banner and discard that edit. If “Try again” still can’t apply cleanly — for example, if you renamed the heading the Companion was targeting — an error message appears explaining what happened.
Attaching captures and notes
You can give the Companion specific context by attaching captures or notes to any message.Open the attachment picker
Click the paperclip icon to the left of the input field. A panel slides up with two tabs: Captures and Notes.
Select what to include
Check one or more items. Selected items appear as pills above the input — you can remove any of them before sending.
You can attach both captures and notes in the same message. The picker closes automatically when you start typing.
Session history
Every conversation is saved. To revisit a past session, click the History button (clock icon with label) in the top bar. A panel slides down showing your recent conversations, each labeled with its auto-generated topic and timestamp. Click any session to load it. Sessions work across surfaces — conversations you start on the web and Telegram all appear in the same history. A session automatically closes after 30 minutes of inactivity; the next message starts a fresh one.Deep linking to a session
You can link directly to any conversation by adding asessionId parameter to the URL:
The Telegram
/sessions command uses these deep links to let you tap a conversation in Telegram and continue it on the web.The prep workflow
/prep is Selah’s most structured mode, designed for preparing sermons and teachings. Here’s how the full workflow unfolds:
Start the interview
Type
/prep [your topic] and send. The Companion enters prep mode and begins asking you questions: what passage you’re working from, the one thing you want people to walk away with, personal stories or experiences that connect to the material, your audience type, and how you’re planning to open.Have the conversation
Answer each question in your own words. The Companion asks follow-ups, pushes for specifics and concrete details, and uses your captures and notes as background context. There’s no minimum length — say as much or as little as feels right for each question.
Build your message
After at least 8 exchanges, a “Ready to build your message?” card appears in the conversation. You’ll see two options:
- Enrich + Format — Organizes your words into a structured teaching note, then adds inline research blocks: historical context, original language notes (Greek/Hebrew), cross-references, cultural background, and notes on where your illustrations fit. Your words are never changed — only surrounded by additional context.
- Just Format — Organizes and formats your content without adding any research enrichment.
The Companion matches the output’s reading level and style to how you spoke during the interview — so the finished note sounds like you, not like a generic outline.
Proactive check-ins
When you connect Telegram, Selah can send you brief, unprompted nudges throughout the day — a question about a stalled note, a connection between your captures and this week’s devotional, or a gentle reminder about something you might want to pray about. These arrive as plain-text Telegram messages designed to feel like a friend checking in, not a notification. Check-ins are evaluated every 15 minutes during your active hours. Selah reviews your recent activity — notes, captures, prayers, and study patterns — and decides whether something is worth surfacing. If nothing needs attention, it stays quiet. You receive at most two nudges per day.What Selah checks for
By default, Selah looks for:- Stalled notes — a note you edited recently that hasn’t moved forward. Selah asks if anything is missing or if you’re ready to develop it further.
- Unprayed captures — a thought you captured that mentions something prayer-worthy but hasn’t been added to your prayer board. Selah suggests it gently.
- Thematic connections — a link between your recent captures, notes, and this week’s devotional theme. Selah surfaces the connection as a question.
- Inactivity check-ins — if you’ve been quiet for a while, Selah asks how things are going with your last active study.
- Contextual facts — occasionally, a brief historical or language note about a passage you’re studying.
- Offers to help — after you finish a note or teaching, Selah offers to cross-check references or assist with next steps.
Customizing check-in behavior
You can change what Selah checks for by telling it in conversation. Send a message in Telegram or the web companion like:- “Stop asking me about stale notes”
- “Focus on prayer connections and devotional themes”
- “Update my heartbeat instructions to only check for thematic connections”
Configuring check-in settings
Go to Settings and find the Proactive check-ins card under the Companion section. You can:- Toggle check-ins on or off — changes take effect on the next evaluation cycle.
- Set active hours — choose the window when Selah is allowed to send nudges (default: 8 AM to 10 PM). Overnight windows like 10 PM to 6 AM are supported.
Proactive check-ins require a connected Telegram account. If Telegram isn’t linked yet, the settings card shows a prompt to connect it first. When you first connect Telegram, check-ins are enabled automatically with default settings.