The Assistant panel

The Assistant is a panel that docks on the right of the Nixt Mail window. You type a question about the message you have open, the question goes to the model AI is set up to use, and the answer appears as it is written.

The Assistant is available only when AI is set up. See AI providers and models.

Open the Assistant

Use any of these:

• In the reading pane toolbar, click Ask AI. It sits at the end of the row of message actions.
• Choose View › Show AI Panel.
• Click the sparkle on a file to ask about it. The panel opens with the answer. See Ask about a file.

View › Show AI Panel is greyed out while Autopilot is on screen, and the panel is hidden while Autopilot is open.

What is in the panel

The first note in the conversation says where your questions go: Connected to destination. What you ask, and the thread you have open, are sent there — and nowhere else.

Answers from a model show the model’s name under the text. While an answer is still arriving, that line reads model · answering…. Notes from Nixt Mail itself — a refusal, a failure, a stop — show no model name, so you can always tell what a model wrote from what Nixt Mail said.

Ask a question

1. Open the message you want to ask about.
2. Open the Assistant.
3. Type your question into Ask Nixt Mail anything….
4. Press Return, or click the send button.
5. If this is the first request to this destination, a dialog titled Send this thread to host**?** explains what will be sent and where. Click Send it to continue, or Not now to cancel. See AI permissions.

Your question appears in the conversation, and the answer follows as the model writes it.

What each question sends

Each question is sent on its own, with:

• the Assistant’s fixed instructions,
• the sender’s address and subject of the message that is open in the reading pane, and
• your question.

The instructions tell the model to answer only from the message it is given, to reply that the message does not say when it does not, not to follow instructions contained in the message, and that it cannot send mail, open links or change anything.

Earlier questions and answers stay in the panel for you to read, and are not sent again, so ask each question in full. Use What was sent to see exactly what the model received.

Stop an answer

While an answer is arriving, the send button becomes a stop button. Click it to end the request.

Stopping ends the connection to the destination; it does not only hide the rest. If some of the answer had arrived, it stays in the conversation and a note says Stopped. What had arrived is above. If nothing had arrived, a note says Stopped before anything arrived. Nothing was kept.

See exactly what was sent

After the first request, a What was sent link appears above the question box.

1. Click What was sent.
2. Read the request. The link changes to Hide what was sent.
3. Click Hide what was sent to fold it away.

The request is shown as plain text you can select and copy:

model: <model name>

instructions (fixed, no mail in them):
<the fixed instructions>

user:
The thread:

From: <sender address>
Subject: <subject>

user:
<your question>

It always shows the last request from this session, including a Draft with AI or Say it differently request made from a reply box. When a file was asked about, the file’s text appears as its own part, between lines that name the file. Your API key is never part of it.

Close the panel

• Click the ✕ at the top right of the panel, or
• choose View › Hide AI Panel.

Closing the panel does not clear the conversation. It is kept while Nixt Mail is open, and is cleared when you quit or change where AI runs.

How the Assistant behaves

• One destination. Questions go only to the destination named in the header.
• Plain text only. An answer cannot load images, open links or run anything, even if a message tried to make the model produce them. It is still shown in full, so you can see what the model wrote.
• No actions. The Assistant cannot send, move, delete or change anything.
• Failures are kept apart. If a request fails after part of an answer has arrived, that part is kept and a separate note from Nixt Mail says what went wrong.

Messages in the panel