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Opening and finding chats

The home page in Hamster Studio is a conversation canvas, not a dashboard. The input is centred, your three most recent conversations sit below it, and you start a new chat the same way you pick up an old one — without navigating anywhere.

User on the full chat view from the home surface, the new conversation screen displaying a welcome heading, a row of suggested prompt chips, a Recent conversations row of cards, and the chat input at the bottom with an Add connections affordance.

How it works

  1. Open the home page — Input centred, recent conversations as cards below it. Each card shows the title, how long ago the conversation was active, and the message count.

  2. Start a new chat — Type your own message or use one of the four one-tap prompt categories (Idea, Strategy, Feature, Code) — each expands into curated starter prompts that drop into the input for you to refine. Press Enter to send. The welcome header fades, the input pins to the bottom, and the AI starts replying.

  3. Reopen a past chat — Click any history card to load that conversation in place. The full message history scrolls in and you continue where you left off.

  4. Browse further — Three cards show by default. Click "Show more" to expand up to 20 conversations in place; "Show less" collapses back.

  5. Jump to a linked Brief — Conversations that produced a Brief show a document icon on their card. Clicking them routes to the Brief (the persistent artefact), not the chat. The original conversation is still accessible from the Brief's activity timeline.

  6. Back to start anytime — Once a conversation is active, a back arrow appears top-left. Clicking it returns you to a fresh home page with the input centred.

Global Chat across the workspace

Each conversation can use the page currently underneath it as context, and selecting one in the tray does not replace that page.

When fullscreen chat creates a Brief, Blueprint, Note, or Initiative, it opens the new item and returns the conversation to the tray.

Place the tray on the left or right side of the screen. Hamster remembers the side you choose.

Document chats stay in the tray when you close them. Reopen a document chat from the document header when you want to continue.

Find work and conversations with the command palette

Press ⌘K on macOS or Ctrl+K on Windows and Linux. Search titles across Briefs, Initiatives, Goals, Notes, Blueprints, Methods, Routines, and conversations. Search tolerates abbreviations and typos.

Choose a document to open it, or choose a conversation to reopen it in the floating tray.

Unread and recent conversations

Chat history separates conversations with unread activity from recent conversations you have already seen, so new replies remain visible without hiding the threads you return to often.

Starting a new chat

  • One-tap prompts. Four categories — Idea, Strategy, Feature, Code — each with starter prompts that drop into the input for you to refine.
  • Animated welcome header. Cycles through action words ("Let's ship", "Let's create", "Let's brainstorm") when the page loads; settles once you start typing.
  • Thread auto-creation. A new thread is prepared before you type your first character. The message goes straight through when you send.
  • Suggestion buttons. Some workspaces show quick suggestion buttons under the AI's opening message. This may need to be enabled for your workspace.
  • Contextual nudges. Relevant work nudges appear above the input — "You have 3 briefs needing alignment" or "Your brief is ready for a plan" — to proactively guide next steps. Nudges are scoped to the current user and respect their permissions and recent activity.

What happens in your first chat

Hamster asks, “What are you trying to achieve?” You can answer in one sentence — “I want to build a login app for my lodge” is enough. Hamster reflects the outcome as a Goal in the language you use, confirms it, shapes the Initiative, and drafts the first Brief. You do not need to choose a framework, add a Metric, or learn the workspace hierarchy before continuing.

Where chat-based Goal creation is supported, Hamster saves the Goal. Otherwise, it keeps the confirmed Goal in the thread and continues into the Initiative and Brief.

Finding past chats

  • Automatic titling. Conversations are titled based on their content. Untitled ones show "Untitled conversation"; titles aren't editable from the history view.
  • Activity timestamps. Each card shows a relative timestamp — "Just now", "3 hours ago", "2 days ago" — based on the last message.
  • Message count. Each card shows the number of messages so you can tell a quick exchange from an extended session at a glance.
  • Realtime updates. The grid updates as new conversations become active. Conversations started by teammates appear with a Brief highlight animation.
  • Brief linkage. Conversations that produced a Brief have a document icon; clicking them routes to the Brief rather than the chat.
  • Pagination in place. Expanding or collapsing the grid, and reopening a conversation, all happen without route changes.
User on the Conversations home page, the chat surface greeting hero displaying prompt suggestion chips above a horizontal Recent conversations row of chat cards, with the chat input below carrying an Add connections control in its toolbar.

Tips

  • The home page input is always ready. You don't have to navigate anywhere to start fresh — click the back arrow from any active thread.
  • Check the nudges above the input to catch work that needs your attention. Nudges update in real time as brief statuses change or teammates move things forward.
  • If a recent topic isn't visible in the first three cards, click "Show more" before starting a new chat. You may have already made progress on it.

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