# AI

> Ask for a widget in words, summarise what's selected, and draft a decision from it.

Tack can use AI for three things on a board: setting up a [widget](https://tack.social/widgets/overview.md) from a description, summarising what’s selected, and drafting a [decision](https://tack.social/boards/decisions.md) from it. Everything it comes up with is shown to you first, to read, edit or throw away. Nothing goes on the board until you place it, and then it’s your own edit, undone in one step like any other.

It’s for the board’s editors, and only where the instance has AI suggestions on (see [Turning it off](https://tack.social/boards/ai.md#turning-it-off)): where they’re off, none of what’s below is there.

## Asking for a widget

Press `W` (or choose **Widget** in the toolbar), and type what you want to see in **Ask for one** at the top of the picker: “open bugs in ascorbic/unpic”, “pull requests waiting for my review”, “what merged in the last two weeks”, “issues nobody’s touched for a month”. Press `Enter`.

The AI picks the kind of widget that fits and fills in its settings, using the board’s repositories when you don’t name one. Tack checks the settings against what that kind accepts, and asks the AI again if they don’t fit. You see:

- which widget it chose, and a sentence on what it shows
- its settings in words (the search, the repository, the time range)
- **the widget itself**, live, with the results you’d see

![Asking for “Open bugs in unpic”: the AI chose a list widget, says its search in words, and previews the list live with six open bugs, with Try again and Place on board.](https://tack.social/_astro/ai-light.CdNHSXTB_18Mijo.webp)

**Place on board** (or `Enter`) puts it in view. Change your words and press `Enter` to ask again, or **Pick one yourself** to go back to the picker. Once it’s placed it’s an ordinary widget: its settings are editable like any other’s, and everyone sees its results as they may read them.

## Summarising

Select a few stickies, cards and notes, or a section on its own, and choose **Summarise** in the bar below the selection (`⌥` `⇧` `S`). After a moment, a short summary with its main themes opens in the panel, ready to edit. **Place summary** (`⌘` `Enter`) puts it beside the selection as a text block.

## Drafting a decision

Select a discussion (stickies, cards, a section) and choose **Decide** in its bar (`⌥` `⇧` `D`). The AI drafts the decision to be made, its context, and the options the items raise, without choosing between them. Edit it, then **Place decision**: it goes beside the selection as a proposed decision, connected to the selection’s cards (up to eight), ready to vote on. Writing it back to GitHub works as for any decision, through [pending changes](https://tack.social/writing-back/overview.md).

## What the AI reads

Only what you selected, and only what you could read yourself:

- **Face-down stickies** in a [silent](https://tack.social/facilitation/silent-mode.md) section aren’t read: their words aren’t on the board until the reveal. Selecting only face-down stickies says so.
- **Cards from repositories you can’t read** are left out entirely, not even their names. On a public board, only cards from public repositories are read, since what you place there is public.
- The panel says how many items it read and what it left out (“Left out 1 private card”).

When asking for a widget, it reads the board’s repositories (those you can read), its sections’ names and today’s date, and nothing else. Widgets’ results are never sent to it.

The AI never writes anything to the board or to GitHub by itself. What it reads, and what it answers, isn’t kept or logged by Tack.

## Limits

Each board allows 12 AI requests a minute and 120 an hour, and each person 6 a minute on a board. Past that, it says so, and to try again in a moment.

## Turning it off

AI runs on [Workers AI](https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers-ai/) in the instance’s own Cloudflare account. It’s part of the instance’s AI suggestions, with [stacks](https://tack.social/boards/stacks.md)’ names: admins can see whether they’re on in `/setup`, and turn them off with the `TACK_AI` setting. See [Configuration](https://tack.social/self-hosting/configuration.md#ai-suggestions) and [Costs](https://tack.social/self-hosting/costs.md#ai).