# Researcher: Workflows

The Researcher is your conversational partner in the vault. Learn how to direct its attention and ask better questions.

## Focusing Attention with Mentions

By default, the Researcher indexes your vault in the background. However, for specific tasks, you should explicitly tell it what to look at using the `@` symbol.

### Mentioning a single note

1. Type `@` and start typing the name of a note.

    ![The @ autocomplete dropdown showing note suggestions](/images/screenshots/mention-autocomplete.png)

- _Use case:_ "Summarise @Meeting Notes"
- _Benefit:_ Forces the agent to read that specific file in full.

### Mentioning a folder

Type `@` and select a folder path.

- _Use case:_ "List all open tasks in @Projects/Alpha"
- _Benefit:_ Adds all notes in that folder to the context (up to the token limit).

## Multilingual Interactions

The Researcher speaks your language. Examples of how to use this effectively:

- **Set your language**: Go to settings and choose your preferred language (eg "French"). The agent will now reply in French by default, even if you ask in English.
- **Cross-lingual search**: You can ask questions in your native language about notes written in English. The agent will translate and synthesize the answer for you.

    ![With the language set to German, the agent replies in German to a query about an English note and with an English prompt](/images/screenshots/multilingual-reply.png)

## Chat Controls

The Research Chat header includes powerful tools for managing your session on the fly:

- **Model Switching**: Use the dropdown in the header to temporarily switch models (eg from Flash to Pro) for a single difficult query without changing your global defaults.
- **Capability Toggles**: Click the **Write** toggle to enable/disable agentic write access for the current session. When enabled, the agent can create or modify notes (it will always ask for your confirmation before applying changes).

    ![Close-up of the Research Chat header showing the model dropdown and the Write toggle](/images/screenshots/chat-controls.png)

## Effective Querying

The Researcher uses a hybrid search (Keywords + Meaning + Connections).

| Goal | Less Effective | More Effective |
| :--- | :--- | :--- |
| Recall | "Project Alpha" | "What were the key decisions made in Project Alpha last month?" |
| Synthesis | "Compare notes" | "Compare the conclusions in @Paper A and @Paper B." |
| Discovery | "Similar ideas" | "What other concepts in my vault relate to 'Entropy'?" |

## Managing Context

The "Context Window" is the amount of text the AI can read at once.

- Flash Model: Large window (~1M tokens). Good for dumping entire folders.
- Pro Model: Smaller window. Best for precise reasoning on specific files.

> [!TIP]
> If the agent seems confused, try clearing the chat history to reset the context.
