Draft, Rewrite and Ask

AI Assist works on what you select: a card, several cards, a column or the whole story. This page covers drafting new cards, rewriting text and asking questions. To have the model duplicate, move, tag or reorganize cards, use Edit. For what each mode can change, see How AI Assist works.

Before you begin, set up a connection.

Open AI Assist

AI Assist is a panel beside your document. Show or hide it with the AI Assist button in the header, with Panels → AI Assist in Story Map, or with Cmd+Option+7. Hiding the panel keeps your requests and their results, and a request that’s running continues.

The panel has one tab for each mode: Draft, Rewrite, Edit and Ask. At the top of each tab, AI Assist lists what you can do with the current selection, for example Ask AI about these 3 cards. You can also start a request from the object itself:

Where	What to choose
A card	Right-click → AI Assist → Rewrite this card, Edit cards with AI or Ask AI about this card
Several selected cards	Right-click → AI Assist → Edit cards with AI or Ask AI about these 3 cards (with the number you selected)
A column	Right-click the header → AI Assist → Draft or Ask AI about this column. The column’s Draft for this column button does the same as the first
The text of a card you’re editing	Right-click → AI Assist → Rewrite this card or Ask AI about this card. With text selected, Rewrite selection and Ask AI about the selection
The whole story	Ask AI about this story at the top of the Ask tab

Cmd+Shift+I starts a Draft below the focused card, or at the end of the focused column. The command palette lists every AI Assist command too, including one for each tab, such as AI Assist: Draft workspace.

Work in the panel

Each tab keeps its own request and result, so a draft can wait in one tab while you ask a question in another. Switching tabs never changes a request. Only choosing an action starts a new one, and it replaces the request in its own tab only. When you return to a tab, the cards its request is about are selected again.

From top to bottom, a tab shows:

The selection: how many items are selected, and the actions you can start for them. If you change the selection after starting a request, Update selection starts the request again for the new selection, with your instruction and choices. The earlier request stays available under Request, with its result unchanged.
Request: the Scope (in Edit and Ask), the Connection and Model, the Prompt (see Saved prompts and story style), Recent instructions, and the instruction itself. Save as custom prompt… next to the instruction keeps it for later.
Can change: what the request may modify.
Can read: the supporting context the model receives, one chip per item. A chip with a dot is always included. Select a chip with a check mark to leave it out, and + Add context for more, such as All cards — full text. Adding context never lets AI change it. Show context preview shows the text the model receives. See Can change and Can read.
Request details: how large the request is and how much the model may write. Advanced output settings sets that allowance by hand.

Select the mode’s button at the bottom to send the request: Generate, Rewrite, Plan edits or Ask. The answer appears as it arrives, and Cancel stops it. One request runs at a time. While it runs, the other tabs can’t send, and a button above the tabs takes you back to it. Nothing is applied until you choose to apply it.

When the result arrives, the sections above it fold away to make room, with a short summary of the request. Response details names the model that answered and shows the request that produced the result. The buttons in the panel’s header fold or unfold every section. In a narrow panel, they and AI Jobs move into the … menu.

If the document changes after you start a request, you can still read the result. To apply changes, start a new request with an action at the top of the tab.

Drag the panel’s edge to make it wider or narrower. It always leaves room for the document, and stays beside it in a narrow window too. To hide it, press Escape while you’re in the panel, or select Hide AI Assist (×). Requests and results are kept until you close the document or quit FlowBoard.

Draft new cards

Select the card the new cards should follow, or a column. Then choose Draft at the top of the Draft tab, or in the column’s AI Assist menu.
Describe what should happen, for example “Mara confronts the protagonist about the missing key. Preserve established facts.”
Select Generate.
Review the proposed cards. Each one is shown as card text you can change. Select Exclude for any you don’t want.
Select Insert with the number of cards, for example Insert 3 cards.

The panel shows where the cards will go: directly below the focused card, or at the end of the column. FlowBoard reads proposed cards the same way as cards you type, and checks them again when you select Insert. A card is blocked, with the reason below it, when:

it would break the story, for example by reusing a scene ID that already exists;
part of a tag or other metadata wouldn’t be stored as written, for example a quote mark inside a quoted value that isn’t escaped with a backslash (\„);
it carries a link ID (::id:mk-…). FlowBoard assigns those when you create a link.

Fix the card text in the review, or select Exclude for that card.

The Draft starters follow your document’s story organization: if your cards are scenes, they draft scenes, and if your cards are beats, they draft beats.

Rewrite text

Open Rewrite this card.
Say how the text should change, for example “Make the dialogue more restrained while preserving its meaning.”
Select Rewrite. The proposed change appears as a comparison, with removed lines in red and added lines in green.
Select Accept.

A rewrite changes only the text. Tags, dates, importance and other metadata stay as they are, and a rewrite can’t add any: if the proposed text contains tags or other metadata, it’s refused. To change tags, use Edit, and for story connections, Story Map. A line that has an author comment can’t be rewritten, so the comment can’t end up on the wrong line. Edit that line yourself.

While you’re editing a card, Rewrite selection rewrites only the selected text, and the result goes into the editor. Before it does, FlowBoard checks that the card could be saved with the new text.

By default, a selection is sent on its own. For a request such as “Make this fit the paragraph”, add Rest of this card under + Add context: the model then reads the text around the selection, and still rewrites only the selection. A reply that repeats the surrounding text is refused, because that text would then appear twice.

To rewrite several cards at once, select them in Story Map and choose Rewrite (see AI Assist in Story Map). You review one comparison per card and apply them together, for example with Accept 3 card rewrites.

Ask about your story

Ask answers a question and never changes your document. Each question stands on its own: the model doesn’t see your earlier questions or its earlier answers, so include what a follow-up needs.

Choose Ask AI about this card, Ask AI about this column or Ask AI about this story.
Type your question, for example “Is the pacing of this route working? Where does it drag?”
Select Ask.

Answers can use formatting such as lists, tables and formulas. Cards the answer cites appear as links with the card’s title. Select one to go to that card. Copy answer copies the answer, with card titles in place of the references. Open this request in Edit starts an Edit request with the same question and scope, and the Ask tab keeps its answer. The answer isn’t passed on, so if it suggested changes you want, describe them in your instruction.

In Ask and Edit, Scope widens what the request covers: the column, the board, or the whole document. In Ask, the whole-document option is Document overview: every board and card as an outline and, in an interactive story, every route with all its scenes. To include the full text of every card, add All cards — full text.

AI Assist in Story Map

On Mac, Story Map uses the same panel. Show it with Panels → AI Assist, and its tabs list what you can do with the selected cards. Right-click a card, a column, a board or the empty canvas for an AI Assist submenu with three parts: Ask, Rewrite and Edit. Ask and Edit open a list of their own; Back, or the left arrow key, returns. AI Assist lists only what works for what you’ve selected.

Ask answers a question about the map. Choose what it’s about:

Choose	Offered when	What it asks about
This selection	Always. It reads This map when nothing is selected	The selected cards, or the whole map. The scenes that lead to and from them aren’t included at first. Add them under + Add context if your question needs them
Reading path	You’ve followed a path in the Linear view	The path you followed, with the variable values after each scene. It’s the way to ask what the reader knows at a point in the story. The route, which also holds later scenes, is left out unless you add it
Story Health	Story Health has findings for the selection or the map	What the findings mean
Relationship	Two cards are selected	How the two are connected, including choices and conditions
Route	One scene is selected	Every scene of its route

Rewrite rewrites the selected cards. It’s offered when only cards are selected.

Edit changes the story:

Plan changes… starts an Edit request for the selection. See Edit cards and structure.
Continue, Bridge, Expand into choices and Repair Story Health propose new scenes, connections or tag fixes for the selected cards. Bridge needs two selected cards, and Repair Story Health is offered when the selected cards have Story Health findings. The proposal opens in the Edit tab, where a switch moves between it and Edit request. The review shows every new scene, every changed connection and Story Health before and after. Check I reviewed the changes to scene text, tags and connections above, then select Apply reviewed changes.

Those four proposals change the story in your document: they add scene cards, connect scenes and add or fix story tags. The model writes only the prose of a new scene, and FlowBoard adds its story tags. They don’t change the text of existing cards.

With one card selected, the Draft tab also offers Draft. Rewrite, Edit and Draft aren’t offered while the document can’t be changed, for example when it’s read-only.

The command palette lists the same choices by their full names, for example AI: Ask about reading path, AI: Rewrite and AI: Edit — Continue.

See Story Map for the map itself.

Edit cards and structure lets the model duplicate, move, tag and reorganize cards.
Example requests shows what to ask for in each mode.
Background AI jobs run large requests while you keep working.