Effort and Private mode

Every message in Ask Blake carries two knobs you set from the composer: effort and Private mode. This article explains what each one does and when to reach for it.

The effort choice

The effort chip sits at the left of the composer. It has three settings:

Auto (default): Blake picks the right amount of thinking time for the question. A short answer gets a quick pass; a nuanced one gets more.
Flash: fastest and cheapest. Blake uses a lower-effort pass on every message. Good for quick lookups and short drafts.
Ultra: highest effort. Blake spends more time reasoning on the answer. Good for complex briefings, multi-step drafts, and analysis.

PLACEHOLDER: replace with effort-composer-chip.light.png. Shows the Ask Blake composer with the effort chip open, showing the three options Auto, Flash, and Ultra with radio-style selection.

Ultra does not promise a specific model tier or reasoning depth in v1. Blake reserves the right to swap the routing under the hood. Ultra means "spend more effort here" not "run this on the biggest model available."

The pre-submit chip on the composer shows an estimate of what your next message will cost in credits. Effort choices affect this estimate.

Private mode (Stealth chat)

Private mode is a per-chat toggle. When it is on:

The conversation is not saved to your chat history.
Nothing is written to Blake Memory from that chat.
Brain does not learn any signals from that chat.
Blake still answers grounded in your workspace data, but the chat itself does not shape future answers.

Turn it on when you are asking exploratory questions, playing devil's advocate, or working through a sensitive scenario you do not want the model to learn from.

How to turn Private mode on

Open a new chat or an existing one.
Open the slash-menu with / and pick Stealth chat. The composer shows a "Private mode" pill above it while the chat is stealth.
Send your messages as usual. Blake replies as usual, but nothing from the chat persists once you close it.

PLACEHOLDER: replace with private-mode-badge.light.png. Shows the Ask Blake composer in Private mode: a 'Private mode' pill above the composer, and the chat body noting that this conversation is not saved.

To leave Private mode, start a new chat. There is no "turn stealth off in the same chat" option by design: it would blur the boundary between what Blake keeps and what it does not.

Credit cost

Flash is the cheapest per message.
Auto varies. Simple questions cost less; complex ones cost more.
Ultra costs the most per message.

The exact cost per skill invocation depends on the skill, not just the effort. The composer's pre-submit chip shows the estimate before you send.

If you cannot find the toggles

The effort chip is missing: your composer may be in edit mode for a previous message. Cancel the edit and it comes back.
Stealth chat is missing from the slash-menu: refresh the panel. If it still does not appear, ask your Admin to check the feature configuration.
Ultra keeps swapping to a shorter reply: some messages get short answers even on Ultra because Blake decided the question did not need more. This is a feature, not a bug; effort is a ceiling, not a floor.