askr Pro

askr Pro is a model you never have to pick. A new chat opens on it, at Balanced, and it sits at the top of the model picker, the first row, with Cheap, Balanced and Performance beside it. Say what you want and askr Pro reads the message and picks the door and the model for it, at the tier you chose, starts one of the ten skills when the line calls for one, and says what it picked under your line. Version one picks from one ladder per door and kind of task; version two builds the ladder around you.

On from the start

A new chat opens on askr Pro, Balanced, so there is nothing to turn on: every line you send is decided, which of the room's doors, Ask, Code, Image, Video or Audio, and which model behind it. With askr Pro on there are no door chips under the message box, since it picks the door on every line, and no estimate beside Send, since the price is not known before the pick; a model picked by hand brings both back. The Images, Video and Audio doors on the home page still start a room on that door. Picking by hand still works and sticks: choose a model from the picker and the chat runs on it from then on, open a skill from Ask and that thread runs under the skill, until you choose askr Pro again from the first row of the picker, with a tier on it. In a room the creator's pick sets askr Pro for the room; anyone else's holds for their own lines. On the home page the Ask composer opens on askr Pro too, and the first send makes a room on it; the tier, and a model you picked by hand instead, are remembered on that device, so the next new chat opens the way you left it.

Cheap

Always the cheap ladder: a cheaper model and short answers, however hard the question. A hard one moves up to the tier's own reasoning list, never out of the tier.

Balanced

Strong models at an everyday price. A hard question goes to the balanced reasoning list.

Performance

The strongest models, thorough answers and more searching, and always the best there is for a picture, a clip or a sound. A hard question goes to the strongest reasoners.

What it reads before each pick

• The message, and what is attached to it. A picture, a PDF, a sound or a clip on the line changes what the line is likely to want.
• The last lines of the thread, so a follow-up is read as a follow-up and not as a new task.
• What the room remembers: the Building and Made lines of the room's memory, so it knows what you are making and what has already been made. askr Mind.
• The tier, and the doors the room has on. A door the creator switched off is never picked.

How it decides

That reading goes, in one call, to a decision model that answers with probabilities, not words: how likely each door is, which of thirteen kinds of task the line is (a quick answer, writing, code, working out, looking it up, a summary, translating, money, health, ideas, shopping, fixing it, learning), whether it wants the web, how hard it is, whether it carries on the last one, and whether it also wants a picture, a clip or a sound made beside the words. Plain code then turns those numbers into a door and a model from the tier's ladder. The decision model never writes a word, so it cannot answer you, cannot change your request, and nothing you type is an instruction to it; the tier is held by the code, not by a model, so a message that asks for a dearer model does not get one. How many pictures you want is read from your words by a plain pattern, and a clip's length from the room's setting, never from the decision model.

The decision is the only thing that runs before the credits for the line are held, and it has two and a half seconds. When the decision model is slow or down the line still runs, on the room's model through Ask, and the line under it says askr Pro could not decide. Each decision is kept as a row with no message text in it, so askr can see how often it decides and how sure it was.

The rules

• The tier is a ceiling and a floor. Cheap always runs the cheap ladder, Balanced the balanced one, Performance the top one, and Performance always picks the best there is. A hard question moves up to the tier's reasoning list, never out of the tier, and nothing in a message moves it.
• A follow-up keeps the model. When a line carries on the last task and the model that answered it is still live and inside the tier, it answers again, and the pick says kept. A new task picks afresh.
• A picture, a clip or a sound needs a confident read. Under that bar the line goes through Ask, with a chip under it, Make it a picture instead (or a clip, or a sound), that runs the same line through that door. Ask and Code need no bar: they are cheap either way.
• A skill, without asking. A line that calls for one of the ten skills, looking something up, writing, learning, fixing something, health, translating, money, ideas, a summary or shopping, runs with that skill's instructions and its screen: the answer arrives with the sources, steps, cards or calculators under it, in the same thread, and the pick says which skill ran. A thread that already carries a skill keeps its own. askr Skills.
• Every pick is shown. Under your line, one line says what ran and why, askr Pro: Claude Sonnet 5 for writing, Balanced, or askr Pro: Look things up skill on Claude Sonnet 5, Balanced, with Change beside it.
• Change turns askr Pro off. Pick a model by hand from Change and the line runs again on it; askr Pro is then off for the room, and the model you picked stays as the room's model, so the change sticks. Choosing any other model in the picker does the same.
• A door you ask for is honoured. Make it a picture instead runs the line through the Image door, and a line sent to a named door gets that door; askr Pro then picks only the painter, the renderer or the voice for the tier.

Made beside the words

When a line wants a picture, a clip or a sound as well as words or code, a site and its branding, a plan and its poster, the model that answers makes them itself as it writes. It writes each prompt, each one runs through the room's own door on the tier's painter, renderer or voice, every made thing lands under the answer as its own line, and the room says making a picture while it does. It is told to make things itself and never to send you to a door. Code it writes carries the pictures it was made with, by their addresses, so a page it builds shows them without a file to drop in.

Packaged, previewed and on the bill

After a run that made things askr Pro checks once, off the turn, whether everything you asked for is there and connected; whatever is missing is made in one more run, never more, and a closing card under the last reply sums the package up in a line, then the bill for the whole line in credits and about how many dollars, split by clips, pictures, sounds and code or words, a clip still rendering counted when it lands. A failed line is left out; its credits went back.

When a thread has a page to show, the preview takes the room: on a desktop the rail folds away and the panel takes the right half at full height, Preview first, with a small button that reaches Room settings and People; on a phone one switch moves between the chat and the full-screen preview, with Chat to come back. The page is assembled from the answer's files, its stylesheets and scripts inlined by name, and every picture, clip and sound made in the thread is put into the page before it is shown. Anchors scroll, a link to another page of the answer shows that page with Back, a link to a made picture, clip or sound opens it in the room, an outside link opens a new tab, and the frame never leaves the page. A Files tab beside Preview and Code lists everything the thread made, pictures, clips, sounds and code files, each with Open and Save; a Made here card in the rail, and at the top of the Room sheet on a phone, shows the newest six pictures and clips with All opening the Library. In every answer the fences fold into one row, Your code, 3 files, closed until you open it, each file with Copy and Save; a short snippet with no file name stays inline. askr Collab, Make images.

Never stopped in your tracks

When a supplier declines a picture, a clip or a sound under its content rules, askr Pro rewords the request once, the brand, company, real person, franchise or copyrighted work replaced by the kind of thing it is, says so in the room, and tries again. A second refusal becomes an offer on your line: what could not be done and what would be done instead, with a chip, Yes, make the sound that way, that runs it through the door. Inside a written answer the model rewords and tries again itself. With askr Pro off a refusal reads as it always did, with its code (error codes).

What it costs

A fraction of a credit per decision, metered under its own source and charged at zero while askr is feeless. The model that answers is priced as always, and its receipt says which model ran and which pot paid. There is no estimate beside Send while askr Pro is on and nothing asks you before a dear pick, since the price is not known before the pick: the credits show under the answer, as they do on every answer, and a decision that could not be made costs nothing. What a run costs.

Where it is not

A skill thread you opened yourself keeps its tier pill: the tier there already picks the model, so askr Pro is not offered in it; a skill askr Pro starts runs inside your plain thread, where askr Pro stays on. Compare names its own models, two to four of them, and never takes askr Pro. The API names a model on every request and does not take askr Pro. askr Skills, Compare, Chat completions.

What is next

Version two builds the ladder around you. From what your memory says you reach for, what you ask and what you keep, askr Pro will rank the models per person, so the one it picks for you is the one that does your kind of work best, whether that means the strongest answer or the cheapest one. Roadmap.