Editing the context

A conversation's timeline is the model's context, and you can change every part of it: insert cards anywhere, edit or delete what is there, undo, branch, and send again.

The timeline is the context

Each request is built from the saved conversation, top to bottom, and most cards are sent as they appear. The exceptions:

Each request also carries, ahead of the timeline and not shown on it, Mework's own system prompt sections, your project instructions and the MEMORY.md index of each memory tier that is on.

Note On Anthropic Messages, AWS Bedrock, Claude Agent, OpenAI Responses and Azure OpenAI, the model's reasoning is replayed exactly as the provider signed it, so editing it changes only what you see, and the card says so. Delete the card to keep that reasoning out. Reasoning you insert yourself has no signature and is not sent as reasoning there. On other protocols, the card's text is what the model gets.

Insert

Right-click the timeline and a line shows where the new card will go: the top half of a card inserts before it, the bottom half after it. From the keyboard, focus a card and press ShiftF10 to insert after it.

The menu adds a System prompt, User input, Reasoning field, Tool call ▸ or Model reply card, and Fork conversation copies everything above the line into a new conversation. Nothing is sent and nothing runs until you send.

Insert a tool call

Tool call offers the file and shell tools enabled in the conversation and opens an empty form for the arguments and the Result.

• ✓ Save records the call and the result you typed without running anything, for example a bash command you ran yourself.
• ▶ Run and add runs the call now, under the approval rules of the conversation's security level, and inserts the real result.

Edit and delete

Most cards have their own edit (pencil) and delete (trash) buttons. You edit inside the card; in text cards ⌘Enter (CtrlEnter on Windows) saves and Esc cancels. Nothing can be changed while the model is running.

• A model reply can be edited once it has finished. Encrypted reasoning can only be deleted.
• In a tool call you edit the arguments and the result. ✓ Save runs nothing. ▶ Rerun, for ls, grep, find, read and lsp, runs the call again and records the new result. Preview and subagent cards cannot be edited.
• The model cannot tell an edited card from one it produced.

A delete takes effect at once and can be undone. To be asked first, turn on Settings → Preferences → Appearance → Input → Confirm before deleting messages (off by default).

Undo and box select

Click empty space in the timeline to give it focus, then press ⌘Z (CtrlZ on Windows) to undo and ⌘X (CtrlX on Windows) to redo. In a text field these keys keep their usual meaning.

• Undo reverses only that edit; replies the model added since stay. Undoing a tool run removes the card, not what the command did.
• There are 64 steps in all, shared by every conversation. Quitting Mework clears them, and forks and handover conversations start with none.

Box select. Hold ⌘ (Ctrl on Windows) and drag across the timeline, starting outside any text field. Right-click the selection for Delete, which one undo restores.

Branch and fork

Both make a new conversation with the source's settings, including its security level, and leave the source untouched.

The copy gives the model exactly the context the source had at that point, including Mework's notices, plan-mode guidance and handoff notes.

Continue from the timeline

Send with the message box empty: the model runs on the timeline as it stands, and no user message is added. Use it to continue after an edit.

The context ring

The ring at the bottom right of the message box shows how full the context window is; click it for a breakdown by kind of card. A leading ~ means the figure includes Mework's estimate. If the model has no Context window in its properties, only the count shows.

Auto-compact and handoff

At a threshold you set, auto-compact has the model write handoff notes and carry on in a new conversation that starts from them.

Set it in the context ring: Auto-compact → Enable auto-compact and Compaction threshold (20–97%, default on at 80%). The setting is global and reaches runs in progress. It works only when the model has a Context window set and Mid-conversation tools on, and never in subagents or workflow steps.

1. At the threshold, Mework asks the model once to hand off.
2. The model writes its notes and calls handoff, which is refused while background agents or workflows are still running.
3. A new conversation, <title>-handover-<n>, takes the source's place in the sidebar and starts at once. It has the same settings and tools, the source's system prompt card and the notes, but no history and none of the source's prompt cache.

The source stays as it was, ending on the handoff card. To reword the request or the new conversation's opening message, set handoff.armed_notice or handoff.start_message in a prompt profile.

History

The History pane records what was actually sent to the model and what came back, so it still shows what the model saw after you change the timeline. Open it from the conversation header: More options (⋮) → History. A tool row there holds the input that actually ran, after hooks and approval.

Attachments

Add files with + → Upload files, by pasting, or by dropping them on the message box or on a user message you are editing.

One message's attachments can come to 32 MB in all. For a PDF, the attachment preview says which of the two the model gets. A paste over 800 characters folds into a Pasted text tag and is sent as the full text.

A conversation with an image anywhere in it, including tool screenshots, cannot be sent to a model without Vision, and the message box says so. Switch to a vision model, or delete those images from the timeline.