Using the Copilot

The Copilot is a chat panel that answers questions about SwMacroFlow and SOLIDWORKS VBA, and - if you let it - writes and edits macros in your library, builds the chain, changes the scope and starts a run.

It does nothing until you give it an API key, and sends nothing anywhere before then.

Opening and closing it

The AI Copilot button sits in the header beside Help, Reset and Settings. The panel opens where RESULTS and LOG were; closing it puts them back.

Closing the panel ends the conversation. Opening it again starts a fresh one. That is on purpose: the Copilot reasons about the panel as it is right now, and a conversation that outlived three different chains would be answering about a setup that no longer exists. Conversations are saved as you have them, so an old one can still be read from Chat history - it is the live session that ends, not the record of it.

Turning it on

Everything is under Settings → Copilot:

Press Save.

LM Studio is the local one - a model running on your own machine, so nothing leaves it. The other four are somebody else's servers. See What leaves the machine in Using the app before you put a key in.

Modes

The mode decides how much the Copilot may do without asking. Use the Mode button by the message box, or press Shift+Tab in the message box to step through them.

Manual is the default, on a fresh install and whenever a saved mode cannot be read.

In Ask and Plan the tools that change anything are not offered to the model at all - not only the ones that would raise a card, but the panel ones too. It cannot quietly build a chain and then describe it as a proposal.

No mode approves a run. Not Auto, and not any mode added later. A batch closes the documents you have open and discards unsaved work, and a schedule does the same with nobody at the keyboard, so running, running a schedule now and scheduling a batch always ask. Auto means stop asking me about the setup, not stop asking me before you touch my files.

Turning the mode up never removes the app's own checks either. Ask for a run with nothing ticked and it is refused in Auto exactly as it is in Manual.

Approval

When the Copilot wants to do something gated, an Approval needed card appears in the transcript with Decline and Approve. Declining is an answer rather than an error - the model is told you said no, and carries on from there.

What raises a card, by mode:

Everything else - reading, and the panel changes that can only make a run smaller or leave it the same size - never raises a card in any acting mode.

In the two automatic modes the Copilot is told to say what it is about to do before it does it, so you get a sentence instead of a card. That is a smaller thing than an approval. It is worth reading.

What it can see

The reading tools are available in every mode, Ask included: the macro library and the current chain, a macro's source, the files in scope, the last results, the log, your settings, the scheduled batches, the saved workflows, and these help guides.

That list is also what can end up in a request to your provider. Whatever it reads while answering is sent.

Macros in a reply

A code block in a reply is marked VBA only and has two buttons:

• Save writes it into the library as a .swp - the same %LOCALAPPDATA%\SwMacroFlow\macros folder that From Library reads.
• Copy puts the code on the clipboard.

A macro the Copilot writes is a macro like any other. It still has to compile, it still needs its inputs declared, and it is still worth reading before you run it over four hundred files.

Attachments

The attach button takes an image, PDF, Word or text file, and you can paste one straight into the message box instead.

Chat history

Chat history lists your conversations; they are saved as you have them. A row can be renamed or deleted - Delete this chat removes it for good. Before you have had any, the list says No saved chats yet.

They are files in %LOCALAPPDATA%\SwMacroFlow\chats.

Changing something you already sent

A message you sent can be edited: change the text and send it again, and Previous version and Next version step between the answers you have had to it.

Commands

Four things are handled by the app itself and never sent to the model:

A short phrase that plainly means one of those - switch to dark mode - is handled the same way. A question about themes is not; that goes to the model like anything else. Any other /something is sent as ordinary text.