Tips & shortcuts

Small habits that make Pencel faster to use day to day.

Type / for a quick form

In any composer — on Home or inside a Run session — type / to open a pre-built form. Forms are deterministic: no AI round-trip, the same panel every time, so it's the fastest way to capture structured input. Start typing to filter the menu.

Command	What it does
/todo	Add a to-do — title, priority, and due date, saved straight to your To-dos.
/expense	Log an expense — date, amount, category, and notes.

TIP

The / menu is extensible. Installing a Marketplace solution pack can add domain-specific forms (for example, a freight replacement-booking form), which then appear in the same menu.

Submitting a form either hands the collected values to the active agent to act on, or — for /todo — creates the item directly with no model call.

Let Auto choose for you

• Auto agent — leave the agent selector on Auto and Pencel routes your request to a suitable agent. No need to know which one.
• Pencel Auto model — on a subscription, Auto mode picks a cost-optimized model for each task, so routine work stays cheap and hard work gets a stronger model. See Managing costs.

Run to explore, Build to repeat

Use Run on Home for one-off work you want done now. When you find yourself doing the same thing again, switch to Build and save it as a Workflow you can run on demand or on a schedule. See Run mode.

Capture work as to-dos

To-dos are working context, not just a checklist. Jot a task with /todo and an agent can pick it up later and act on it. See Using to-dos.

Give agents your own knowledge

Point Pencel at a local folder to import your documents into Knowledge. Agents then ground their answers in your material instead of the open web.

Let Radar watch in the background

Turn on Radar (Settings → General) and Pencel scans on a schedule in read-only mode, posting insight cards to Pulse about things worth your attention. It never acts on its own.

Review before agents act

Set plan approval or per-action approval in your guidelines so agents pause and ask before sending or changing anything. See Approval workflows.

Keyboard shortcuts

Learn a few navigation and composer shortcuts to move without the mouse. See Keyboard shortcuts.

What's next

• Run mode — the live, conversational surface
• Quickstart — get to a first result fast
• FAQ — quick answers to common questions