BigIdeasDB Desktop
Projects, chat and skills in Desktop
A project holds one line of research: its ideas, evidence and chats. The chat panel talks to your own AI agent, and skills are saved instructions you can run with one keystroke.
Last updated: November 1, 2026
Quick answer
Make a project, open the chat panel, and talk to your AI agent. Type / to run a skill and @ to attach an idea, evidence or a job. Three skills are built in, and you can create your own or link a folder of them.
- Projects keep ideas, evidence and chats together.
- Chat uses your own agent and your own plan.
- Type "/" for skills and "@" for ideas, evidence and jobs.
- Four built-in skills. See the Skills guide.
Projects
The left sidebar is the project picker. Use New project to start one, Rename to change the name (up to 80 characters), and Archive to tuck one away. Archived data is kept. You always need at least one project, and you cannot switch while a chat is running.
Choose your AI agent
In Settings, AI agent, Desktop lists the agents it found on this computer: Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and Ollama. Pick one, choose a model with the model chip in the chat box, and press Test to run one tiny request on your own plan. If none is found, see the troubleshooting page. Press Look again after installing one.
Chat
The chat panel on the right works inside the open project. Enter sends and Shift Enter adds a line. History lists past chats, and New chat starts a fresh one. The panel can be hidden or resized, and a running chat keeps going while it is hidden. Press Stop to end a run.
Settings, Chat limits has two guards for every run: a spend cap in US dollars and a maximum number of tool calls. Destructive actions, like deleting an idea, always ask you first.
Use "/" and "@"
- Type "/" to open the Skills menu and pick a skill. Skills that are set up for a different agent are greyed out with a note on which one to switch to.
- Type "@" to attach ideas, evidence and jobs from the project as chips. The agent reads what you attach.
- Text that came from the web or from reviews is treated as data, never as instructions. Chips with instruction-like wording show a warning mark.
Skills
Four skills are built in and you can write your own. See the Skills guide.
Frequently asked questions
Which AI agents can Desktop's chat use?
Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and Ollama, whichever are installed on your computer. You choose one in Settings.
Does chat cost anything extra?
It runs on your own agent plan. Settings has a spend cap and a tool call limit for each run so a chat cannot run away.
Can I write my own skills?
Yes. Create one in Settings, Skills, or link a folder. Run it from the chat by typing /.
What's the best skill to start with?
Validate an idea. Give it a one or two sentence idea and it checks demand using the evidence saved in your project.
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