Brain
Brain is where you ask your company's knowledge — and your own — in plain language and get answers grounded in real sources. It brings together two things that used to be separate features: a free-form chat assistant and your connected knowledge sources. Ask a question, and Brain searches your company documents, your personal files, and the web, then streams back an answer with the sources it used.
Brain replaces the earlier Freeflow (chat) and Knowledge (data sources) features. If you have an old
/freeflowor/knowledgelink, it now opens Brain.
Brain requires a Pro (or Enterprise) plan. On the Free plan you'll see an upgrade prompt instead. See Plans & billing.
The Brain page at a glance
Open Brain from the sidebar. The page has three columns:
| Column | What it is |
|---|---|
| Left — Chat history | Your past conversations, grouped by Today / Yesterday / This week / Older. |
| Center — Chat | Where you ask questions and read streamed answers. |
| Right — Your Brain | Your connected knowledge sources (the "Company Brain" and "Personal Brain"). |
On narrower screens the two side rails collapse into slide-over drawers — tap History or Your Brain in the top bar (or swipe in from the screen edge) to open them.
Asking a question
The center panel greets you with "Ask your brain" — "Search your company brain, your personal documents, and the web." Type a question and press Enter (Shift+Enter for a new line).
Choosing what to search
Above the chat, a set of scope chips lets you point the question at the right place:
| Chip | What it searches |
|---|---|
| Everything | The default — your company brain, your personal brain, and the web. |
| Company | Only your company's shared knowledge sources. |
| Personal | Only your own private documents. |
The scope is applied to the message you send, so you always see exactly what Brain was asked.
What you'll see in an answer
Answers are more than plain text:
- Streaming replies. The answer types out live so you can start reading immediately.
- Thinking & steps. When Brain reasons or searches, collapsible panels show its thinking and the steps it took (e.g. "3 steps completed").
- Source citations. Below an answer, source pills show where the information came from — each tagged Company or Personal and labelled like "Confluence · OpenSearch topology spec". Pills that link to a source open it in a new tab.
- Rich formatting. Answers can include headings, tables, charts, metric cards, callouts, timelines, code blocks, and more.
Use Stop to halt a response mid-stream, Retry if one fails (it re-sends your original question), and the thumbs-up / thumbs-down controls to give feedback on an answer.
Approvals and long tasks
If Brain wants to take an action through a connected tool, it pauses and shows an approval card — Approve, Reject, or tell it to do something else. If a task is long, Brain may pause at a "turn budget" and offer a Continue button to keep going, or you can start a New session.
Managing conversations
The left rail is your conversation history:
- Click ＋ New chat to start a fresh conversation.
- Each entry shows its title (or "Untitled chat") and is grouped by recency. Click one to reopen it.
- Conversations persist, so you can come back and pick up where you left off. Each keeps its own context, so follow-ups like "Who wrote that?" work without restating the topic.
Start a new chat when you switch topics. This keeps each thread focused and gives Brain cleaner context to work from.
Your Brain — connecting knowledge sources
The right rail ("Your Brain") is where knowledge sources are connected and kept in sync. It's split into two halves:
Company Brain
Shared across your team. Managed by admins and owners; members see these as read-only.
| Source | How it connects |
|---|---|
| Google Docs | Company-wide via a Google service account (domain-wide delegation), set up once by an admin. |
| Slack | An admin authorizes CatalEx through Slack's OAuth screen. |
| Confluence | An admin authorizes CatalEx through Confluence's OAuth screen. |
Personal Brain
Private to you.
| Source | How it connects |
|---|---|
| Google Docs | You connect your own Google account; CatalEx indexes the documents that account can see. |
Connecting and syncing Company Brain sources requires the Admin or Owner role. Members can connect their own Personal Brain and see company sources as locked cards labelled "Ask your admin to set this up."
Connecting and syncing
Each source is a card showing its status — Not connected, Connected, Syncing…, or Synced with the time of its last sync.
- Connect / Set up — starts the OAuth flow (or, for company Google, opens a credentials dialog where an admin pastes and tests a service-account key before saving).
- Sync now — pulls the latest content (admin-only for company sources).
- Disconnect — the small × on a card removes the connection. You're asked to confirm; you can reconnect any time.
Open a source card to see its detail view: how many users and documents are indexed, when it last synced, and — for your personal Google docs — a searchable list of your synced documents (which refreshes automatically as new ones come in).
FAQ
Where do Brain's answers come from? From your connected sources — the Company Brain (Google Docs, Slack, Confluence) and your Personal Brain (Google Docs) — plus the public web. The more you connect, the better the answers.
Are my conversations private? Yes. Conversations are scoped to you; other users can't see your threads. Your Personal Brain is private to you as well.
Why doesn't Brain know about a document? It can only search sources that are connected and synced. If something's missing, connect or re-sync the source in the "Your Brain" rail and ask again.
What's the difference between Brain and a Studio agent? Brain is a single, general assistant for answering questions on demand. A Studio agent is a purpose-built worker with its own instructions, tools, schedule, and memory that can run autonomously.
Do I need to be an admin to use Brain? No. Any member can chat with Brain and connect their Personal Brain. Only admins connect the shared Company Brain sources.