Skip to main content
Chat is the main surface of Orkestral. You don’t operate one assistant, you direct a team. You talk to the CEO agent in plain language, and it reads your code, plans the change, and delegates to the right specialists.
Describe what you want, not how to build it. Say “users should be able to reset their password by email”, the CEO figures out the files, the approach, and who does the work.

​
How to chat

Open a chat

Pick the repo you want to work in, then start typing in the message box. The CEO already has full context on the connected codebase.

Describe the outcome

Write a feature, a fix, or a refactor in natural language. Be as specific about the goal as you like, leave the implementation to the team.

Send and watch

Press send. The CEO replies with a friendly plan, then the team gets to work. You stay in the loop the whole time.
Vague is fine to start. “The login page feels slow” is a valid turn, the CEO will investigate the code before proposing anything.

​
What happens after you send

Every message turns your request into trackable work. The flow runs end to end:

Plan

The CEO reads the relevant code and writes a clear plan for the change.

Delegate

It routes the work to the right specialists in the reporting hierarchy.

Execute

The local Forge applies the code changes on your machine at $0 API cost.

Review

The Code Reviewer checks the result before it comes back to you.
The conversation feeds issues and the knowledge base automatically, so the work is tracked and remembered without extra effort.

​
Route a turn with @mentions

To hand a turn straight to a specialist, @mention them. The specialist picks up the full chat context and does the work, no need to re-explain. 
@Code Reviewer take another pass at the auth changes and flag anything risky.
Leave the message unaddressed when you want planning and delegation. The CEO decides who should handle each part.
Use it when you already know who you need, for example @Frontend, @Backend, @DevOps, @QA, @Designer, or @Tech Lead. The turn routes directly to them with the conversation context intact.
@mentions are great for follow-ups: ask the Code Reviewer to double-check a change, or the Frontend to polish the UI of something the CEO just shipped.

​
The reports you get back

Orkestral talks back to you in friendly, readable language, not raw diffs or logs.

Plan reports

Before work starts, you see what the team intends to do and who will do it, so you can confirm or redirect.

Summary reports

After work completes, you get a plain-language summary of what changed and why, with the issues and knowledge base updated behind the scenes.
Everything stays local in ~/.orkestral. No server, no telemetry, your chat and your code never leave your machine.

​
Next steps

Meet the team

See each specialist and how the reporting hierarchy works.

The Forge

Learn how the local model executes changes at $0 API cost.