Loading...

The Documents Chip — Files the AI Wrote

The files the assistant wrote with a filename, gathered into one list you can open, read and copy — and what to do when one is missing.

The problem it solves

Ask the assistant for a config file, a class or a script and it writes it into the conversation. Ask it for four more things and the first one is a long way up the scrollback.

The Documents chip is the fix. It collects the files the assistant has written with a filename in this conversation into one short list, so a file you were given twenty messages ago is two clicks away instead of a scroll and a squint. Not every file makes it in — see below.

Where the chip is

Look along the toolbar at the bottom of the message box, next to the chip showing which model you are talking to. It reads Documents with a small number beside it — the number of files it has found.

It only appears once the assistant has actually written one. An empty conversation has no chip at all, so if you cannot see it, nothing has been written yet. On a narrow screen the word Documents is dropped and you get the file icon and the count on their own.

What counts as a document

A block of code whose filename is written into the block itself: its first line carries a tag like title="config.yml" next to the language. That is the whole rule — and the assistant is not told to add that tag, so it only does so sometimes.

You can see which is which in the answer. Every code block sits in a card with a bar on top: a card that shows a filename (config.yml) is in the list, a card that only shows the language (yaml) is not. So "here is your config.yml" written above a block is not enough, and asking for "a named file" does not reliably make it appear.

When a file you want is missing:

• Copy it straight from the answer. The copy icon at the right of every code card's bar (its tooltip reads Copy code) takes the whole block.
• Or ask the assistant to write the code block again with title="config.yml" after the language on its first line — then it lands in the list.

Using the list

Click the chip and a panel opens upwards, headed Documents in this chat, with one row per file. A long list scrolls inside the panel.

• Click a file's name to expand it in place and read the contents. Click it again to fold it away.
• Click the copy icon on the right of a row to put the whole file on your clipboard. The icon turns into a tick for a moment so you know it took.

Copying takes the file exactly as the assistant wrote it, which is usually the fastest way to move it into your own editor or onto your server.

One row per filename, newest version

If you ask for a change and the assistant writes the same file out again, the list does not grow a second row for it. It keeps the most recent version under that name.

That is worth knowing in both directions. The count on the chip is the number of different files in the conversation, not the number of times files were written — and the copy button always gives you the latest version of a file, never the draft from earlier in the conversation.

It is a list, not a folder

Nothing here is stored as a file anywhere. The list is read out of the conversation on your screen each time you open it, so there is no download button, no folder and no version history — copy out what you want to keep.

It is also per conversation. Open a different chat and the chip counts that chat's files instead. If you want files that live somewhere, belong to a project and can be built and downloaded, that is what the Code Studio is for.

Attaching a document to your own message is a different feature: the AI reads a text or code file you attach, with that one message. See Documents in Chat. This chip only ever shows what the assistant wrote.

Where to next

• First time in chat: Overview — The rest of what a conversation can do.
• Sending a file yourself: Documents in Chat — The other direction — attaching a document to your own message.
• If you need pictures: Images inside Chat — The pictures side of the same conversation.

8 of 10 in AI Chat · Last checked 24 September 2026 · Previous: Asking Where Something Is