How to ask SCF for help in the app

This page is for admins who want to switch on the help assistant, and for everyone who uses it. Ask SCF answers questions in your own words: how the Foundry works, what your work is doing, and how to solve a problem. It reads and explains. Nothing you ask changes the Foundry, a repository or GitHub.

Before you start#

To switch it on, you are an admin.
Ask SCF answers with a Claude Code model. With a Codex model every turn ends with "Ask SCF is not set up to answer here."
Do not type a password, token or key into a question. Ask SCF never needs one.

Steps#

1. Check it before you switch it on (admins)#

Run the fixed scenarios. Without --live no model is called.

scf eval help

2. Switch it on (admins)#

Ask SCF is off by default. Open Administration → Settings → Ask SCF and turn on the switch (help.enabled). The limits are on the same card, for example the questions per account per day (default 30). To start small, set who may ask with audience: admins first, then pilot with pilot_accounts, then everyone. scf ask usage shows the stage you are in. Pause Ask SCF is the emergency stop: nobody can ask, but conversations can still be read, exported and deleted.

3. Open the drawer and ask#

Press Ask SCF in the top bar. A panel opens on the right; the page behind it stays as it is. Type your question, or pick a suggested question and change it. Under the box you see what is sent: the address of the page you are on, and nothing else of the page. Untick Send the page I am on with my question to send the question alone. Press Send, or Ctrl+Enter (Cmd+Enter on a Mac). Stop stops an answer; Try again asks the same question again.

You can ask for product help, the status of your work, why something failed, and which steps solve a problem.

4. Check how sure the answer is#

Read the line under the short answer first:

✓ Checked against its sources — the answer rests on sources of the kind the question needs.
≈ Not fully confirmed — the sources do not fully confirm it.
? Not checked: no source — treat it as a guess.
! The sources do not agree — look yourself before you act.
– Not answered — you asked for something Ask SCF does not do.

Then open Sources and assumptions and look at the places named there. A run or repository page shows its own current state.

5. Know what it does not do#

Ask SCF does not start, stop, change, delete or send anything. It sees only what your account can see, never another account's work. It does not read logs or transcripts. Writing stories is done in Refinement, and what happens next with a run is said on the run page itself; Ask SCF sends you there. With help.actions on, an admin lets it propose to resume or cancel one of your own runs. Nothing happens until you press Review the change and then Confirm the change.

6. Rate the answer and keep your conversations#

Press Helpful or Not helpful under an answer; for Not helpful, tick what was wrong and press Save reasons. This solved my problem closes the conversation. New conversation starts an empty one; History shows your earlier ones. Only you can read your conversations. An untouched conversation is deleted after 90 days.

You can also ask from the command line:

scf ask new "How do I connect a repository?"
scf ask show <id>

Check that it worked#

The Ask SCF button shows in the top bar of every page.
A question gets an answer with a How sure it is line and its sources.
scf ask usage shows the stage and the turns of the day (admins).