Search, always there
The same web search as the rest of DGC: DuckDuckGo, Brave, Tavily, Ollama or your own SearXNG. It looks things up whenever an answer depends on it.
ChatDGC A chat app inside DGC
A chat for
everything else.
For everything that isn't code: a question, a plan, a letter, a spreadsheet to make sense of. Your model answers, the web backs it up with every source cited, and your chats stay on your computer.
01 Answers you can check
It looks things up, and shows you where.
When an answer turns on facts, ChatDGC searches before it replies, and every claim carries a link to the page it came from. Hover a source to read what it says. Sources lists everything it read and everything it cited.
Compound interest is interest earned on interest: each period’s interest joins the balance, so the next is worked out on a larger sum. Over decades it outgrows everything you put in yourself.
iinvestor.govCompound Interest CalculatorDetermine how much your money can grow using the power of compound interest.
Every claim cited
A pill after a sentence names its site and opens the page. Sources lists what it found and what it used.
Deep research
It shows a plan you can edit, reads its way through many pages, then writes a report and checks every citation against its notes.
Pictures where they help
A place, a dish or a building gets a few pictures. A question about tax rates gets none.
02 Your files, and what it makes
Bring what you have. Leave with what you need.
Attach documents, images and spreadsheets, or paste something long. Ask for a letter, a report or a calculator, and get one you can use.
Data and charts
Ask exact questions of a spreadsheet. The numbers come back worked out, and as a chart you can hover, copy and save.
A canvas beside the chat
A longer piece opens as a page you both edit: headings, tables, formulas and checklists, with every version kept.
Files it makes
A Word document, a PDF, a spreadsheet or slides when you ask for one, kept in your Library.
Maths, typeset
Formulas show as maths, not as raw symbols; dollar amounts and code are left alone, and Copy keeps the formula as written.
03 Interactive answers
Ask for a calculator. Get one you can use.
A calculator, a converter, a timer or a quiz opens in a tab beside the chat, ready to use, in your editor’s colours. It runs locked down, with no network and nothing from your chats or VS Code. ChatDGC checks what it shows once it’s open, and fixes it if it’s wrong.
Widgets, kept
A widget opens again as you left it, and one open when VS Code closed comes back. Show code shows what it runs; the Library’s Widgets tab lists them all.
Plugins in a chat
Every plugin you turned on works here. Reads happen at once; a change waits on a card you approve, or hand it to a Pip. A reply that read from a plugin shows its logo.
Study mode
Study makes the chat a tutor: it asks what you know, teaches a step at a time, has you try, and checks with quick quizzes you answer with a click.
Your voice
Dictate into the box, have a reply read aloud, or talk with voice mode, which listens, answers aloud and listens again. The speech models run on your computer.
04 Your models, your machine
Your model.
Your computer.
ChatDGC uses the model you set in DGC, one you run yourself or a provider you choose, and shows how much of its context window a chat fills.
Chats are files on your computer
One file per chat in
~/.dgc/chat, readable only by you. Search finds a chat by anything said in it.Temporary means temporary
Tick Temporary before your first message, and the chat is never written down or listed.
No account, no hosted copy
Your messages go to your model; searches, pictures and plugin calls go to the services you set up. Sources show site icons from Google's favicon service, which you can turn off.
A window you can see
The meter shows what fills the window, part by part. Before a chat outgrows it, the older turns become a summary you can read and edit.
05 Memory and projects
It remembers what you tell it, where you can see it.
Tell ChatDGC something lasting, your diet, your family, your job, and it keeps it in your own words. Settings shows every fact, to edit or delete.
One memory
Your Work sessions and your Pips read the same memory, so you say it once.
Projects
Chats, files and instructions kept together, for a trip, a thesis or a move.
The Library
Every file you attached or ChatDGC made, from every chat, in one place.
06 One side bar
Chat, Work and Pips, side by side.
ChatDGC sits next to DGC's coding sessions and your Pips. A chat can hand a job to a Pip, and the plugins you turned on work in all three.
Ask, write, research.
Everything that isn't code, on your own model.
Code in your project.
DGC's coding sessions, with reviewed changes.
PipsWork that keeps going.
Companions with their own conversations and routines.
07 Good to know
Questions, answered.
Does it cost anything?
DGC is free and open source under the Apache License 2.0. If your model or your search provider charges, that's between you and them; ChatDGC's requests show in Settings, under Usage.
Does it work offline?
With a model running on your own machine, chatting works with no connection. Web search, deep research and plugins need the internet.
Which models work?
The model you set in DGC. Pick a model and how much it thinks for each chat; a model that can't read images gets a description of them from one that can.
Can it do things for me?
With the plugins you turned on: reads happen at once, and a change waits on a card you approve, unless you told that plugin it never needs to ask. Or hand the job to a Pip.
Where do I find it?
In the DGC extension's side bar, under Chat. New Chat opens one in an editor tab of its own.
Will it fill my replies with emoji?
No. Like the rest of DGC, it uses none unless you ask for them.