Work mode
In Work mode, le Chat plans and runs multi-step work in a single conversation. The agent picks the Connectors and tools it needs, calls them in parallel when possible, streams its progress as it goes, and asks for your approval before any sensitive action.
Work mode is in Preview. Access is rolling out in stages across the Free, Pro, and Team plans. Capabilities, limits, and the interface can change before general availability.
How to use
- Select the
Workmode in the chat input. - Enter a prompt that describes the outcome you want — for example, Triage my inbox from this morning, draft replies to anything that needs one, and send a summary to my team.
- Watch the agent work in real time.
- Approve sensitive actions when prompted.
- The session continues across many turns until the task is complete.
You cannot change modes after a Work mode conversation starts. To switch to Fast or Think, open a new chat. The selected mode persists across sessions.
When to use Work mode
Le Chat offers three modes: Fast for speed, Think for reasoning, and Work for execution. Use Work mode when a task spans several tools or several steps. Common patterns:
- Cross-tool catch-up. Pull together email, messages, and calendar in a single run. Prepare for a meeting using attendee context, recent news, and talking points from your sources.
- Research and synthesis. Pull material from the web, internal docs, and connected systems, then produce a brief or report you can edit before sending.
- Triage and follow-up. Sort your inbox and draft replies, create issues in Linear from team and customer discussions, and send a summary to your team on Slack.
- Recurring deliverables. Build a weekly project status report from docs, trackers, and recent discussions. Produce competitive analyses, launch packages, or executive summaries.
- Data and exception handling. Process invoices or records, flag anomalies, and prepare an exception report.
For a single reasoning step on a well-defined question, Think mode is faster. For long-form, citation-heavy reports, see Deep Research. For coding tasks on a GitHub repository, see the Vibe Code Workflow.
How it works
Work mode runs Mistral Medium 3.5 inside an agent harness. The harness is the software loop that gives the model access to tools, manages its working memory, and runs steps until the task is complete. A few things change compared with a regular chat:
- The agent picks its own tools. You don't select web search, Connectors, or Libraries up front. The agent looks at what is connected and uses the right tools for each step on its own.
- Parallel tool calls. When steps don't depend on each other, the agent runs them in parallel, so tasks that pull from many sources finish faster.
- Multi-step plans. Improved context management, intermediate reasoning, and retry logic let the agent work through long tasks without losing the thread.
- Streaming progress. You see each tool call and the agent's reasoning as they happen.
- Canvas as the output surface. The agent writes briefs, reports, tables, and slide outlines to Canvas, where you can preview and edit them.
- Approval for sensitive actions. The agent asks for your explicit confirmation before any destructive action: sending an email, posting a Slack message, or creating or deleting a record. The exact list of approval-gated actions depends on the per-function permissions you set under Intelligence → Connectors → select a connector → Functions tab. Functions not marked as
Always allowtrigger an approval prompt.
Tools available in the preview
In the preview, the agent has access to the following tools:
- A bash sandbox for code execution
- Web search
- Canvas for previewing and editing the result
- Libraries and file upload
- Connectors, including third-party Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers
- Your custom instructions and preferences
Some features are not in the preview, and the mode menu marks them as unavailable. They include Memories, le Chat Agents, and Studio Workflows and Agents. Work mode does not support the Code Interpreter.
Known limitations in the preview
- Performance. Short queries can take longer in Work mode than in
FastorThink. - False tool-access errors. The agent occasionally reports a tool as unavailable when it is not. Retry the step.
- Mode is locked after the chat starts. You cannot switch a Work mode conversation back to
FastorThink. Start a new chat to switch modes.
Tips for better results
- Describe the outcome, not only the question. "Send a Slack summary to my team" gives the agent a clear endpoint; "summarize this" does not.
- Connect the tools you want it to use. Work mode is most useful when the relevant Connectors are already linked, such as email, calendar, Notion, Linear, Slack, and GitHub. Manage them under Intelligence → Connectors.
- Think mode: step-by-step reasoning for a single complex question.
- Deep Research: long-form research reports with citations.
- Vibe Code Workflow: agentic coding on a GitHub repository in a cloud sandbox.
- Connectors: manage the integrations Work mode draws from.
- Canvas: edit the briefs, reports, and slide outlines Work mode produces.