Modes: Chat and Cowork

The mode selector in the chat toolbar switches between two tool sets, configured separately in Settings → Tools. The difference is whether the agent may change project files directly.

	Chat	Cowork
For	Normal conversation, questions, research, small scripts	Changing files in the project and working through the task board
File-writing tools	Off. The agent writes files through code execution instead.	write_file and replace_in_file on
update_task_status	Off	On
Tasks runner	Not used	Uses this tool set, including Autopilot

The read-only tools (list_files, read_file, search_workspace), execute_code, web_search, fetch_url, check_page and run_workers are on in both by default. apply_patch, append_file, delete_file and undo_write are off in both until you turn them on. The full list is in Tools.

Choosing a mode

Stay in Chat when you want answers or want to see code in the conversation before anything touches the project. Switch to Cowork when the agent should edit project files directly, or when you run Tasks.

Turning a tool on in Settings → Tools affects only that mode. Tool approval applies in both.

The TUI has no mode switch. In the CLI, --enable-tools and --disable-tools select tools per run.