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Tutorial

Ask Dex about your desk

Dex is the assistant built into Deska. It sees the panels on your canvas, answers questions about your project and can act for you. Learn to ask, talk and let it work.

1. Open Dex

Press Cmd/CtrlL, or click Ask Dex in the middle of the bar at the bottom of the window. The Dex card opens above the bar. Its header says how many panels it can see (8 panels in context): the files, terminals and pages on your canvas are what Dex reads before it answers.

Dex runs on your own coding agent (the chip at the bottom of the card names it, here Claude Code), so it answers with your account and your plan. Change which agent answers in Settings → Dex.

2. Ask a question

Type a question and press Enter. Ask about anything in front of you: what a file does, why a test fails, what changed this week. Dex looks at your panels, runs what it needs (reading files, a git command) and answers in the card.

The Dex card with a question about what changed in the cart this week and Dex's answer listing three commits and an uncommitted fix
  • Copy under a reply takes the whole answer as markdown.
  • Ask a follow-up keeps the conversation going; New chat (the + in the header) starts a fresh one, and Conversation history (the clock) brings back an earlier one.
  • Esc folds the card back into the bar. The conversation stays.
TipPoint Dex at one panel: hover over it and choose Ask Dex about this, or right-click a terminal and pick the same item.

3. Talk instead of typing

Hold the talk key and speak; let go and Dex answers. The key is fn on a Mac and CtrlWin on Windows and Linux. A short tap on Ask Dex opens the card to type instead.

Dictate is different: it turns your words into text in the box you are writing in, such as a task prompt or the Dex card, without sending anything. Use it when you want to read before you send.

Change both keys in Settings → Keybindings, and read about spoken replies, hands-free conversations and languages in Voice.

4. Let Dex do things for you

Dex can work the desk, not just talk about it. Ask it to open a file next to the editor, run the tests in a terminal, start a task for an agent, check on a task in the Inbox or tidy up the panels on the canvas.

Settings, Dex page: who answers, background work, actions and voice
  • Who answers is the list of agents Dex tries, in order. If the first one is not available, the next answers.
  • Act without asking is on by default. Turn it off and Dex asks you to confirm before it closes panels, deletes notes or reverts and merges work.
  • Work in the background lets your agent write panel summaries and task titles on its own, using a little of its plan. Turn it off to keep the agent for what you ask.

Next

Agents & DexEverything Dex can see and do, and how it picks an agent.VoiceTalk, dictation, spoken replies and hands-free mode.Your first agent taskWhen the job is bigger than a question, hand it to a coding agent.Remote accessAsk Dex from your phone, about the computer at home.