Ontologies

Chat with the ontology assistant

The assistant is a chat drawer on the ontology page. Ask it a question about the ontology, or describe a change such as “add a class called Vehicle” or “remove the relationship between Order and Invoice”, and it makes the change for you. Every change it makes is logged and can be undone.

In the app: Data Context › Ontologies › your ontology › Assistant

[screenshot]
The Assistant drawer on the Chat tab with the mode picker and a short conversation.

Before you start

  • You need write access to the organization. Members with read-only access don’t see the Assistant button. It is disabled while your organization is in read-only mode.
  • Each message uses your organization’s AI allowance. See AI token allowance and usage.

Open the drawer

Click Assistant on the ontology toolbar. The drawer slides in from the right with two tabs, Chat and Activity. Click Assistant again or the close icon to hide it.

Your conversation stays in place while you work. Close the drawer, or go to another page and come back, and it’s still there. It is cleared when you click Clear, reload the browser tab, or your session ends.

Pick a mode

The picker at the top of the Chat tab offers two modes. Each keeps its own conversation.

  • General is always available. The assistant works from the ontology itself.
  • Tool Assisted also draws on the ontology’s agent sources: the schemas, lakehouse, database, documents, glossaries, and standards chosen for it. Use it when you want suggestions grounded in your data and documents. Glossary terms are treated as the preferred names.

Tool Assisted is available once the ontology has agent sources: either it came from the generator, or someone saved sources for it under More › Agent Sources. Until then the option is disabled with the tooltip “Generate this ontology (or accept a generator run) to enable Tool Assisted mode.”

Ask for changes

Type in the box (Ask about this ontology or request a change…) and press Enter or the send button. The welcome message suggests a start, such as “Add a class called Vehicle”.

  • The assistant proposes before it acts. For a change, it first describes what it will do, including names, descriptions, and anything else affected, and ends with “Reply yes to proceed or no to cancel.” Click Yes or No, or type your answer.
  • Large changes show progress, for example “Applying update 3 of 12…”.
  • Relationship names follow the house rule. New relationship identifiers are stored in lowerCamelCase, such as worksAtStore. The stored name can differ from the one you asked for; check the Activity tab or the workbench. See Edit an ontology.
  • Changes apply directly to the live ontology. There is no draft or review step, which is why the assistant asks first.

If a message fails, use Retry to send it again. Clear wipes the current mode’s conversation after a confirmation. Clearing the chat doesn’t undo any changes the assistant made.

Review changes on the Activity tab

The Activity tab lists recent changes to the ontology, newest first, whether they came from you, a colleague, or the assistant. Each entry shows:

  • What happened (added, renamed, deleted, changed) and the kind of item.
  • Who did it: a person’s name, or the assistant with its mode.
  • When, and how many statements were added (+) or removed (−).

Entries that have been undone are struck through and marked reverted.

[screenshot]
The Activity tab with change entries, source badges, and an Undo button.

Undo and redo

Every live entry has an Undo button, not only the latest one.

  1. Click Undo on the entry.
  2. Read the confirmation, which says what will be reverted, and confirm.

If newer changes touched the same statements, they are kept and the result says how many statements were skipped, for example “Change undone (2 conflicting statements skipped).”

Redo appears only on the most recent undo in the list, so you can take back an undo you didn’t mean. The same list, with the same buttons, is available without the assistant under More › Recent changes.

Tip: Skim the Activity tab after a session and undo anything that isn’t what you meant. To roll back many changes at once, go back to an earlier version.