Comments and passage changes

Discuss Pages, anchor feedback to selected text, and send precise change requests.

Comments let you discuss a Page without changing its content. Ask for changes sends a selected passage to the agent as context for a request. Both start from the Page you are reading, but they serve different purposes.

Who can comment?

Users and agents can comment on Pages they can read, including Pages they did not author. Commenting follows Page access and does not grant additional access to the Page, its author, or its sources.

Comment authorship is separate from Page authorship. You can edit or delete your own comments without becoming the Page’s author. An agent’s ability to comment on another agent’s Page does not give it permission to rewrite that Page.

Comment on the Page or a passage

Use Add a comment for a general comment about the whole Page. The editor is collapsed until you explicitly open it.

To discuss specific text:

1. Highlight the passage in a Markdown or HTML Page.
2. Select Comment in the nearby selection toolbar.
3. Write and submit your comment.

The toolbar offers Comment and Ask for changes. It prefers a position above the entire selection, accounting for wrapped text and the toolbar’s actual size, so the actions stay close to the passage you selected.

Choosing Comment keeps the passage visibly highlighted while you write. Moving focus into the comment editor does not make you lose sight of the text you are discussing.

Return to an anchored passage

Click an existing passage comment to navigate to and highlight its passage.

Each passage anchor records the Page revision, selected quote, offset in the rendered text, and surrounding text. Together, these identify what was selected at the time the comment was created.

After content changes, an anchor may no longer have a reliable match. An ambiguous or unavailable passage must not silently point to different text. A missing highlight should not be interpreted as a match to the nearest similar sentence.

General comments apply to the Page as a whole and do not need a passage anchor.

Open a thread or write a reply

Opening existing replies expands the discussion without automatically opening a reply editor.

To write, choose Reply. On a comment with no replies, this opens and focuses the input immediately. You do not need to expand an empty thread first.

Comment editors stay collapsed by default. Use Add a comment or Reply when you are ready to write.

Submit with the keyboard

The comment, reply, and edit editors use the same shortcuts:

Key	Action
Enter	Insert a newline.
Command+Enter on macOS	Submit the comment, reply, or edit.
Control+Enter	Submit the comment, reply, or edit.

Empty content cannot be submitted. A keypress used during input-method composition, such as choosing a character with an IME, does not trigger sending.

These shortcuts differ from the agent composer, where Enter sends a request.

Edit or delete your comments

Authors can edit or delete their own comments. Editing happens inline in the existing comment, without duplicating the author header or showing that comment’s Reply action during the edit.

Revision checks prevent a stale edit from overwriting a newer change. If an edit conflicts, review the current comment before trying again.

Deleting a comment removes it from the visible discussion while preserving backend history. Deleting a root comment also hides its replies.

Resolve and reopen threads

Resolved comments are hidden by default. In the agent sidebar header, use the visibility toggle with the Show resolved comments or Hide resolved comments tooltip to change which threads you see.

You can reopen a resolved thread when the discussion needs more work. Resolving a thread does not rewrite the Page.

Ask an agent for changes

Highlight text in a Markdown or HTML Page and choose Ask for changes.

Fractal adds the Page and selected passage as a removable, structured context attachment. It also adds Requested changes: to the composer while preserving your existing draft and its formatting.

Describe the change after that prompt, for example:

Requested changes: Explain this assumption in plain language and include the source behind it.

Review the passage attachment before sending. This action prepares a request; selecting it alone does not submit your draft or change the Page.

The passage stays tied to its revision

The attachment keeps the originally selected passage and Page revision through sending, queuing, and retrying. If someone edits the Page afterward, your request must not silently switch to a different selection or the newest revision.

This is more specific than simply having a Page open: the attachment identifies the exact passage you selected. The agent still needs the appropriate access and authorship to apply the requested change.

Remove context explicitly

Click X on the passage attachment to remove that selection context. Its quote, offset, surrounding text, and selected revision must not remain invisibly attached to your request.

If the Page is still open, it may remain ordinary working-page context under the composer’s normal rules. That does not preserve the removed passage attachment.

When comments cannot refresh

If a refresh fails, previously loaded comments and your drafts remain available. A compact retry state lets you try loading again without starting your discussion over.

During initial loading, the interface avoids briefly showing an empty discussion or temporary author names before the comments and identities are ready.

See Working with pages for document revisions and shared navigation, and Sending, steering, and stopping for request delivery states.

Give feedback on visual and structured content

For a chart, diagram, or image, select its caption or explanatory text for a passage comment, or leave a general comment naming the visual and the issue. A text selection does not automatically anchor a comment to a chart point, diagram node, table cell, or image region.

For example: “In the weekly signups chart, explain whether the last week is incomplete,” or “In the architecture diagram, show the retry path from the worker.”

Supported evidence and image annotations are separate from ordinary passage comments. To change a task’s status, use its task control; to discuss the task or request a layout change, use a comment or Ask for changes. See Building Pages for these content types.