Model changes with the assistant

Describe the model you need in words and the assistant proposes a draft for you to review. You can attach a workbook, but a file is not required. The assistant can add fields, types, relationships and applications, or propose moving records between types. These are model capabilities available to any application.

Start with Change a model with the assistant. For a file that needs a model and a load, follow Review the assistant’s workbook design. The model editor remains available for direct edits.

Availability and your data

The built-in assistant uses Claude Code. It is available only when your operator has enabled it and allows the data it needs to be sent. Your words and the workspace’s model go to Claude Code, with the whole workbook if attached. The assistant reads workspace records as needed, within your permissions. This is more than sending a few sample rows.

Change this model… is offered in an active workspace when you hold Use AI proposals, Bulk and import, Work in change sets, Model authoring and Model release, and job creation is enabled. Installing a changed model also needs Model release at instance level. If the offer is missing, ask your administrator to check these rights and the assistant setup. The separate AI provider used for explanations does not enable this assistant.

Assistant turns can incur Claude Code usage charges. refiroo records who asked, the outcome, tokens and cost when reported. Tasks and workbooks normally remain for 90 days after completion or the last change. Session files and transcripts remain while the task can continue; cleanup follows publication, discard, confirmed migration or expiry. These are separate from optional logging of request content. See About AI in refiroo for the full explanation of access, billing, data leaving the instance and retention, including the provider’s own policies.

Review the proposal before accepting

The assistant’s proposal describes the types it would add or change and any records it would move. Read the counts and Checks, not only the summary. The assistant’s wording can be wrong. The engine checks the draft and the data against its rules; that does not establish that the proposed design means what you intended.

Answer the questions or use Tell the assistant what to change. You can also choose Open in the model editor and edit the draft directly. The same assistant reads those edits when it continues. A second assistant task cannot take over a draft another task holds.

For a workbook load, What the load does shows new and matched records, new relationships, refused items and rows read. Open a type’s row for example records with their source cells, read any One name twice in one type finding, and expand Where each part of the file goes to review how the file is used. The assistant reads the file, model and workspace records and prepares records and relationships for the engine to check; it writes no import profile.

Accept and load to change set lets the engine install the changed model and load exactly those checked records and relationships into a new change set as one batch. No assistant turn runs, and nothing is activated or published. A draft changed after the check is checked again first; any refusal then prevents installation and loading. If changed data causes a refusal during the batch, none of the batch is loaded and the change set is discarded. A release installed before that failure can remain installed. Correct the proposal in words, review the new check and accept again. An assistant load saves no profile for the next file; send that file to the assistant again.

Model-only and record-move proposals keep Accept the model. A whole-type move still needs migration confirmation. A partial move still needs publication. Loading an already saved layout is a separate path: its confirmation can install and activate a model change before importing. Read the confirmation for the path you are using.

Only the model changes

When the request changes the model alone, such as adding a view without changing records, acceptance installs the release and ends with a migration that moves no type. Review Preview the migration and confirm it with Model release to put the workspace on the new model. No change set is created and every record stays as it is.

Every record of a type moves

A whole type becoming another type, two types merging, or a type moving into another application can use a migration. The proposal lists what each type becomes and how many records it holds. Accepting installs the proposed release but moves no record. Preview the migration opens the existing migration review with the proposed choices filled in.

Someone with Model release confirms that migration. It changes live data and the workspace’s release together, keeping record IDs, values, relationships and history for the accepted type moves. There is no change set to submit for approval in this path. Inspect every conversion, removal and refusal in the migration preview.

Only some records move

For a split based on a field value, the proposal describes what acceptance prepares: a release holding the old types beside the new ones, a change set moving the selected records, and the final release removing the emptied types. The removal note says which records move and where they go. After accepting, complete the prepared steps:

1. Activate the release holding the new types beside the old. No record moves yet.
2. Review and publish the change set, following the workspace’s approval rules. The records change type and keep their IDs.
3. Activate the final release, removing the emptied types. If someone has added records to an old type meanwhile, activation is refused until that is resolved.

The task shows the next available step and marks completed steps Done. If the old types remain in the accepted model, it shows Two steps are yours instead: no final removal is needed. A whole-type move and a partial move need separate tasks. Splitting thousands of top-level records can be slow because those records are prepared one at a time.

Stop, correct or discard

Stop ends the current turn. A stopped correction returns to the last proposal, with a warning if it already changed the draft. A stopped load discards the change set it was making and returns to the accepted proposal. Before any proposal exists, the stopped task still takes words telling the assistant how to continue.

A failed task shows its reason. Use Tell the assistant how to go on, or Try again as it was. A stopped task offers Go on as it was. Discard this task ends it and removes its draft; if it has a loaded change set, that is discarded too. Discard does not reverse a confirmed migration or an already published change.

For a loaded change set that is wrong, Discard and load again removes that change set, including your manual edits in it. For a workbook load, the assistant then revises the proposal and checks its records again. Review it and choose Accept and load to change set to prepare the replacement change set. Review the discard confirmation carefully. Once published, the task offers new work through Change this model… or Ask about these records…, subject to your current permissions.