Chat module¶
What it does¶
Chat lets the PowerPC guest ask a model harness on the modern Mac. Provider and model references are host-minted and the conversation can include only the machine context the current grant permits.
Availability¶
Chat is a host-served, PowerPC-asked family. NOW-68K does not expose it.
What a model can reach¶
Not every provider can act. Four of them (Anthropic, OpenAI, and the local Ollama, LM Studio and oMLX runtimes) are given New Old World's own tools and can observe and drive the connected classic machine. Two of them — Claude (Experimental) and Codex — are runtimes this app drives as a subprocess with their tools disabled, and can only answer from knowledge.
Which one you have picked is shown in the provider's own description, in both the macOS popup and the classic machine's page, and the model is told the same thing — so a model without tools says it cannot look rather than promising to.
The classic machine's Chat page goes further: a provider's reach travels with its catalog row, so picking a text-only one dims the mode popup instead of offering you Build for a model that cannot build.
The chat workspace (experimental)¶
Settings > Chat can point Claude (Experimental) at one folder on the modern Mac. That turns it into a coding agent: it gets its own file and command tools inside that folder, and — unless you turn it off — New Old World's capabilities alongside them, so a single conversation can read source, build it, run the tests, and drive the classic machine to try the result. It is how New Old World's own guest software can be worked on from the classic Mac's own Chat page.
Two things to know before turning it on:
- The folder's tools are not this app's tools. Everything else Chat does goes through capabilities New Old World owns, logs on the Logs page, and gates by the machine's consent setting. The workspace's file and command tools do not: they are governed by the mode you choose ("Edit files", or "Edit files and run commands") and by whatever policy that folder carries.
- It applies to that one provider. Models chosen from any other provider are unaffected.
On the modern Mac¶
The host owns provider configuration, model catalog, authentication, request execution, and typed errors. Provider credentials never cross the classic wire.
Chats are saved on the modern Mac and listed in a sidebar beside the conversation. A chat can be renamed, deleted, or filed under a project — a folder on disk that may also be associated with a Projects-module project for its code. Only the chat you select is read from disk; the sidebar itself holds names and dates alone. The files stay on the modern Mac and are never uploaded anywhere; they can be READ from the classic machine's own Chat page, which is the deliberate 2026-08-18 change described above.
Saved chats, on both machines¶
Chats are saved on the modern Mac and listed in a sidebar beside the conversation — and since 2026-08-18 the classic machine can list and open them too, its own and the ones typed at the modern Mac alike. Every row says which machine it was typed at.
This is a deliberate change to what the classic Mac may see. Until that date this page promised that saved chats were "never served to the classic guest". They now are, on request, because a chat you cannot reach from the machine you are sitting at is the reason people keep two windows open. What that widens is real and worth knowing: a transcript typed at the modern Mac can quote work done there and can hold captured guest-screen images, and a classic Mac sitting on a desk is a different exposure surface from a laptop that locks itself.
Nothing is sent before it is asked for. The classic machine receives a page of TITLES — never transcript text — and opening a chat transfers nothing by itself; the page then asks for what was said newest-first, a bounded page at a time, so opening a long conversation on a 68030 costs the lines you scroll to rather than the whole thing.
Working in a project¶
A chat can be filed under a project, or under none. Creating one from the
classic Mac asks the question this product exists to ask: does the
project live on this machine, or on the modern one? The console spells
it here|there.
Answering "here" files the chat and records that the code belongs on the classic Mac. The code half arrives by the existing staged-and-promoted path rather than being created on the spot: a guest-home project is authoritative on the classic machine and requires a verified digest, so New Old World will not mint one behind your back and call it yours.
Skills¶
New Old World ships the classic Mac development skill tree — eight skills covering Carbon and Toolbox UI, the platform layers, INITs, the emulator harness and render previews. They are instructions, not tools: loading one puts its rules in front of the model for the rest of the conversation.
Type them like any other message, at either screen:
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
/skills |
list what is installed, with a sentence each |
/classic-mac-carbon-ui |
load that skill for this conversation |
/classic-mac-carbon-ui how do I draw a tab? |
load it and ask, in one go |
The model is always told which skills exist so it can suggest one, but it cannot load a skill itself — that stays a decision you make. A loaded skill governs craft; it cannot widen what the turn may touch, because the machine and consent rules are stated after it and win.
Skills matter most in Build mode with project tools: without them a model will write a UPP as a cast and skip pumping the wire inside a nested Toolbox loop — mistakes that compile cleanly and misbehave only on the real machine.
Chat, Plan and Build¶
Every turn runs in one of three modes, and the mode decides which tools the model is given rather than merely what it is told:
| Mode | What the model may do |
|---|---|
| Chat | look at anything — processes, screen, files — and change nothing |
| Plan | the same, and answer with a plan rather than an action |
| Build | everything, including writing files, applying project changes, building and running |
Chat and Plan reach exactly as far as each other; the difference you feel is what the model is asked for. Build is the only mode whose turn is handed a tool that can change the machine.
On the classic Mac¶
The Workshop page selects a host-provided model reference, sends a prompt, and renders deltas, status, result, cancellation, and reset.
Down its left side is the saved-chats list, which collapses with the
button beside the mode popup to give the conversation the full width.
Each row marks where that chat was typed — * for this machine, - for
the modern Mac — and selecting one opens it, filling the page from the
newest end as far back as you scroll.
Common tasks¶
- Select a provider and model only after their catalogs arrive.
- Cancel a reply from the visible conversation bracket.
Safety, consent, and privacy¶
Prompts and supplied machine context may leave the modern Mac when a cloud provider is selected. Saved transcripts are stored unencrypted under the app's Application Support folder and may include captured guest-screen images. MCP access remains a separate machine consent ceiling; Chat cannot silently expand it.
Failure states¶
Provider unavailable, model stale, not granted, cancelled, reset, and provider error retain separate status.
Current limitations¶
Chat availability depends on a configured host harness. It is not an offline guarantee and has no 68K UI.
The classic machine's Chat page draws the saved-chats list, the mode
popup and the project popup, and the same capabilities are reachable
from the Console (chat --chats, --open, --history, --projects,
--project, --mode) — the parity CommandParityTests enforces. None
of it is metal-verified.
The workspace lane is experimental and not metal-verified: it has been exercised by the host suites only, and nobody has yet driven a build of the guest from the guest's own Chat page.
For developers¶
See agent boundary and the wire contract.