Editing Briefs
Write, refine, and collaborate on your brief using a full-featured document editor with live AI assistance.
Overview
The brief editor gives you a rich text writing environment on one side and the AI chat panel on the other. As you write, you can ask the AI to expand a section, suggest requirements, or critique the scope — and it works with the actual content of your brief, not a summary. Multiple team members can edit the same brief at the same time, with changes appearing live.
How It Works
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Open the editor — Click any brief from the Briefs list to open it. The editor appears on the right side of the workspace. The AI chat panel is on the left.
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Write your content — Click anywhere in the document area and start typing. The editor supports rich text formatting including headings, paragraphs, bold, italic, lists, and more.
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Ask for help — Use the AI chat panel on the left to ask questions, request rewrites, or generate content. The AI has access to everything currently in your brief document. You can also mention team members in the chat using
@. -
Edit the title — Click the brief title at the top of the document panel to rename it. The change saves immediately and is visible to all collaborators.
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Switch tabs — The document panel has four tabs: Brief (the editor), Plan (tasks), Context (attached files), and Activity (team alignment). You stay within the same document view as you navigate between them.
Key Capabilities
- Real-time collaboration: Multiple people can type in the same brief simultaneously. Each person's cursor and changes appear live.
- Rich text formatting: Supports headings (H1–H3), paragraphs, ordered and unordered lists, bold, italic, and other standard formatting.
- Persistent AI context: The AI assistant reads your document content automatically. You do not need to paste text into the chat — it already knows what you've written.
- Auto-generated description: As you write, Hamster automatically updates the brief's short description (the summary shown on the card in the list view) based on your content. This runs in the background and does not interrupt editing.
- AI image descriptions: Images inserted into the brief document are automatically described by AI in the background. The generated description is stored as the image's alt text and flows into all AI consumers — the chat assistant, plan generation, and RAG search — so visual content contributes to context. Hover an image in the editor to see its description.
- Title editing: The title is editable directly in the document header. Changes reflect immediately in the browser tab, the Briefs list, and the plan.
- Mobile support: On smaller screens, the AI chat appears as a tab within the document view rather than a side panel.
- Mention users: Type
@followed by a team member's name in the chat to pull them into the conversation.
The Workspace Layout
The brief workspace is split into two panels:
- Left panel — AI Chat: The conversation thread for this brief. Use it to discuss, draft, and refine content. On desktop, this is always visible alongside the document. On mobile, it appears as a "Chat" tab.
- Right panel — Document: The editable brief content and its associated tabs (Brief, Plan, Context, Activity).
You can adjust which panels are visible using the column visibility controls. Hide the document panel to focus entirely on the chat, or hide the chat to focus on writing.
Tips
- Structure your brief using headings. The AI uses document structure to understand sections and give more precise responses when you ask about a specific part.
- Write in plain language. You do not need to use any particular template or format. The AI adapts to whatever structure makes sense for your project.
- Use the chat to iterate quickly. Ask "What am I missing?" or "Make the success criteria more specific" without leaving the editor.
- If you have a lot of supporting material, attach it as a context document rather than pasting it into the brief body. This keeps the brief readable while still giving the AI access to the details.