Creating content in Lab.

Lab puts your references and results on a canvas beside a conversation with Penny. Use it to develop a brief, generate media, and refine a direction while keeping the material you are discussing in sight.

#Find your way around

Open Lab from the view dock. On desktop, the canvas occupies the left side and Penny's chat sits on the right, with the message box at the bottom. The vertical toolbar along the canvas's left edge includes project controls, Fit to view, Undo, Redo, and Toggle Chat.

The row below your message holds the conversation selector, Skills, Playbooks, and Lab's Penny model picker. Check these here even if you have already configured Penny in Graph. A Playbook supplies written guidance; enabled Skills supply actions Penny can call.

#Give each reference a job

Tell Penny what to take from each reference: the subject to preserve, the lighting to borrow, or the arrangement to follow. Then specify the deliverable, format, number of results, and what must stay unchanged.

An example brief uses three fictional references. @lamp supplies the product shape and colour; @light supplies soft side lighting; @layout supplies space above the product for a headline. The request asks for one square image, preserves the lamp, and asks for no added lettering. In the interactive illustration, choosing a reference highlights its sentence in the brief. All three references remain in the request. The illustration is authored teaching material, not Studio UI or a generated result.

For example: “Create one square image of @lamp. Preserve its shape and colour. Borrow the soft side light from @light, and leave space above the product as in @layout. Add no lettering.” If you want to discuss a direction before generating anything, ask for a plan or a written prompt first.

#Add and mention your material

Drop image, video, or audio files from your computer onto the canvas, or right-click the canvas and choose Load from disk…. You can also bring in existing Graph outputs, as described below.

To refer to a specific item:

1. Hover over or select it to reveal its @handle above the card.
2. Click that handle to insert a mention into your message. The nearby pencil renames it; a meaningful handle is easier to distinguish from similar items.
3. Explain what Penny should do with that reference, then check the message before sending.

You can also type @ in the message box to choose an item or board. To mention several selected items, right-click inside the message box and choose Mention Selected.

Selecting items is an editing action; it does not insert mentions or restrict the conversation to those items. Penny also receives context about the current conversation's canvas and boards. Use explicit mentions to identify your intended targets, not as a way to hide other canvas content.

#Generate, then inspect the result

Open Skills and enable the workflows Penny needs. Check their required providers and inputs; the model that writes Penny's reply can be different from the provider that generates the media. See Skills for enabling and creating workflows.

Send your brief and follow the activity in chat. A Skill may be queued while waiting for capacity, then show running activity or reported progress. Its outputs arrive as canvas items. A failure belongs to that execution; inspect its message and any completed results before trying again.

Select an item on the canvas and press Space to open the preview. Select several to review them there. Judge the actual image, video, audio, or text instead of relying only on a thumbnail. For the next turn, mention the result you want to refine and say what should change and what should remain.

Provider generation can cost separately from Penny's reply. Asking for another variation or retry may start another execution; make the count and requested action explicit.

#Organize alternatives on the canvas

Select at least two items, right-click, and choose Group Selected to make a board. Rename it for the direction it represents. If the selected items already share a group, the menu offers Ungroup.

Action	What happens
Drag a grouped item	Its fellow group members move with it.
Alt-drag selected items	They move within their existing group without bringing the whole group.
Alt+Shift-drag selected items	Drop into another board to move them there, or outside boards to ungroup them.
Fit to view or F	Fits the selected items; with nothing selected, fits the whole canvas.

Use these shortcuts while working on the canvas, outside the message box. A board keeps a direction together; it is not a merged image or a new executable workflow.

#Download or continue in Graph

To save files: select the items, right-click the canvas, and choose Download. Media downloads as separate files; text downloads as Markdown (.md). This does not export the board as one image or package the whole project.

To use a result in Graph: use the item's Send to Graph action, or select items and choose Send to Graph from the canvas menu. Studio creates image, video, or audio loader nodes, or Text nodes, with the selected content. It closes Lab, brings the new nodes into view, and automatically runs those nodes. Check their outputs before building on them. This transfers the result; it does not recreate the Skill or generation workflow that produced it.

To bring Graph outputs into Lab: select the relevant nodes in Graph, return to Lab, and right-click the canvas. Import from Graph appears when the selected nodes have supported outputs. Choose a node's outputs or Import all when available. A Graph node's context menu also offers sending supported results to Lab.

The Files library currently has no direct drag-to-Lab action. Download a file and drop it from your computer, or load it in Graph and import its output.

#Keep the project and conversation together

Lab conversations belong to the current project. Each conversation has its own canvas items, boards, and chat history. The selector beside Skills lets you create a New Conversation, switch, rename, or duplicate a conversation. Choose the destination before adding references or activating a Playbook.

A new conversation gives an idea its own canvas within that project. New Project changes the project itself. Use Lab's project controls to save or open your work, and see Saving and recovery for the difference between autosaved drafts and named saves.

The chat's Copy Lab chat as JSON action copies a structured snapshot of messages, items, and boards to the clipboard. It is not an archive of the media files or a replacement for saving the project.

#When something is missing or still running

• The canvas looks empty: check the project and conversation, clear the selection, and use Fit to view to find all items.
• Penny uses the wrong reference: check the mention chips and explain each reference's role. A selection alone does not insert a mention.
• A Skill is still working: use its own cancel control to stop that execution. Cancelling… means the request is waiting for confirmation. The message box's Stop control stops the assistant turn.
• You reconnected or hit an error: let Studio recover supported active work and inspect the execution's status before launching duplicates. Recovery is not guaranteed for every interrupted execution. Completed items remain; stopping does not reverse usage already incurred.

See Working with Penny for assistant behaviour and recovery across Studio.