Asking AI with F9

The basics

• Hold F9 and ask in plain speech — no syntax, no wake word
• Release. The overlay appears beside your current window and streams the answer
• Copy what you need, or dismiss and keep working
• Press Ctrl+F9 to open the chat panel without starting a voice recording

The overlay

Answers render with markdown, tables, and math — so a comparison arrives as a table, not a paragraph. Code blocks carry a Copy button, math renders via KaTeX ($$...$$ and $...$), model <think> blocks are stripped with a Thinking… placeholder while streaming, and Ctrl+C copies the answer. The overlay never steals your cursor: your app keeps focus the whole time — click into the panel when you want to select text. Esc closes it.

Overlay layout

Default is docked right at 420×720. Settings → F9 Overlay Position offers Left, Right, Top, and Bottom (720×420) presets, or Free mode: drag the header to move, drag edges to resize (300×260 min, 1200×900 max), with position auto-saved on a 400ms debounce.

Continuous mode

Enable continuous mode to carry conversation context across follow-ups. Ask “explain this error”, then “now show the fix in Python” — the second answer knows about the first. With Chat ON, holding F9 resumes the last session if it is under 30 minutes old (full history re-sent); the history drawer (max 80 sessions) lets you jump threads, and f9-new-chat resets to a blank slate. Turn it off for one-shot questions where prior context would pollute the answer.

Screenshot questions

1. Press Ctrl+F9 to open the panel, then choose Screenshot.
2. Select the screen or app window to capture and attach it to your F9 question.
3. Ask your question. The screenshot and question are sent to the provider assigned to F9; choose a vision-capable model for image analysis.

Screenshot capture is an explicit F9 action. F8 dictation and F10 text transformation do not capture screenshots. Captured images are stored locally as JPEG attachments with the chat history; they are not sent to Flunkey servers.

Saved chats

Every F9 session is saved locally with full formatting. The Chat History page searches smart — typo-tolerant, weighing questions 3×, follow-ups 2×, answers 1× — with filters and a modal thread view for full conversations. The model behind F9 comes from your per-task assignment, and its system prompt is editable in Settings (default: “You are Flunkey, a helpful voice-activated AI assistant… Keep responses short unless specified and minimize table formatting.”). Wiping everything is one click: Settings → Wipe all data.