iterel
/

Workflow

Conductor

Use the orchestration layer to route work across the studio without losing context.

User-facing guide
Jump to first section

What the Conductor does

The Conductor is your main interface for directing work across Iterel. Open it by clicking the Conductor icon on the right side of the screen. It is available from every section of the workspace.

The Conductor panel has a header showing the current section context, a message area for conversation, and an input bar at the bottom.

The input bar

The input bar at the bottom of the Conductor panel has several controls:

  • Text field — type your message here. Press Enter to send, or Shift+Enter for a new line. The field auto-grows as you type.
  • Attachment button (paperclip icon) — click to upload files. Supported formats include images (PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP, SVG) and documents (PDF, TXT, Markdown, CSV). Attached files appear as removable pills above the input.
  • Connectors button (integration icon) — click to add context from external data sources. Active connectors show a blue highlight.
  • Model selector dropdown — choose the reasoning depth for the next message:
    • Swift — fast, tactical reasoning for quick local decisions
    • Broad — wider context window for strategic reasoning (uses approximately 3x credits)
    • Deep — system-level reasoning for complex, multi-step decisions (uses approximately 5x credits)
  • Autonomy level dropdown — control how much the Conductor does on its own:
    • Guided — all suggestions require your explicit approval before executing
    • Proactive — low-risk decisions happen automatically, significant ones still ask
    • Full Auto — complete autonomous execution of the task
  • Voice button (microphone icon) — click to start a voice conversation. The button turns red when recording. See Conductor Voice.
  • Send button (arrow icon) — click to send your message. Only enabled when text is present.

You can send a new message while the Conductor is still working on a previous task. The send button turns blue to indicate this.

The header

The Conductor panel header shows:

  • Section tag — indicates which section you are viewing (for example, "Design" or "Research")
  • Fullscreen toggle — click to expand the Conductor to fill the workspace
  • New conversation button — click to start a fresh conversation while keeping project context
  • History toggle — click to show or hide the session history panel on the left
  • Active job status — when a task is running, shows pause, resume, and cancel controls
  • Credit balance — your current available credits

What you can ask

The Conductor handles a wide range of requests:

  • Navigation — "Go to research," "Open the design canvas," "Show me the backlog"
  • Generation — "Generate a user research report," "Create a strategy," "Build the first user flow," "Generate the creative direction"
  • Refinement — "Critique this direction," "Make the elevator pitch sharper," "Simplify this flow"
  • Questions — "What should we research before designing?" "Is the strategy strong enough?"
  • Task management — "What is left to do?" "What is the next best step?"
  • Mode switching — "Switch to Explore mode," "Switch to Deliver mode"
  • Export — "Export code as ZIP," "Publish the website"
  • Settings — "Open usage settings," "Open AI preferences"
  • Engineering — "Build the product," "Approve the sprint," "Generate technical specification"

Proactive suggestions

The Conductor shows suggestion chips below the input based on the current state of your project. These change depending on which section you are viewing. Click a suggestion to send it as a message.

Task execution and progress

When you ask the Conductor to do something complex, it breaks the work into tasks. A task console appears showing:

  • Agent name — which specialist is handling the task
  • Progress bar — animated gradient bar showing completion percentage
  • Status messages — real-time logs with colored dots (green for success, red for error, yellow for warning, blue for active)

For longer operations, an animated progress bar also appears in the top bar across the entire page.

Messages and responses

  • Your messages appear on the right with a right border
  • Assistant messages appear on the left with a left border and word-by-word animation
  • System messages appear for special events:
    • Context compaction — when the conversation gets long, earlier messages are summarized
    • Quick answers — shown with a blue badge for fast responses
    • Queued tasks — shown with an orange badge
    • Cancelled tasks — shown with a red badge
  • Code changes — when the Engineer suggests code, changes appear as diff viewers where you can accept or reject individual changes
  • Confirmation dialogs — for significant actions, a Yes/No dialog appears with a description of what will happen

Context awareness

The Conductor knows which section you are viewing and what you have selected. If you select a design element and then open the Conductor, it shows the selected element as a purple tag. If you are viewing research findings, it can reference them directly.

Design context tags appear below the header:

  • Frame tag (purple) — shows the name of the selected frame. Click to select the entire frame.
  • Element tag (green) — shows the specific element. Click the X to deselect.
  • Target tag (blue) — shows what the Conductor is editing. Click to remove targeting.

Session history

Click the history toggle to see your previous 10 conversations. Each session shows:

  • Status badge — completed (green), failed (red), cancelled (grey), or active (blue)
  • Phase label — which phase the session focused on
  • Request preview — first two lines of the conversation
  • Metadata — time ago, file count, lines added and removed

Click a session to load it.

Context usage bar

When the conversation uses more than 40 percent of available context, a thin bar appears above the input showing usage:

  • Blue at 40 to 59 percent
  • Yellow at 60 to 79 percent
  • Red at 80 percent and above (critical)

At critical levels, a "Start fresh" link appears that resets the conversation with a summary of key context.

Confirmation gates

For actions that change significant project content, the Conductor asks for confirmation before proceeding. A dialog appears with a description of the action and Yes/No buttons. This prevents accidental overwrites of work you have already refined.