Tessa - Your AI Assistant¶

This page explains what Tessa is, what makes her different from a generic chatbot, and the conceptual model behind her tools, hats, skills, memory, and energy.

Not another chatbot. Tessa is a purpose-built AI assistant with live access to your telemetry data, your codebase, and a suite of built-in tools. She doesn't guess - she queries your Grid, reads your code, and tells you exactly what's wrong.

What makes Tessa different¶

Every APM tool has dashboards. Only IAPM has an AI assistant that can navigate your 3D environment, query live telemetry, read and edit your source code, search the web, spawn specialized sub-agents, and remember context across sessions.

Tessa is available across all IAPM surfaces:

• IAPM 3D (v1.9+) - Chat panel or voice, speak directly to Tessa
• IAPM Web (v3.90+) - Chat widget in the portal
• IAPM Studio (v0.1+) - Integrated chat with multi-tab and split pane

Workspaces, conversation history, and Tessa's memory are stored locally on disk; multiple surfaces on the same machine share access through that storage.

How Tessa thinks: the conceptual model¶

Tessa is built around four ideas that combine to shape her behavior.

Tools¶

Tessa has a fixed set of built-in tools she uses autonomously during a conversation. Tools cover file reading and editing, web search and fetch, voice control, memory, and spawning sub-agents. When connected to a Grid, she also has access to diagnostic tools for live telemetry analysis.

The tools are the capabilities. Tessa picks which to use based on what you ask. For the full lookup, see Tessa tools.

Hats¶

A hat is a lens Tessa wears that changes how she approaches a problem. The Coder hat focuses on small, reviewed code increments. The Architect hat focuses on system design and trade-offs. The Researcher, Reviewer, and Security hats each shape her responses to fit that domain.

You don't have to specify a hat; Tessa picks based on context. But you can put a specific hat on with the /hat command when you want to steer her behavior explicitly. For the full hat catalog and command reference, see Tessa hats.

Skills¶

A skill is a specialist team Tessa can route to. Where hats change how Tessa thinks, skills change who she calls in. The Problem-Solving skill has agents for research, analysis, architecture decisions, validation, synthesis, and reviews. The Engineering Team skill has agents for backend, frontend, DevSecOps, QA, and security. Other skills cover offensive security, adversarial quality review, systems engineering, and prompt engineering.

You don't invoke skills by name. Describe what you need ("review this code for security issues") and Tessa routes to the right skill and the right agents automatically. Skills are available in IAPM 3D and Studio; Web integration is not yet shipped. For the full catalog, see Tessa skills.

Memory¶

Tessa remembers in three layers. Session memory lasts for the current conversation. Workspace memory lasts across conversations within a project or Grid. User memory lasts across all your workspaces.

Memory is persistent on disk. What Tessa learns in one conversation can surface in the next, which is what makes long-running investigations feel coherent. The persistence model also has confidentiality implications worth understanding before you put sensitive material in front of her. For the layer reference and memory commands, see Tessa commands and runtime.

Energy¶

Tessa runs on an energy system. You start each window at Optimal (your full subscription quality, full depth of reasoning on hard problems) and drop to Conserving (a lighter, faster model) when the window's budget is spent. Every capability still works in Conserving; energy changes how deeply Tessa reasons on hard problems, not which skills she can use. Paid plans always keep a working assistant; free (Start-tier) users who exhaust a window instead wait for it to refill, with a recharge countdown shown. Energy is visible in the chat panel.

The energy bar is the only thing you see. Token counts, model names, and pool sources are deliberately invisible: one bar, one experience. When energy is low, Tessa tells you when she'll be back to full. For tier-by-plan limits, see Tessa commands and runtime.

Diagnostics: where Tessa shines¶

When Tessa is connected to a Grid, she's not just answering questions; she's running real diagnostics against live telemetry. Every response is backed by actual data. She queries traces, logs, and metrics through dedicated tools, often chaining several in a single response: check health, identify the unhealthy service, compare it to yesterday, find the slow traces.

The diagnostic capability is what makes IAPM's AI assistant different from a generic chatbot bolted onto a dashboard. For the full diagnostic catalog and the kinds of questions Tessa can answer, see Tessa diagnostics.

Getting started¶

1. Open the chat panel in any IAPM surface.
2. Type a question, or click the microphone to speak.
3. Try: "How is my system doing right now?"
4. Follow up naturally. Tessa remembers conversation context.

Where to next¶

• For step-by-step tasks (voice, image input, prompt patterns): see How-to guides.
• For commands, tools, hats, skills, diagnostics tables: see Reference.
• To learn IAPM hands-on: see Tutorials.