Aiden offers three places a chat can run:
- A workspace on your folder. Open a folder, type a path or clone a repository. The chat works on your files with that workspace's access level.
- A scratch workspace. Scratch chat makes a new, randomly named folder in
~/aiden(for example~/aiden/calm-moon-sail) and registers it as a workspace you can see and reopen. - No workspace. The chat uses your global settings and is listed under Chats in the sidebar instead of under a workspace. Behind the scenes it still runs in a real folder that Aiden manages, so files, skills, the terminal and Git keep working.
- The workspace menu on a new chat (the composer chip or the headline) lists No workspace after Scratch chat. New chat in… (
⌘⇧N) lists it too. - The sidebar's Chats group collects every No workspace chat. Its + button and its menu start another one.
- A new install starts in No workspace.
Each No workspace chat gets its own folder in Aiden's app data, named like a scratch folder:
| Platform | Folder |
|---|---|
| macOS | ~/Library/Application Support/Aiden Agent/chat-folders/<name> |
| Linux | ~/.config/Aiden Agent/chat-folders/<name> |
The folder is created when the chat is first sent, so a draft you abandon leaves nothing behind. If the folder goes missing (cleared app data, a manual delete), Aiden makes it again, empty, on the next message. The model is told the folder is private to the chat, so it can use it for downloads, clones and scratch files.
Copying a chat or forking from a reply gives the new chat a separate, empty private folder and its own Ask first access setting. Conversation history is copied; files and workspace access are not shared. This also applies when copying an older chat from the migrated shared home. Previously created shared copies keep their existing files and access; Aiden does not move or duplicate that existing data automatically.
A skill selected before the first send is validated in the draft's original workspace, while its one-turn instructions run in the newly assigned private folder.
The chat's header chip reads No workspace; its menu can still show the folder in Finder or a file manager.
- No workspace chats follow global settings. Per-workspace settings (such as the skills and connectors a workspace switches off) never apply to them.
- Access starts at Ask first, like any new workspace, and can be changed from the composer for that chat.
- All No workspace chats share one memory. It is the memory the old folderless "Workspace" used, so facts saved there carry on. Settings → Memory lists it as No workspace chats.
Deleting a No workspace chat moves its folder to the Trash (an empty folder is simply removed). Startup also clears away hidden folders left without a chat. A new chat that was still aimed at the deleted chat's folder (a fork of it, or the new chat that opens after the delete) stays under Chats and gets a folder of its own when you send it.
Every install used to have a folderless workspace called "Workspace" whose chats could not read files or use Git. On the first start with this version it becomes the No workspace home of those chats: it gets one hidden folder that those older chats share, and their memory stays where it was. Chats started from then on each get their own folder.
Desktop (macOS and Linux), and Aiden On The Go for iPhone and Android paired to a desktop on contract revision 51.
On a phone, the sidebar shows the same one Chats group, and New Chat offers No Workspace first, above New Workspace and Existing Workspace. A chat started there runs on the desktop in a hidden folder of its own: the phone aims it at the home folder, and the desktop gives it a fresh folder when the home already holds a chat. On iPhone, touch and hold a chat under Chats to delete it, since those chats have no workspace page of their own (Android has no chat delete yet). Hidden folders never appear in a phone's workspace list or pickers; on iPhone, a scheduled task that already runs in one still shows it while you edit the task, as on the desktop. A desktop whose old default workspace already had a folder shows No Workspace on phones once its first No workspace chat is started on the desktop. A phone paired to an older desktop, or to the CLI (which has no No workspace chats), offers nothing new; an older phone keeps listing each hidden workspace by its name, No workspace.