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Spaces

A Space is a long-lived workspace built around a project: a codebase, a research question, an ongoing piece of writing. It bundles instructions, reference sources, a memory and a default model. Every chat in a Space - started there or moved in later - inherits that context automatically.

What a Space holds

• Instructions - a system prompt for every chat in the Space. When set, it replaces both your global custom instructions and the chat’s own instructions.
• Reference sources - files uploaded to the Space, plus texts, files, links and datasets linked from your Library. Every chat in the Space can use them: the model gets their full text or the most relevant excerpts, and images go along with each message so vision-capable models can see them. See Reference sources below.
• Memory - facts about you that Loach learns from the Space’s chats. See Memory.
• Default model - the provider and model new chats in the Space start with, so a “code review” Space can always start in a different model than a “writing” Space.

Creating and editing

Open the Spaces tab in the sidebar and click New Space. Give it a Name (up to 60 characters) and an optional Description, then Create - Loach opens the new Space. Enter in the name creates it, and so does Ctrl + Enter in the description; closing the dialog with something typed asks before discarding it.

The Spaces page shows every Space as a tile, most recently updated first, with its chat count, a New chat button and a … menu (Open, New chat, Delete). A Search Spaces box above the tiles filters them by name or description.

A Space’s page shows its description, a row of chips summing it up (chats, sources, Instructions on, memories, model) and a composer: every message sent from it starts a new chat in the Space, even if one of the Space’s chats was open before. Below it are five tabs, and each Space remembers the one you left it on until you quit Loach, so coming back from one of its chats lands you there again:

• Chats - the Space’s chats, grouped by Today, Yesterday, This week and Older. Archived chats aren’t listed. Each row’s … menu (or a right-click) offers Pin this chat / Unpin, Label, Move to Space, Rename, Move to archive and Delete.
• Instructions - the Space’s system prompt. As the hint under it says - Saves when you click away - it’s saved when you click away from the field, and also when you leave the page some other way, such as a keyboard shortcut or the app lock.
• Sources - the Space’s uploads and Library sources. See Reference sources below.
• Memory - the Space’s memory editor, under a line saying whether auto-save is on, with a Change in Settings link.
• Settings - the Space’s default model, memory switch, source mode and image scaling. See The Settings tab below.

Rename the Space or change its description from the … menu next to its title → Edit details, which opens the Edit Space dialog; closing it with unsaved edits asks first. Changes to instructions, sources, memory and settings reach every chat in the Space with its next message.

Besides the composer on the Space’s page and the New chat button on its tile, you can type /space <name> to make a Space active, then /new to start a chat in it. On a Space’s page, /new starts the chat in that Space and opens it; commands that act on a chat, such as /clear or /model, need one of the Space’s chats open.

The Settings tab

• Default model - the model new chats in the Space start with. Pick Default model at the top of the list to use your default model from Settings → General. Switching model inside a chat still wins.
• Memory - whether new facts from the Space’s chats are saved. See Space memory.
• How sources reach the model - Auto, Full text or Excerpts. See below.
• Image scaling - Default, Scale down or Original: how images are scaled down before they reach the model in the Space’s chats - attached ones, the Space’s own and its Library images. On Default, images follow the app’s setting and Library images the Library’s; a chat can still set its own. See Image scaling.

Moving chats in and out

A chat can join a Space after it started: pick Move to Space in its … menu - in the sidebar, the chat header or a Space’s Chats tab - and choose a Space (the current one has a check mark). Remove from Space, at the bottom of the same submenu, takes it out. From its next message the chat uses its new Space’s instructions, sources and memory, or no Space’s once it’s out. Its messages and model stay as they are, and it keeps its place in the sidebar.

Deleting a Space

Pick Delete Space from the … menu next to its title (or Delete in its tile’s menu on the Spaces page). The Space’s instructions, memories and uploaded files are deleted for good. Library sources stay in your Library, and its chats are kept: they leave the Space and carry on as regular chats.

Reference sources

The Sources tab holds two kinds of reference material, listed together:

• Uploads - files you add with Upload. They belong to the Space: they’re stored only there and deleted with it.
• Library sources - datasets, texts, files and links added with From Library. They stay in your Library, so an edit there reaches the Space’s chats with their next message. See Library: in a Space.

Uploads are read like attachments, one file at a time, so one bad file doesn’t stop the rest:

• Text and code files - read as text.
• PDFs and Word (.docx) documents - their text is extracted. A scanned PDF, an empty document or an empty text file has no text to read, so it isn’t added; the tab lists each file it turned away. Add a scanned document’s pages as images instead.
• Images - PNG, JPEG, WebP and GIF go with each message to vision-capable models, scaled as set on the Settings tab.
• Anything else - formats Loach can’t read, such as legacy .doc files or archives, are stored but marked unreadable, and never sent to the model.

Each upload can be up to 20 MB, and a Space’s uploads up to 200 MB in total; Library sources don’t count toward that. The tab shows how much is used, as 12.4 MB of 200 MB uploaded · 3 from Library. A file’s text is cut off after about 200,000 characters, with a note telling the model so.

Every source has a switch: turn one off to keep it in the Space without using it. Click a source to preview it (a dataset opens its page in the Library). Its … menu has:

• A Library source - Preview (Open dataset for a dataset) and Remove from Space, which only unlinks it.
• An upload - Preview, Save to Library (not for unreadable files) and Delete. Deleting asks first, since the file is gone for good - save it to the Library first to keep a copy.

The source count on the Space’s page, and on the Space sources chip in its chats, counts what the model can get: switched-on sources, with a dataset counted as its items and unreadable uploads left out.

How sources reach the model

The Space’s Settings tab sets how its chats use the sources:

• Auto - the full text while the sources fit in half the context window, the most relevant excerpts once they don’t.
• Full text - always the whole text, cut short with a note if it can’t fit.
• Excerpts - always search the sources and give the model only the parts relevant to each message.

New Spaces start on Auto. Spaces created before Loach 1.6, and Spaces restored from an older backup, start on Full text - every source in full with every message, as they always worked - until you switch them. A chat in the Space follows this setting unless it picks its own. See How sources reach the model for the details.

The Sources tab shows the current mode with a Change in Settings link and, once there are sources, a gauge of their estimated tokens against the context window: whether the model reads them in full or gets excerpts, and a marker where Auto switches to excerpts. Full text uses a lot of context on every turn; the context-usage bar counts the sources in its Sources row.

Space memory

Each Space has its own memory, on by default for a new Space. After every finished reply in the Space, Loach asks the chat’s model to pick out lasting facts about you, saves them, and adds them to the system prompt of every chat in the Space as a --- Space memory --- list. A toast with an Undo button announces every change.

Turn memory off with the Memory switch on the Space’s Settings tab: Loach stops saving new facts, but the ones already saved are still sent until you delete them. The Memory tab says which way it’s set. How capture, updates, limits and /remember work - and how Space memory combines with global memories - is covered on the Memory page.