A thread is a new conversation branched off an existing one at a specific message. It starts with everything said up to that point, then goes its own way — leaving the original chat untouched. It is the feature for the moment when an answer raises an interesting side question you do not want to spend your main conversation on. This is one of the features of Secret Chat AI, the AI aggregator.
How to create one
Hover any message and press Thread. You are asked to name the branch, and a new chat appears in the sidebar nested under the conversation it came from. If the parent chat belongs to a project, the thread joins the same project automatically.
Threads can themselves be branched, so a genuinely tangled investigation ends up as a tree you can read rather than a single chat you have to scroll.
What it is for
- Chasing a tangent. An answer mentions something worth a detour. Branch, chase it, and come back to a main conversation that never lost the plot.
- Trying a second model on the same question. Branch at your question, switch the model in the thread, and you have two answers to the identical prompt sitting side by side in the sidebar — the fastest second opinion the app offers.
- Testing a different approach. Rewriting a brief, arguing the opposite case, or asking for a much shorter version — all without throwing away the version you already like.
- Splitting a conversation that grew two topics. Branch the newer topic out and each has room to keep going.
Threads versus editing a message
Both change the direction of a conversation, but they do different things:
- Editing adds your reworded question to the same conversation as a new message — the original stays above it unless you delete it. Use it when the first attempt was simply worded badly and you want the retry in context.
- Threading starts a separate chat from that point, so the two directions do not sit in one transcript. Use it when you want to compare answers, or come back to a tangent later.
Cost and privacy
A thread is an ordinary conversation, so messages sent in it use credits exactly as they would anywhere else — branching itself costs nothing, since it sends nothing to a model. Like every other chat, threads live in your own browser, are included when you export your data, and disappear with the parent if you delete it.