Ask in plain English

Type what you need in the Ask box above the editor. The SQL appears in the editor as you type.

• Run it: press ↵ in the Ask box, or ⌘↵ / Ctrl+↵ in the editor. ⇧↵ adds a new line and esc clears the question.
• Instant answers: simple requests like "show customers" or "how many orders" are answered on your computer straight away, without calling the AI.
• Follow-ups: after running a query, say what to change: "only Canada", "remove the middle name", "sort by date". SayQL edits the query you have, and shows Building on your last query (or Changing your last query with /followup). Click New query to start fresh.
• What it's doing: the line under the Ask box shows the model writing the SQL, Instant when no AI was needed, and how long it took.

#Slash commands

Type / at the start of the Ask box to pick a command. Use ↑ ↓ to move, ↵ or Tab to pick and esc to close. The command shows as a chip; type the rest of your question after it. ⌫ at the start removes the chip.

• /followup: change the current query, even when the request sounds like a new question.
• /new: ignore the last query and start fresh, like New query.
• /explain: explain the current query in plain English. Add a question after it to ask about one part.
• /fix: fix the current query, or the error it got. Say what's wrong if there's no error.
• /improve: the same as Improve.

With /explain, /fix and /improve, ↵ does the command instead of running the query.

#Skills

A skill is an instruction you save once and add to any question with / and its name. For example, /pii-safe with "Never select email, phone or address columns". The instruction is sent to the AI with that question. Skills are text only: they hold no SQL, run nothing on their own, and don't change the read-only safety. Anything that could change data still asks first.

Create, edit and delete skills in Settings → Skills, or pick Create skill… at the bottom of the / menu. Names use lowercase letters, numbers and dashes, and can't be a built-in command. Skills are saved on your computer.

With no skills yet, Settings → Skills offers examples to start from: /pii-safe, /this-month and /small.

#Point it at the right tables

Click a table in the navigator to give it to the AI as context. ⌘-click (or Ctrl-click) adds more, and ⇧-click picks a range. Picked tables show as a pill at the right end of the question line. The eye hides them from the AI without losing the selection; × clears them. ⌘-click a picked table to remove it. This helps most in large databases.

#Fix and Improve

• Fix: when the database rejects a query SayQL wrote, the stronger model reads the error, corrects the SQL and runs it again, once. This doesn't happen for a selection or a script. If it still fails, click Fix with AI on the error, or edit the SQL.
• Explain: /explain describes the current query in plain English, in a panel under the Ask box. Close it with ×.
• Improve: click Improve above the editor to have the stronger model review the query against your question (joins, filters, dates, grouping, NULLs and the columns shown) and return the best version of it. If it's already right, it comes back unchanged.

Something missing or unclear? Ask in Discussions.