After you connect, OpenTacit operates silently in your session. This chapter tells you what you can see in a session and which actions you can do.

The ◆ OpenTacit suggestion

A suggestion shows below the answer when a turn completes and the registry has a validated technique that matches your work:

┃ ◆ Tacit: a suggestion from your org's playbook
┃ Clear context instead of patching a derailed session
┃ why:  You've corrected the same misunderstanding three times this session.
┃ try:  Start a fresh session and restate the goal in one message …
┃ measured by colleagues: helped 94% · adopted 70% · n=120 · team:revops
┃ reply "helped" / "not relevant", or try it to record adoption
┃ automatically · ask @tacit anytime · <technique-id>

The parts of the suggestion:

• why — one sentence that tells you why this technique matches your current work. OpenTacit checks this against your context before it shows the suggestion.
• try — the recipe, ready for use.
• measured by colleagues — the real evidence for the technique. If a technique has no measurements, OpenTacit does not show this line. OpenTacit does not invent numbers.

You can do one of three actions with a suggestion:

• Try it. If you apply the move, OpenTacit records the adoption automatically. No reply is necessary.
• Reply in your usual words. OpenTacit understands and records replies such as "that helped," "didn't work," "not relevant," or "already knew that" in your next message.
• Ignore it. No action occurs, and there is no negative effect for you.

OpenTacit limits suggestions by design:

• a maximum of one suggestion for each 6 turns and 45 minutes
• a maximum of 4 suggestions in each period of 6 hours.

This budget applies to you, not to one session. A second terminal or a pause does not reset the budget. Direct requests (@tacit, the OpenTacit skills) have no limit. If you dismissed a technique, or you already use it, OpenTacit does not show it to you again for 30 days. If the registry or the model is slow, the suggestion does not delay your turn. OpenTacit holds the suggestion and delivers it with your next prompt.

Your harness controls where these blocks can appear. Some clients (Claude Code on the web or a phone, GitHub Copilot CLI) do not show pushed suggestions. See Where OpenTacit can and can't render. Where blocks cannot appear, pull the same techniques with /tacit:review or @tacit. These show as usual conversation text.

Ask @tacit

To speak to OpenTacit directly, put @tacit in a prompt:

Refactor this handler — @tacit do we have a validated approach for schema migrations?

Your work request continues without a change. The answer from the advisor comes with it. The answer uses the techniques in the registry and quotes their real evidence. If the organization has no validated move for your question, the advisor tells you this clearly. It does not invent an answer.

Some phrases get a special response:

• "@tacit are you working?" — a one-line status. It gives the shown and adopted counts for the live sessions of this machine, and the condition of the registry and the model.
• "@tacit how are we doing?" — the shown and adopted counts for this machine, with a link to the full funnel, helped rate, and org-wide numbers on the dashboard.
• "@tacit remember this" — refers you to /tacit:contribute, which captures the move correctly.
• "@tacit that helped" — OpenTacit acknowledges this. The automatic record of the reaction already exists.

The status line

If your status line has the OpenTacit segment (see tacit statusline in the command reference), the segment shows the session:

◆ tacit 2⚡ 1✓ 3⚑

• 2⚡ — the count of suggestions that OpenTacit showed in this session
• 1✓ — the count of suggestions that you adopted in this session
• 3⚑ — the count of drafts in the shared review queue (visible only when the count is more than zero)

When a problem needs attention, a warning replaces the counters, for example ⚠ registry:unreachable (tacit doctor). The warning gives the command that finds the cause.

The one-time repository invitation

A single ◆ OpenTacit line invites you to join when two conditions are true: the team of the repository uses OpenTacit, and your machine is not connected. The line appears one time for each registry. Members with a connection do not see it.

The daily cohort question

If you are connected but you did not set a cohort, your first prompt gets a single ◆ OpenTacit line that asks for one. Reply with your team and role in your own words ("payments team, engineer — set my OpenTacit cohort"). The agent then saves the cohort for you. Without a cohort, OpenTacit cannot credit your outcomes to a team. Because of this, the question comes again, a maximum of one time each day, until you set a cohort. You can set it at any time with tacit connect --segment.

Your technique memory stays on your machine

The data about your choices (the suggestions that you adopted or dismissed) stays only in ~/.tacit-technique-memory.json on your machine. This file prevents repeated suggestions. It also makes messages such as "you use 4 of the 6 techniques common on your team" possible. No data about you as a person goes to the registry. See What stays private.