> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://continuum-three-olive.vercel.app/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Broadcast

> Send one prompt to two or three providers, compare the answers side by side, and compile them into one cited response.

<Warning>
  **Broadcast lives in the Chat tab, and the Chat tab is hidden by default.** Continuum ships
  focused on the Code workbench, and since 2026-07-30 Chat is not in the tab bar on any client
  — Mac, iPhone, web, Windows, Linux, or Android.

  Nothing was removed; only the tab is hidden. On the Mac you can bring it back yourself:

  ```bash theme={"dark"}
  defaults write ai.continuum.mac clawdmeter.tab.chat.enabled -bool YES
  ```

  Relaunch Continuum and Chat rejoins the tab bar as ⌘1. There is no equivalent switch on the
  other clients — on web, desktop, and mobile, hidden is hidden.

  This page documents Broadcast as it behaves when [Chat](/docs/surfaces/chat) is on.
</Warning>

Broadcast fans one prompt out to several providers at once. Each answers in its own column,
streaming live. When you have seen enough you can star the better answer turn by turn, focus a
single response, compile every answer into one cited summary, or pick a winner and carry on
as a normal chat.

## Starting a broadcast

<Steps>
  <Step title="Open Chat">
    On Mac, Broadcast is the multi-column chat surface; on iPhone it is the same Chat tab with
    a provider pill strip.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Select two or three providers">
    In the **Ask or compare** picker, tick the providers you want. One keeps you in Solo; two
    or three gives you a column each. Three is the cap. The picker's Solo / Compare /
    Synthesize toggle is the shortcut in the other direction — click **Compare** and it adds a
    provider for you.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Check availability">
    Providers that aren't enabled or aren't currently reachable show a reason line and can't be
    ticked. Continuum probes each one for a working binary, valid auth, and a parseable
    transcript before offering it.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Write your prompt and send">
    The same prompt goes to every column at once.
  </Step>
</Steps>

Any provider you can chat with can join a broadcast — Claude, ChatGPT (Codex), Antigravity
(Gemini), Cursor, Grok, OpenCode Go, OpenRouter, Z.ai Coding, Continuum's hosted models, and
any custom provider you've added — subject to the availability check.

<Warning>
  A broadcast needs at least **two** providers that start cleanly. If only one does, the
  response tells you why each other slot failed and the session does not open as a broadcast.
  You can retry a failed slot rather than starting over.
</Warning>

<Note>
  **One column per provider.** A provider can appear at most once in a broadcast. Even with
  [multiple accounts](/docs/features/multi-account) configured for the same provider, you can't run
  that provider in two columns of the same group — each column picks one account.
</Note>

## While streaming

Each column streams its own reply independently. On Mac the columns sit side by side; on
iPhone a horizontal pill strip switches which column you're reading.

Each column header shows the provider's glyph, its name, and the model id, plus three
actions: **Retry this model with the same prompt**, **Mark this answer as winner**, and
**Continue from this answer**.

<Note>
  Token and dollar totals are not shown per column. Per-provider cost and token analytics roll
  up in the [Usage](/docs/surfaces/usage) tab across all your sessions.
</Note>

### Deep Research

Toggle **Deep Research** in the composer's **+** menu before you send. It's a single
broadcast-level switch: turn it on and every column is created with it. The composer's status
word changes from `ready` to `research` while it's on.

## Deciding between answers

Three actions let you act on the comparison, layered from a light note to a permanent fork.

<Tabs>
  <Tab title="Star (non-destructive)">
    The bookmark button marks a column's latest turn as the winner. It's pure metadata —
    nothing is archived, and every provider keeps answering follow-ups. Use it to track who is
    winning turn by turn. It's disabled on the very first turn, until there's an answer to
    star.
  </Tab>

  <Tab title="Prefer this response (reversible)">
    **I prefer this response** expands one column to fill the view and collapses the others to
    side rails. It's view state only — nothing is archived — and it persists across follow-up
    turns until you hit **Show all responses**. Every column keeps streaming behind the
    focused one.
  </Tab>

  <Tab title="Continue from this answer (destructive)">
    The arrow on a column promotes it: Continuum stops and archives every other column, and
    the winner becomes a regular Solo chat carrying the full transcript. The UI follows it out
    of the comparison.
  </Tab>
</Tabs>

## Synthesize

Instead of choosing between the answers, you can merge them — added in 0.62.0.

Synthesize is armed up front, as the third segment of the **Ask or compare** toggle (it needs
at least two providers, and turns one on for you if you have fewer). Arming it puts a
**Synthesize · \<provider>** chip in the composer. Once at least two columns have finished
replying, a **Synthesize N replies with \<provider>** button appears below them; one click
reads every live column's answer for that turn, hands them to the summarizer, and streams a
single combined response into a **Synthesis from** panel above the columns.

Every claim in the synthesis is traceable: the summarizer cites its sources inline, and each
citation renders as a chip naming the column it came from.

The summarizer chip defaults to the first provider in the comparison, and its menu offers both
the providers in this broadcast and, under **Not in this broadcast**, everything else you have
configured. That makes "have Claude reconcile what Codex and Grok said" a one-click move.

**Continue from synthesis →** promotes the merged answer the way *Continue from this answer*
promotes a column: the source columns are archived, and the synthesis becomes a normal Solo
chat holding your question and the combined answer.

<Note>
  Synthesize needs at least two live sources, and waits for a finished, non-empty answer before
  it will promote one — it never quietly compiles a partial set of replies. Hosts on an older
  release don't offer the toggle segment, the chip, or the button at all.
</Note>

## Attachments in broadcast

Attach a file once and it covers the whole broadcast — you don't upload per provider. Under
the hood the composer reads the bytes once, then stages a private copy for each column, and
each column's prompt mentions only its own path (a file staged for one column isn't readable
by another). Staged files land under `~/Library/Application Support/Clawdmeter/attachments/`
for local sessions, or in a `.clawdmeter-attachments/` directory inside the worktree when the
session runs in a worktree sandbox. (`Clawdmeter` is Continuum's internal codename and still
names its on-disk paths.)

Continuum re-checks each column right before issuing its prompt, so a concurrent promote can't
leak the prompt to a column that was just archived.

## Continuing from a winner

After you promote a column (or a synthesis), it's a normal Solo chat carrying the full
transcript from the broadcast phase onward. Open it from the Chat history sidebar and keep
going — follow-ups take the standard send path. Searching history for a resolved broadcast
reopens the matched session as a live Solo chat, not a read-only transcript.

<Tip>
  If you always pick the same provider, set it as your default in Settings → Providers and use
  Solo mode. Broadcast pays off when you genuinely expect the answers to differ — and
  Synthesize pays off when you expect each of them to be partly right.
</Tip>

## Related

* [Chat](/docs/surfaces/chat) — the Chat tab, Solo mode, and how to unhide it.
* [Usage](/docs/surfaces/usage) — where per-provider token and cost analytics roll up.