What you can do
You already opened Maya's homepage hero from Widgets and landed in the composer. Text and Image are on the canvas. Ask AI is a second way to keep building — the same drops and drawer clicks, said in ordinary language.
Two everyday jobs:
- Add a heading above the hero. Instead of hunting Text on the palette and hovering until the drop indicator appears, type “add a heading above the first row”. A new row lands above the photo, with the same starter styles a manual drop would have used.
- Give that image room on desktop and phones. Instead of opening Modify and hunting Padding, type “give that image 32 pixels of padding on desktop and 16 on phones”. The drawer shows the same values, with the right unit selected.
That same path covers the rest of the everyday work: move the heading above the image, copy a card to the bottom, delete a column, centre a row. Ask AI can drop any of the ten RuleCMS cards — Text, Image, Video, Icon, Button, Divider, Embed, List, Accordion, Custom Component — and any component from a component library your team has enabled.
Ask AI is targeted on purpose. It is at its best when you already know the change you want — add this, move that, make this setting this value. It is not a designer you brief with “make me a banner” or “improve this page.” Those requests are out of scope today, and asking them will disappoint you. Use What you can ask as the whole menu.
How Ask AI thinks
Ask AI does not invent a new kind of edit. It performs the same operations the mouse performs: drop a component, move it, delete it, or change a setting in the Modify drawer. The result is indistinguishable from a manual edit. Autosave and publish treat it as ordinary composer work.
Changes apply as soon as they are made. There is no accept or reject step. That is only safe because the canvas stays visible above the panel and Undo is one click away. One Ask AI request is one undo step, even when it made several changes.
Ask AI is for widgets only right now. Collections are not supported yet — the button is hidden on a collection, not disabled. If a request could mean two rows or two components, Ask AI will ask rather than guess.
Ask your first change
You do this after Edit Widget — the same landing the composer guide already walked. Picture Maya's homepage hero on the Production Default Widget, with Text and Image already on the canvas.
- Open the organization → team → project → environment you want to work in. Find the orange Widgets card, View Widgets, then the widget row. Edit Widget opens the composer.
- Look for the Ask AI button in the lower-right of the canvas. Click it. The panel opens along the bottom. The canvas stays visible above it so you can see each change land.
- Type “add a heading above the first row” and press Enter. Shift-Enter starts a new line. While a request is running, Send becomes Stop.
- Watch the canvas. A new Text row appears above the hero. The transcript lists what was applied, in words. There is no accept or reject step.
- Type “give that image 32 pixels of padding on desktop and 16 on phones”. Open Modify if you want to see the same values in the drawer.
- If the result is not what you meant, use Undo in the composer toolbar. One Ask AI request is one undo step. That is a safe stop.
If you have unsaved edits, Ask AI waits for autosave to finish before it starts, so it never works from a stale copy of the widget. The empty panel offers the same two examples — a heading above the first row, more padding on phones — so you can copy them on the first try.
What Ask AI will not do
This list is as important as the menu. A request that is not on the menu is refused or answered with a question — it will not quietly do something adjacent.
| Request | Why it is out of scope | Do this instead |
|---|---|---|
| “Make me a banner” / “improve this page” / “design a hero” | Ask AI does not invent layouts. Those requests are several operations plus design judgement, and shipping a poor guess teaches you not to trust the panel. | Ask for the pieces: add an image, add a heading below it, set the heading text, set the row gap. The complete menu lists every piece. |
| Edit a collection | Ask AI only runs on widgets today. | Open the collection and edit it by hand. See Collections. |
| Create, embed, or replace a collection | Those write a different kind of record than a widget edit. | Use the Collections tab in the palette, or the collection actions in the drawer. |
| Add, switch, or delete an overlay layer | Layers are a separate editing target, not a row you can drop. | Use Add Layer in the header. See Overlay Layers. If a layer is already selected, Ask AI will edit that layer's content the same way it edits the base. |
| Change CSS Variables, class definitions, fonts, themes, or other CSS Settings | Those live in a different catalog, not in the widget's rows and columns. | Open the widget's CSS Settings. Ask AI can still point a setting at a variable that already exists. |
| Upload an image or a video | Media upload is its own flow, with its own picker. | Upload in Media, then ask Ask AI to use that file, or pick it in Media Selector yourself. |
| Publish, promote, or restore a version | Publishing is a separate, explicit step. Ask AI only changes the draft. | Use Publishing when you are ready. |
| Edit another widget, or another environment | Ask AI only sees the widget you have open, in the environment you are in. | Open that widget and ask again. |
| Write raw CSS, or change project-level starters | The composer does not offer a free-text CSS channel on a column, and project CSS Styles are a different page. | Use the settings on What you can ask, or edit project CSS Styles if you want every new drop to start differently. |
How a change lands
- It applies as soon as it is made. There is no preview-and-accept step. That is only safe because the canvas stays visible and Undo is one click away.
- One request is one undo. If Ask AI added a row, set its gap, and changed a heading, Undo reverts all three together.
- The draft is saved. Ask AI writes through the same save path a manual edit uses. Publishing is still a separate step.
- The drawer agrees with the canvas. Open Modify after a request and you will see the same values you would have typed.
- Switching widgets clears the conversation. The transcript belongs to the widget you have open, so it does not follow you to the next one.
- A request spends a credit when it starts. Failed and cancelled requests still count. One request is one credit. Buy a pack or subscribe on the team's Ask AI billing page — that is a separate bill from the RuleCMS plan. If the team is out of credits, a dialog points you there.
When you will not see Ask AI
The button is hidden — not disabled — when the feature cannot work. A control that cannot work is worse than absence.
- Your team has not granted you Composer Ai Editor under Widget Access. Ask AI is a separate grant on top of the permission to edit the widget — a team can have editors who do not spend Ask AI credits. You also need Widget Access (Manage or Admin) on that environment. Staging and Production have their own Composer Ai Editor groups. Ask a team administrator.
- You are editing a collection, not a widget.
- The window is narrower than the composer's minimum width. Ask AI needs the same space the rest of the composer does.
- The environment has not been configured for Ask AI. That is a RuleCMS setup step.
What to read next
This page is the story and the first walkthrough. The complete menu — every component, every setting — lives on the page below.
- What you can ask — Every add, move, copy, delete, and style Ask AI can perform, including every RuleCMS component and every column, row, and widget setting.
- The Composer — The palette, the canvas, and the Modify drawer, for the same operations done by hand.
- RuleCMS Components — Text, Image, Video, and the rest the palette ships — what each one does and the settings it owns.
- Attribute Reference — Every column, row, and widget setting in plain language.
- Publishing — Getting a finished draft onto staging or production.
How this fits
Ask AI does not replace the composer. It is another way to do the work you already do on the canvas. Build the hero by dragging, or describe the next drop — both write the same draft. Publishing is still a later, explicit step.
Credits live on Ask AI billing, next to the team's RuleCMS plan. Usage for the team — who spent credits, on which widget — is on the team's AI Usage tab, for people with View Analytics.