Text & Voice Input
You can type or talk to companions - here is how both work.
Aura supports two ways to communicate with companions: typing and voice. You can switch between them freely during a conversation.
Typing
The text input bar sits at the bottom of the chat screen. Here's how it works:
- Send a message - Type your message and press Enter to send.
- New line - Press Shift + Enter to add a new line without sending.
- Cancel a response - If the companion is in the middle of replying, you can click the stop button to cancel the response.
The send button appears as an arrow icon and activates as soon as you type something. When the companion is responding, it changes to a stop button.
Voice
You can also talk to companions using your microphone.
- Click the microphone button next to the text input.
- Your browser will ask for microphone permission the first time - grant it to continue. If you've blocked microphone access before, you'll instead see instructions for unblocking it in your specific browser (Chrome, Safari, or Firefox), with a Try Again button to re-check permission and a Dismiss option to back out.
- Start speaking. The companion listens and detects when you're done talking.
- The companion processes what you said and responds.
While recording, the microphone icon changes to show that your mic is active. Click it again to toggle the mic off.
Voice works best in a quiet environment. If the companion has trouble understanding you, try speaking clearly and at a normal pace.
While a voice session is connecting or active, a status badge above the input shows exactly what's happening - connecting, thinking, speaking, listening, or winding down. See Session Status for every state, what triggers it, and what happens when the session ends.
Message actions
Hover a companion's reply and a Copy button appears below it - click it to copy the message text to your clipboard. You'll see a brief checkmark confirming the copy. There's no regenerate, edit, delete, or like/dislike option on individual messages - copy is the only per-message action.
Tips
- You can type a follow-up message while the companion is still responding - it will be queued and sent once the current response finishes.
- Long messages work fine - the input allows up to 10,000 characters, far more than a typical message needs.
- Voice and text can be used interchangeably in the same conversation. You might type one question and speak the next.
See the Keyboard & Pointer reference for every chat shortcut in one place.
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