The assistant

The assistant answers questions about using CapitolMath, from Help, and on paid plans, questions about the data itself. Open it with the help button at the bottom right of any page, or press ⌘J (Ctrl+J on Windows). It opens over the corner of the page you're on, so you can follow its answer as you read it. When it can't help, you can message support from the same panel. See Getting help.

What it answers#

Ask how to do something: How do I share a saved view with my team?, How do I verify a webhook?, What does Furthest stage mean? When the panel opens it suggests three questions for the page you're on.

Each answer cites the Help sections it comes from, under From Help; select one to read it in full. Most answers also offer one next step, a button that takes you to the right place in CapitolMath.

You can also just name a place, like take me to webhooks or API keys, and it takes you there.

Questions about the data#

On the State, Developer, Pro and Scale plans you can ask about bills, legislators and hearings: Which California housing bills passed this session?, What's the status of SB 52 in California?, How many Democrats are in the California Senate?, Which of our tracked bills have hearings in the next 30 days? "Our bills" means your saved views and lists, and "bills I watch" the bills you watch.

The assistant searches CapitolMath's database and shows what it found below its answer: what it searched for, how many records matched, a few of them, and when the data was last refreshed. Select a record to open it, or View all to open the same search in Legislation, Elected Officials or the calendar.

Every answer is checked before you see it. Each bill or legislator it names, and each number it gives, must have come back from the search. An answer that fails the check isn't shown; you see the search results instead, with a note saying so.

When the data can't answer, the assistant says why rather than guessing. For example: the bill wasn't found, there are no matching records, or the place is outside your plan. On the State plan, it answers about your plan's state only.

It doesn't yet answer questions about how individual legislators voted, ideology scores, whip counts or similar bills. For those it points you to the page that has them.

Questions about your tracking#

On the same plans you can ask about your organization's own tracked bills: What's our position on SB 12?, Which bills do we oppose that are still in committee?, Who owns our tracking of AB 902?, What did we note about HB 4? The assistant reads Tracked items exactly as you can see them:

• Only what you can see. It answers only from tracked bills shared with you. A client you can't see is never named; it's Another client (numbered, when there are several).
• Client members get only their own client's work, with no priority, owner, Our ask or fields not shown to clients, and can filter by status or tag only when your organization shows statuses or tags to clients.
• No inactive fields. Inactive custom fields never come into an answer.
• Notes only when you ask about them, and only the notes you can read.
• No attachments. The assistant doesn't read attachments.
• Nothing outlives the record. When a client is erased, a bill untracked or a note deleted, the answers that named it, the question each answered and the rest of that conversation are removed, even if the answer was still being written. If you lose access to a tracked bill or a note, an earlier answer about it is hidden when you reopen the conversation.

Questions about access#

Ask what you can do and why: Why can't I export tracked items?, What can I do in this organization?, What would let me see SB 12? The assistant answers from the same permission check the app uses, so its reason is the one on the permission grid and in the app's refusals. It names the layer that decided (your plan, your role, your license, sharing, or a box an Owner or Admin changed for you) and the smallest change that would allow it, with who can make it, such as Ask an Owner, or an Admin who can manage members, to turn on Tracked items › Export to CSV for you.

You can always ask about yourself. Asking about someone else (Why can't Dana see SB 12?) needs Manage members. An answer never confirms a tracked bill or names a client you can't see yourself. If someone else can't see a tracked bill you can, it says so: restricted by sharing, or, for a client member and another client's work, that nothing would change it. The assistant never changes permissions; it tells you who can. See Roles and licenses.

Turning a question into a saved search#

Describe what you want to follow, for example Create a saved search for California housing bills that passed this session or Make a view of the Republicans in the U.S. House. The assistant builds the search and shows how many records match.

Select Save this search under the results. It opens the search on its page, Legislation, Elected Officials or the calendar, with every filter applied and showing, so you can check them and change any. Then Save view opens with a suggested name. Nothing is saved until you choose Save there; the assistant never saves, changes or deletes anything itself. The assistant stays open beside the page, on the same conversation.

Save this search appears for members with a Full license, who can save views. See Creating and editing a saved view.

What it won't do#

• Guess. If Help doesn't cover your question, it says so, notes the gap so we can write the missing article, and offers Message support, with your conversation attached.
• Answer data questions on the Browse plan. On Browse it points you to the page that has the answer.
• Change anything. It can't save, share, publish or delete. It only tells you how, and takes you to the place to do it.
• Help with things unrelated to CapitolMath. It declines those.

How many answers your plan includes#

Written answers draw on one monthly allowance shared by everyone in your organization:

The panel shows how many are left. Some answers are free and don't count: taking you to a place, listing the Help articles that match a short question, a "Help doesn't cover that", and a declined question. They keep working when the month's answers are used up. Each person can ask up to ten questions a minute.

Owners and Admins see the month's use, and each person's share of it, under Organization → AI assistant usage.

Your conversations#

History lists your earlier conversations; select one to pick it up again, or Delete to remove it for good. Conversations are kept for your plan's period, then deleted. Only you can see yours in the panel. Your organization's Owners and Admins can export every conversation in the organization from Organization → AI assistant usage, and the export is recorded in the audit log. From other members' conversations, an Admin who can't see every tracked bill and client gets questions and answers about tracking marked Withheld, and one who also can't manage members gets those about access withheld; everything after the first withheld turn in a conversation is withheld too. An Owner's export has them all. The audit log records only that a conversation started or was exported, never what you asked.

Questions, the Help sections that answer them, and the summaries of what a data search found (for a question about your tracking, the tracked bill's fields you can see, and its notes only when you ask about them; never an attachment) are sent to Anthropic, which writes the answers. Anthropic's terms don't allow it to train on them. See Subprocessors.

Thumbs up and down#

Use the thumbs under an answer to tell us whether it helped. We use them, and the questions Help couldn't answer, to improve Help and the assistant.