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Answers from your project files

What it does

A project keeps files together with your chats. When you ask a question in a chat that belongs to the project, the assistant answers from the project's files, for example the hotel limit or the approver in a company travel policy.

How to ask

First create the project and add the file:

  1. Click Projects in the left sidebar, then New Project.
  2. Enter a name and click Create Project. The project opens.
  3. Open the Files tab and click Upload File, or drag the file onto the drop zone. You can also drop a whole folder: its files go into knowledge folders of the same names.
  4. Wait a moment. A new file is processed first, and the assistant can only answer from it once that is done.
  5. Click Start Chat in the project header. Chats started there use the project's files.

Below are two prompts you can copy and adapt. A run counts as passed when the answer contains the fact from the uploaded file (a number or a name); the check does not look at citations. The table lists the results per model.

The project holds a travel policy as a text file. It states the hotel limit per night.

Hotel limit from a travel policy

What is the hotel limit per night in our travel policy?

Tested on: qwen3.8-27b, gemma-4-31b-it, mistral-small-4

Returns the hotel limit from the file.

The same travel policy states who approves a business trip abroad.

Approver from a travel policy

Who has to approve a business trip abroad according to our travel policy?

Tested on: qwen3.8-27b, gemma-4-31b-it, mistral-small-4

Returns the role that approves the trip, as written in the file.

Prompt Test case qwen3.8-27b gemma-4-31b-it mistral-small-4
Hotel limit from a travel policy Hotel limit per night from a travel policy in a project 10/10 10/10 10/10
Approver from a travel policy Approver of a trip abroad from a travel policy in a project 10/10 10/10 10/10

Tips

  • Ask inside a chat of the project. A chat outside the project does not see the project's files.
  • To share a project with colleagues, open its Members tab and click Share with organization. Everyone in your organization can then open the project and cite its files, and receives the read-only viewer role. You can instead invite people one by one and give them the editor or owner role.
  • In a chat you can clear a file in the Project Files panel to leave it out of that chat only.
  • To keep many files tidy, click New folder in the Files tab, name the folder and tick the files that belong in it. You can also drag a file onto a folder heading. See Projects: Organizing knowledge in folders (English).
  • A reply grounded in project files shows a Sources panel below the answer. It lists each document with its page and section.

Limits

  • Text files (.txt, .md, .csv and similar) are accepted up to 5 MB each in the upload form. Structured files (.xml, .json, .html) are accepted up to 64 MB, documents and spreadsheets (.pdf, .docx, .doc, .odt, .xlsx, .pptx) up to 100 MB, and images (.png, .jpg, .jpeg, .webp) up to 20 MB. The old Excel format .xls is not supported; save the file as .xlsx. See Projects: Managing knowledge files (English) for the full list.
  • A file that is still being processed is not yet used for answers. Wait a moment and ask again.
  • A very long PDF is read only up to a page limit. The file preview then shows how many pages were read, and later pages are neither searchable nor citable.
  • A scanned page or a photo is read through text recognition. Its text is used for the answer, but it is not listed under Sources. A document without a page index carries the badge No page-level citations, and answers over it cannot cite a page.
  • The team library of your organization, with shared reference texts, can be filled only through the API. The chat does not use it yet, so a fact placed there is not found by the assistant. Put the file into the project instead.
  • Sharing with the organization works only while your administration allows it. Switching it off withdraws the access again.

When something goes wrong

  • The assistant does not know the fact. Check that the file is in the Files tab and that you asked in a chat of the project, opened with Start Chat (or Continue Last Chat). A chat started outside the project does not see its files.
  • The file was added a moment ago. It may still be processed. Wait a moment and ask again.
  • The upload is refused. Check the format and the size limit above. A file of another kind is accepted only if it is plain text; a binary file that is not a supported document is refused.
  • You cannot see the project of a colleague. It is shared only with named members unless the owner has used Share with organization.
  • A file cannot be moved into a folder. A file of the same name is already in that folder, or the folder path is not allowed (for example .. or a backslash). Rename the file or choose another folder name.
  • The answer names no source. The text may come from a scanned page or a photo, which is used but not listed under Sources.