Tips & Tricks
Use this page as a quick-wins checklist for daily Anyy use. Each tip points back to the page that owns the full behavior, so this guide stays practical instead of becoming another reference table.
Get Better Results
Start With The Outcome
Tell Anyy what done looks like. A useful prompt names the goal, constraints, relevant files or systems, and how you want the answer verified.
Review the provider fallback docs against the current config code. Fix inaccurate
claims, keep the wording concise, then build the docs site.
Put Context Where Anyy Can See It
Project files are not automatically swept into every resident session. If a turn needs a file, folder, or project instruction, reference it directly:
Use @file:AGENTS.md and @folder:docs-site/docs/guides to review these pages.
Role identity lives in SOUL.md under the active Anyy home. Project
instructions such as AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, and .cursorrules are not
resident-runtime identity files in this build. See
Context Files and
Context References.
Let The Runtime Use Its Tools
For work that needs inspection, ask for the result and constraints, not every low-level step. Anyy can search files, call tools, run approved commands, and report what it verified. Use detailed step-by-step instructions only when the order itself matters.
Sessions And Busy Turns
Keep Long Work In One Session
Sessions carry transcript, tool results, approvals, artifacts, and metadata. Resume the same session when the work is still the same thread:
anyy --resume SESSION_ID
anyy chat --session SESSION_ID "Continue from the last docs review."
Use /new when the topic has changed, /branch when you want to try an alternate
direction, and /compress when a long session should continue with a smaller
context window. See Sessions.
Choose Busy Behavior Deliberately
In the TUI:
/busy queue
/busy steer
/busy interrupt
In messaging channels, use /queue to add a message behind the active turn and
/btw to steer the running turn. /steer is an alias. Use /stop when the active
turn should end before you redirect it. See
Slash Commands.
Profiles, Roles, Memory, And Skills
Use Profiles For Real Isolation
Use separate profiles when data must not mix: personal vs. work, different channel accounts, different provider credentials, or different memory. A profile owns its own config, state database, sessions, memory, skills, channels, secrets, cron jobs, logs, and backups.
Use roles when you want a different persona or operating style inside the same profile. Roles share the profile's memory, skills, channels, providers, and gateway state. See Profiles and Roles.
Store Facts In Memory, Procedures In Skills
Memory is for durable facts and preferences:
Remember that this repository keeps user-facing docs under docs-site/.
Skills are for repeatable procedures:
Create a skill for the release checklist we just ran.
Do not put task progress, temporary TODOs, raw links, or full transcripts into memory. Use session history/search for past work and skills for reusable "how to" knowledge. See Persistent Memory and Skills System.
Toolsets And Approvals
Keep Toolsets Narrow
Toolsets decide which tools are visible to the model. They do not make a tool trusted. A visible tool can still require approval, audit, confirmation, or a ChangePlan.
For ordinary sessions, edit toolsets.default only when you want the new default
to apply to new sessions. Existing sessions keep the toolset metadata they already
stored. For MCP, prefer anyy mcp add ... --activate-toolset or
anyy mcp configure ... --activate-toolset so the matching mcp-<server>
toolset is activated intentionally. See
Toolsets.
Review ChangePlans Before Approval
When Anyy proposes a risky operation, read the requested command or ChangePlan before approving it. Approvals are persisted and audited, and approved execution checks the plan hash before replay. Use "deny" when the plan is too broad or the rollback/validation story is missing. See Approvals & ChangePlans.
Long-Running Work
Use Background Work For Finite Long Tasks
For long agentic work, use a background child agent:
/background inspect the failing docs build and summarize the likely cause
/agents
For long shell work, Anyy can run managed background process jobs and then
inspect them with /jobs, /job <id>, or the process tool. Managed jobs are
session-scoped; they are not a general host process list. See
Background Jobs.
Make Cron Prompts Self-Contained
Scheduled work is not your current foreground chat. Put the instructions, sources, delivery expectation, and quiet-case behavior in the cron prompt itself:
Check the build status. If it is healthy, reply with one short status line. If
it is failing, summarize the failing step and the next action.
Use anyy cron list --include-disabled and automation_history when a job is
not behaving as expected. See Automate With Cron.
Messaging And Operations
Treat Channels As Resident Runtime Features
Channels work through the resident gateway, not through one-shot CLI calls. After editing channel config, reload the gateway channel manager:
anyy channels reload
anyy channels doctor telegram
Start with allowlists or pairing before inviting a bot into broad group spaces. A channel policy controls who may reach Anyy; it does not bypass approvals, ChangePlans, or audit. See Set Up A Messaging Channel.
Keep A Small Operations Loop
When something feels wrong, check the same few surfaces first:
anyy status
anyy doctor
anyy config
Create a backup before profile moves, risky config changes, or manual state edits:
anyy backup create
anyy backup list
Backups exclude profile secrets by default. Use --include-secrets only when you
intend to handle the archive as sensitive credential material. See
Backup And Restore.