General settings

Open Settings → General for the controls that affect how Nock starts, how you invoke it, which language it expects, and where its panels appear.

Quick setup

The Quick setup card appears under Get started on Home and at the top of General. It applies a group of access choices at once; it does not change your language, dictation, privacy, voice, or sign-in settings.

Choice	What it changes
Full access	Nock uses Autopilot and does not show ordinary approval cards; coding agents use Full access.
Balanced (the default)	Nock uses Full and asks before consequential actions; coding agents use Auto.
Ask first	Nock uses Ask; coding agents use Ask me; screen access, worker access to Nock’s browser, and automatic idea and routine offers are turned off.

The labels are easy to mix up: the Full access preset is more permissive than the separate Full agent-access mode used by Balanced. A system confirmation appears before a choice that gives Nock more access or asks less often. After applying a choice, use Undo on the card to restore the settings it changed. You can still adjust each setting individually. See Agent access modes and Coding permissions.

Shortcuts and language

The Shortcuts section shows your dictation, agent, chat-manager, and hands-free key combinations. Choose Change to record a different combination. The dictation and agent Double tap options are separate. See Keyboard shortcuts and Hands-free.

Use Languages to select the languages you use and mark one Primary. Recognition of language switches depends on the active speech service and selected languages; chat-screen translations are a separate behavior. See Languages.

Startup and visibility

• Launch at login is on by default for the installed app. Turn it off if you prefer to open Nock yourself. The switch follows the operating system’s login-item state, so removing Nock from the system login list also turns the switch off.
• Show in Dock on Mac and Show in taskbar on Windows control whether Nock’s app icon is shown there. The Mac default is on; the Windows default is off.
• Hide side notch when minimized hides the resting edge slivers for the chats and agents panels. It is off by default. The panels can still be opened at their edges and appear normally when open or calling for attention.
• Hide top notch on Mac / Hide top bar on Windows hides the idle, closed top surface. It is off by default. It appears while Nock is working; clicking its usual position still opens it.

The Windows top bar also has a Top bar face choice. See Appearance for theme and glass controls.

Microphone, speaker, and sound

Microphone & speaker lets you select and test your input and output devices. Audio & Speech contains Interaction sounds, the message sound, and Nock’s sound volume. The Mac-only Lower media volume while talking control is under Advanced → Audio & Speech; it temporarily changes the Mac’s overall volume while you hold a talk shortcut. See Microphone and Sounds and media volume.

The Intro music switch in Advanced is on by default and affects only the first-run welcome. It does not mute dictation ticks or spoken agent answers. The speaker control on the welcome can also mute that introduction.

Hints and updates from Nock

Near the bottom of General, Show hints controls the short tips that appear in the chat; it is on by default. The hints disappear as you use or close them; choose Show hints again to bring them back. Show how-to videos is also on by default and controls whether tutorial videos can appear in Settings and help sheets. Separate Announcements and Capability tips switches are on by default and control those optional cards. These switches do not affect dictation or microphone access.

The Show ideas switch controls the Ideas sheet and help-sheet link. Ideas and Discover update on their own controls background refreshes and whether Nock can offer ideas when you are unsure what to ask. Both are on by default; with automatic updates off, those sections update when you refresh them.

Advanced data-sharing controls

At the bottom of General → Advanced:

• Share usage data is on by default. It sends feature-use, setup-progress, timing, and failure-code events—not what you say, type, paste, or see. Turning it off stops optional usage events, clears queued events, and withdraws setup-tip emails if you requested them.
• Help improve Nock is a separate option, off by default. When enabled, eligible completed agent requests and answers are shared after cleanup; it does not share pictures, screenshots, or files. Turning it off clears queued exchanges.

Neither switch controls billing counts, local voice-history retention, or service-side processing. See Privacy controls and Data and history.

There is no single Private mode switch that makes every feature local. Use the setting for the data type you want to control; Privacy controls explains what each switch covers.

For the separate Settings → About → Start fresh choices, see Data and history.