Work with selected text

Highlight text before holding the agent shortcut to give Nock a specific passage to work with. You can ask for an explanation, a summary, a translation, or a rewrite.

Use a selection

1. Highlight the relevant text in another app.
2. Hold Control + Option and describe the result you want.
3. Check the selection chip under the notch. Use its close button if you do not want that text included.
4. Release and review the response.

Selection capture belongs to spoken agent requests. Typing in the chat box does not automatically read the other app’s selection.

Replace text in place

For an edit, enable Settings → Agent → Actions → Edit selected text and ask for the change explicitly. The captured selection must be recent and inside an editable field. A selected webpage paragraph may be readable without being replaceable.

After the edit, inspect the destination app before sending or saving. If focus or the selection changed, select the intended text again and retry. Password fields are excluded from editable targets.

App compatibility

Nock first uses macOS Accessibility to read the selection. Where supported, it can briefly copy selected text and restore the clipboard. It avoids the copy fallback in recognized terminal apps because Command + C could interrupt a running command there.

Some apps do not expose a useful selection, so no selection chip may appear. You can paste the text into Nock’s chat instead.

Limits and privacy

The current selection limit is 100,000 characters, and an inserted rewrite is limited to 50,000. Use a smaller passage when an oversized-selection message appears. Selected text and the source app’s name can be sent to the model answering your request.

See agent mode, permissions, and pointing.

Ask for an explanation before an edit

“Explain this paragraph” should lead to an answer; “replace this paragraph with a shorter version” asks for a change. Say which you want. When working in an important document, begin with an explanation or suggested rewrite, then apply a reviewed change deliberately.

Keep the original selection in place while the agent prepares an in-place edit. If you move to another field or the passage changes, select it again for a fresh request. A selection has a limited lifetime, so an old captured passage is not a dependable target for a later edit.

If the result is wrong, use the destination application’s Undo where available. Nock’s chat response is not a replacement for checking the actual document. For passages too large to send, select a smaller coherent section and describe how it relates to the rest.