# Chatting with a notebook
**URL:** https://talk.observablehq.com/t/chatting-with-a-notebook/10804
**Category:** Help
**Created:** [September 4, 2026, 11:43am UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/chatting-with-a-notebook/10804 "2026-09-04T11:43:09Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@EE2dev](https://talk.observablehq.com/u/EE2dev)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2026, 11:43am UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/chatting-with-a-notebook/10804/1 "2026-09-04T11:43:09Z")
Hi there,
I did try out the new notebook for the first time and I really love it!
I have the following questions:
I started a chat and created a hyperbolic viewer notebook just by throwing out some basic prompts:
[https://observablehq.com/@ambassadors/hyperbolic-tree-viewer](https://observablehq.com/@ambassadors/hyperbolic-tree-viewer)
After I published it as my first new notebook it’s nowhere near done.
I would like to proceed from this notebook and invoke the chat to further improve based on it.
Q1: How do I start a chat with an existing notebook? (Or can I just chat with a fresh context?)
Q2: Where Do I see my versions I have have more?
Thanks - I am really excited to go this direction!
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### Author:  [@EE2dev](https://talk.observablehq.com/u/EE2dev)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2026, 2:27pm UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/chatting-with-a-notebook/10804/2 "2026-09-04T14:27:15Z")
Here is my current understanding after reading the docs:
Q1: The Chat Option is a “chat-first” interface to start off with an empty notebook and prototype and idea.
When a notebook is published, it is not possible to go to the “chat-first” interface, instead you choose the AI agent on the bottom right. I guess it does the same except it is not the chat-first" UI any more.
Q2: As per: [https://observablehq.com/@observablehq/notebooks-user-guide](https://observablehq.com/@observablehq/notebooks-user-guide) versions will be shown at a later stage. They are not accessible as of now.
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### Author:  [@mbostock](https://talk.observablehq.com/u/mbostock)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2026, 2:49pm UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/chatting-with-a-notebook/10804/3 "2026-09-04T14:49:14Z")
That sounds right to me @EE2dev! Thanks for trying it out, for reading the docs, and for the feedback. We’re planning on giving the agent a tool to search notebooks (with approval) which should also make it possible to start a new chat that references existing notebooks.
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### Author:  [@system](https://talk.observablehq.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [September 6, 2026, 2:49pm UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/chatting-with-a-notebook/10804/4 "2026-09-06T14:49:56Z")
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