Learn Cue · task-based tutorial

Finish a Small Task from Selected Context with Cue Agent

The risk in “just use what I have open” is not a wrong answer. It is not knowing which text the Agent actually read. Prove the source first, then finish one small thing.

By the Cue product team · Updated . Written from product-source review. Exercises and outputs are illustrative, not recorded Cue runs. Follow the controls shown in your installed version.

Quick answer

Select the smallest passage that carries everything the task needs. Invoke Cue Agent and first ask it to quote one exact identifier back to you. Compare that quote with your selection, then request the small result, check it against the source values, and finish the task yourself. Sending, posting or filing is a separate action you confirm in the destination app.

Need: Cue installed and signed in, Agent mode and its shortcut as shown in your installed version, a non-sensitive passage to practice with, and a destination you can inspect afterwards. Result: one small finished output whose source you have checked — not proof that the Agent read only your selection, and not authority to act outside the app.

Choose the smallest passage that carries the task

This workflow is for the moment when the material is already in front of you — a ticket, a message thread, a spec, a document — and you need one small output from it: a status line, a summary a colleague can read without opening the thread, a checklist entry, a rewritten sentence. If the task needs several sources, or context scattered across apps, assemble a reviewed brief first with the recording-to-context guide or the conflicting-context guide instead.

  • Agent mode, not Dictation. Dictation inserts the words you say into a focused text field. Agent interprets a request and returns a result. Current defaults are Fn on macOS and Left Alt on Windows for Agent, Option and Right Alt for Dictation; your installed Settings win. Start with Agent setup if you have not used it yet.
  • Selection access is not universal. What Cue can read from the app in front of you depends on the app, your installed version and the permissions you granted. “This” and “the thing on my screen” are not reliable sources. Some apps expose nothing, and that is a normal outcome, not a fault to fix by granting broader access.
  • Smaller is better, twice over. A short passage is easier to verify line by line, and it exposes less. A long document is harder to check, may be shortened before it reaches the request, and can carry information the task never needed.
  • Practise on fictional text. The exercise below needs no customer record, no private document and no additional permission. Read the privacy policy before you repeat it with real material.

Practice: one ticket reference, one decoy, one blocked request

These lines are fictional exercise material, not a Cue support ticket, a customer record or a recorded Cue run. Copy both blocks into one scratch note, keep them a few lines apart, and select only the first block.

Harbor pilot — ticket REF-4417. The customer asked for three extra seats on their current plan. Finance has not approved the additional cost. The requested start date is still undecided; ask the customer to confirm it before we quote anything.

Now paste this second line into the same note, several lines below, and leave it outside your selection. It exists to tell you whether the Agent stayed inside the passage you chose:

Older thread REF-4471 — closed. Five seats, approved 2 June.

The two references differ by two transposed digits, and the decoy contradicts the real passage on every value that matters: a different seat count, an approval that exists, a date that is settled. If any of those appear in your result, the material behind it was not the block you selected.

Prove the source, then ask for the small result

  1. Select the first block only. Leave the decoy line visible in the same note but outside the selection. Close unrelated documents if your task involves anything confidential.
  2. Invoke Cue Agent with your configured control, wait for the recording state, and ask for the quote before you ask for any work: “Quote the ticket reference in the material you received, exactly, and nothing else.”
  3. Compare the quote with your selection. REF-4417 means the reference reached the request. REF-4471, or both references, means the material was wider than your selection — stop and narrow it. “I do not have any material” means selection access is unavailable here; paste the passage into the request instead.
  4. Read what this check does and does not tell you. A correct quote establishes that your passage was present. It does not prove that nothing else was, and it does not prove that a later request in the same session will use the same source. Repeat the check whenever you change the selection or the app.
  5. Ask for the small result, bounded. “Using only that passage, write two lines: what the customer asked for, and what blocks a quote. Preserve the ticket reference and the number of seats exactly. Keep the start date undecided. Do not state that finance approved anything. Draft only — do not reply to the customer or update the ticket.”
  6. Finish the task in the app. Check the result against the five values below, then put the reviewed lines where they belong yourself: your internal note, your own comment draft, your scratch file. That is the task finished. What happens next — sending, posting, filing — is a separate decision covered further down.

An illustrative acceptable result for the exercise, not a recorded Cue output or a guarantee of exact wording:

Request: REF-4417 — three extra seats on the current plan.
Blocked: no finance approval recorded, and the start date is
undecided. Ask the customer to confirm the date before quoting.

Copy a selected-context task request

Replace the bracketed fields. Keep the two steps separate: the quote is a check on the source, and it is worth nothing if you ask for the work in the same breath and accept whichever source the result happens to use.

Task: [one small output] from the passage I selected in [app].

Step 1, before anything else: quote [the exact identifier] from the
material you received, and nothing else. Stop there.

Step 2, after I confirm the quote:
Use only that passage. Do not use other threads, tabs, files, or an
earlier conversation, and do not fill gaps from general knowledge.
Preserve exactly: [identifiers, numbers, names, dates].
Keep undecided items undecided. A request is not an approval.
Mark anything the passage does not settle as unresolved.
Format: [exact shape - how many lines, headings, length limit].
Allowed actions: produce the text here only. Do not send, reply,
post, file or update a ticket, change a calendar, edit files, or
share a link.
Return: the result, then anything in the passage you could not
resolve.

Check five values before you use the draft

Read the result against the selected block, not against your memory of it. For the exercise, all five must hold:

  1. Reference: the result says REF-4417. REF-4471 appears nowhere, in any form.
  2. Quantity: three seats. Five seats means the decoy reached the request, even if the rest of the sentence looks right.
  3. Approval: the result says approval is missing or not recorded. It never says finance approved, agreed or signed off, and it does not soften the point into “pending final sign-off” as though sign-off were underway.
  4. Undecided date: the start date stays undecided. No date is supplied, and 2 June in particular belongs to the decoy.
  5. Scope: the output is text you are holding. Open the ticket or thread and confirm nothing was added, replied to or changed there.

A failure on any one of these is worth more than a passing result: it tells you the source boundary you assumed was not the one that applied. Fix the selection before you repeat the task, and do not accept a result that is correct in prose but wrong on a value — the prose is the part that always reads well.

Decide which actions still need your confirmation

Finishing a small task and acting on the world are different steps. Draft locally, review, and treat anything that leaves your machine as its own decision with its own check.

Action Where the effect lands What you do before it happens
Rewrite text in a draft you already have open Your app, nothing sent Read it once. You can still discard it; keep the original until you are satisfied.
Save the result to your own note or a scratch file Your machine Confirm the intended file and that you are not overwriting existing work.
Send a reply, message or email Someone else's inbox or channel Open the destination and read the actual recipient list yourself, then send it yourself.
Post to a shared channel, document or wiki Visible to people you may not have in mind Check the audience and the space before posting. A draft written for one colleague rarely reads the same in public.
File or update a ticket, issue or calendar entry A shared system other people act on Check the identifier and the current state first. A second update can duplicate work someone already did.
Share a link or grant access Outside your current permissions Do not widen access to make a task easier. Supply the checked excerpt instead.
Anything that spends money, signs or commits on your behalf Outside this workflow entirely Not part of a small task. Stop and handle it yourself.

If your installed version can perform one of the outward actions and shows an approval request, read the destination named in that request — the recipient, channel, repository or calendar — before approving, and verify the result in the destination app afterwards. An approval prompt is not evidence that an action succeeded, and a line in the Agent's reply saying it sent something is not a receipt. Do not assume every step raises its own prompt; check which approval controls your installed version actually offers.

Recover when the selection or the result is wrong

The quote came back as the decoy, or as both references

The material behind the request was wider than your selection. Do not continue to the task. Narrow the selection, close or move the unrelated text, and run the quote check again. If both references keep appearing, paste only the passage you want into the request and treat that as the source.

The Agent says it received no material

That app does not expose a selection to Cue at your current version and permissions. Pasting the passage into the request is a normal route, not a workaround to fix by granting broad access. If you expected the app to work and it does not, check Cue's permission warning in Settings and contact Cue support with the app name, platform and version.

The values are right but the shape is wrong

Ask only for the formatting correction, and say the facts must not change: “Keep every fact and the reference unchanged. Return exactly two lines.” Do not re-supply the source for a formatting problem — a fresh copy of the passage invites a fresh interpretation of it.

An approval request names more than the task needs

Decline it. Narrow the request back to a draft and finish the task manually. A wider permission does not make a small task safer, and approving once can leave a capability enabled for later requests you have not reviewed.

Something was already sent, posted or filed, and it is wrong

Do not repeat the request. Open the destination and read the current state: what exists, how many times, and who received it. Correct it there. Stopping an Agent is not an undo, and a retry can produce a second message or a duplicate ticket.

Sources and related workflows

This method uses text you select and supply, with product behavior bounded by the controls, permissions and account your installed Cue version actually offers. The ticket, references and values in the exercise are fictional; they are practice material, not public evidence, customer data or a measured result.

Try it with Cue

Use your configured shortcut and verify the active mode in Cue Settings. Available app context and actions depend on permissions, version and account. Read the privacy policy before providing confidential material; this guide does not promise all processing stays on your device.

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Need help or found an error? Contact Cue support or email eli@sophoninc.com. Include your Cue version, platform, mode and a redacted example. Do not send passwords, tokens or private meeting material.