Getting Started
What is Constellation?
Constellation is an AI Research Copilot that is installed as a web browser extension.
Constellation is available in Chromium browsers, including Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Opera, and others.
You will find Constellation’s logo next to your search bar. Note: you might not see the logo at first. If so, you’ll find the app in the list of extensions, where you can pin Constellation to access it directly next time.
To begin your journey, simply click on the logo.
Constellation will open on the right side of your browser.
You will be able to navigate normally to any website on the main screen of your browser while Constellation is open.
By default, Constellation interacts only with the data from the website you are visiting at any moment.
Header Bar
At the very top of the tool, you will find the header. Here you will find your profile icon and model selection.
The profile icon lets you manage your account and sign out.
Model selection allows you to switch to using different models. Currently, Constellation has two models available: GPT-4o and Gemini. There are also two additional GPT systems: web and Assistant.
Ask
Under the header is the sections bar, where you can navigate to each of the four sections: Ask, Sources, History, and Settings.
Ask is the home tab. Here you will be able to conversationally interact with Constellation for your research goals.
Towards the bottom of this section, you will find a conversation box. This is where you will be able to type your prompt to Constellation AI. You can press “Enter” or “Return” on your keyboard, or simply click on the “Ask” button to submit your prompt.
When you submit a prompt, Constellation will start generating an answer within the window. The “Stop” button can be pressed to stop Constellation from finishing its response.
Constellation’s will respond in the box above. At the bottom of the response box, you will find the ability to copy the text or delete the question. If you delete a question, Constellation will forget you asked it. Otherwise, previous questions will impact subsequent questions as if in a conversation.
If your prompt asked Constellation to generate a table, you will also find the ability to download the table in CSV format at the bottom of the table.
Context Window
Towards the bottom of the Ask tab, you will find the Save and Record buttons. These will help you expand your “context window”.
Context window refers to the data from which Constellation will generate a response at any given time. This focus on specific data improves the performance of the tool and prevents the common hallucination issues that plague other generalist AI tools.
By default, the context window is limited to the website you are navigating.
When you use the Save button, you will add the current website into your context window.
The Record button will start a recording session, which will automatically save every website you visit during this session into the context window. Click the Record button again to finish your recording session. If you stop and restart the recording session, it will simply add to the context window, rather than overwriting the previous session.
Nearby the Save and Record buttons, you will also find the New Chat button. Unlike the erase question button, the New Chat button will clear the entire chat in the window, including all prompts, responses, uploads, graphs, and tables. It will also forget all your saved links and restart your context window. Another way to manage your saved links is with the Sources tab.
Sources
In the Sources tab, you will find the URLs of the sites you have Saved or Recorded.
You will also find a count of how many sources you have saved currently. Additionally, under each individual source, you will find the number of tokens it uses. There is a limit of 128,000 tokens per query if you are using GPT, 600,000 if you are using Gemini. If you hit that limit, Constellation will automatically erase some of the sources you have saved.
In here, you can delete individual links in your context window by simply pressing the trash icon.
Note that although Constellation defaults to the website you are currently in, it will not appear here until you have Saved or Recorded that specific website.
If your selected model is GPT-4o Assistant, you will also find in the search bar the clipboard icon, which allows you to upload pdfs for Constellation to analyze. Any uploaded PDFs will appear in the Sources tab.
History
In the History tab, you will find a record of the chats you have had with Constellation.
The history will be grouped by date and ordered oldest to newest.
If you wish to reopen a conversation, simply click on it. All tables, graphs, responses generated, and sources will be saved, and will be included when you reopen an old chat.
Similarly to sources, you can delete individual chats by simply pressing the trash icon.
Settings
The Settings tab contains Saved Prompts and Custom Instructions. These features are what allow Constellation to be personalized to each user’s specific needs.
You can create Saved Prompts with the Add Prompt button. This will allow you to create custom prompts that you can reuse. Whenever you want to use a Saved Prompt, just navigate to this tab and click on it.
At any time, you can reorder you Saved Prompts using the six dots on the left side of the saved prompt, you can edit them by pressing on the pencil icon, or you can delete them with the trash icon.
On the left of each prompt, you will find the reorder icon, where you can grab and drag the prompts. On the right, you will find a pen icon to edit your prompts, and a trash icon to delete them.
Custom Instructions will let you prescribe your preferences without adding them to each prompt. Think of them as you telling the tool how you want things to work. These instructions will apply universally to every query you make.
Similarly to Saved Prompts, you can create, reorganize, edit, and delete Custom Instructions.
Furthermore, you can use the toggle to enable or disable instructions, to fully personalize your experience and get the best results. Constellation will only consider enabled instructions.
Tips & Best Practices
Manage Chats to Avoid Errors
Constellation remembers previous interactions within the same chat. If an error occurs or new sources are added, continuing in the same thread may perpetuate confusion or errors.
When a response has an error or is out of date, we recommend deleting the response and submitting the prompt again with different wording. This way, Constellation can forget about the error or confusion, and you can keep your sources and previous work.
Once you are done with a task and are ready to move to another, we recommend starting a New Chat. Starting fresh will help Constellation refresh its context window and allows the AI to perform optimally.
Choose Models Accordingly
Constellation allows users to choose which model they prefer the app to run on. However, not all models are the same.
GPT-4o is Constellation’s default model and performs well for the majority of use cases.
Gemini allows for a larger context window, meaning that it can handle processing more data. However, it has performed less accurately than GPT-4o. We recommend considering the trade-off when choosing the model and tailoring specific tasks and even prompts to each model.
GPT-4o Assistant is the only model in which you analyze PDFs. Furthermore, it has more comfort calculations. Assistant is also where you can ask Constellation to generate various graphs and other more sophisticated outputs.
Regardless, whenever you plan on doing complex calculations, we recommend instead doing the set-up work with Constellation, and once you have gathered the data, download it and run any calculations yourself through Excel, Google Sheets, or any other software.
Provide Precise Prompts
The quality of the AI’s responses is directly influenced by the clarity and precision of your prompts. Clear prompts help the AI understand exactly what you are asking for, resulting in more accurate and relevant answers.
Be specific about what you need and try to match the phrasing used in the sources you are trying to extract information from.
You may need to iterate to perfect a prompt for a use case, after which it will work consistently.
Leverage Custom Instructions and Saved Prompts
Custom Instructions is a very powerful feature that allows you to define concepts, workflows, and expectations. When used in conjunction with Saved Prompts, it can result in cleaner, faster, and more accurate chats.
For example, you can define a specific type of table, the columns you would like to include and the formatting necessary, in a Custom Instruction. Then, you can refer to that instruction in the Saved Prompt.
Tips on Sources
Save works well when collecting data from a small number of sources.
Record will allow you to take in significant numbers of sources quickly. When you are looking to collect information from a large number of sources, we recommend opening many tabs, starting a record session, and tabbing through all the tabs. You can verify that Record has captured all the links by checking the number of sources saved.
When you upload a file, you will find this in the Sources tab.
File Management
Tables generated on Constellation won’t be automatically downloaded to your computer.
When you download a table generated by Constellation, it will be in CSV format.
Be sure to re-save the file in, for instance, Excel format before editing and reformatting the table. CSV files will not save some of your work.
Your feedback is invaluable to us, so please do not hesitate to reach out with suggestions or issues you encounter.
Email us at info@getconstellation.ai
Copyright Constellation AI 2024