Branch and edit-rerun
Fork a thread to test variants without losing the original. Edit a turn and re-run to refine an answer.
Threads in Arcus aren't a single linear conversation. You can branch at any turn to explore an alternative path, and you can edit and re-run any turn to refine an answer without starting over.
This is how you compare scenarios, sharpen a question, or recover from a wrong turn.
Branch
Hover any turn in a thread. The toolbar that appears includes a Branch action. Click it.
A new thread opens, forked at that turn. Everything before the branch point is identical. Everything after is yours to write fresh.
Use cases:
- Compare scenarios. "What was revenue in March, by country?" — see the answer. Branch. "...same question, but for April." The two threads sit side-by-side; you can flip between them or open them in adjacent tabs.
- Test a metric change. Edit the semantic layer, branch the original thread, re-ask the question. Compare the two answers — confirm the metric change behaved as expected.
- Recover from a wrong turn. The agent went down a path you didn't want. Branch from before that turn, ask differently.
Branches show in the thread sidebar grouped under the parent thread. You can rename a branch, share it, or pin its answer to Watch independently.
Edit and re-run
Hover any user turn in a thread. The toolbar includes an Edit action. Click it. The composer pre-fills with that turn's text. Edit the question. Hit enter.
The agent re-runs from that turn forward. Subsequent turns in the thread are replaced with a fresh response. The original is preserved as a sibling — you can flip between v1 and v2 of any turn from the toolbar.
Use cases:
- Refine a vague question. "How are sales doing?" — answer is too broad. Edit: "How are sales doing in the UK over the last 30 days, by channel?" Re-run. Get a sharper answer.
- Add a constraint. The agent answered the question but used a default time window you didn't want. Edit to specify the window. Re-run.
- Fix a typo or wrong filter. "Q3 revenue by country" should have been "Q4." Edit. Re-run. No need to start a new thread.
Versions
Every edit-rerun creates a version. The toolbar shows v1, v2, v3 etc. Click any version to flip the displayed answer. The full history is in the trace.
Versions don't compound — each version is a complete answer card, generated against the current semantic layer at the time of the edit.
When to branch vs. edit-rerun
- Edit-rerun when you want to refine the same question and don't need the original answer. The original is kept as v1, but you'll work with the new version.
- Branch when you want to ask a different question but keep the original alive. Both threads sit alongside each other.
For most refinement work, edit-rerun is the right move. For "compare A vs B" workflows, branch is cleaner.
Branches in shared links
If you share a thread (see Embed a thread), the recipient sees the branch hierarchy. They can navigate between branches but can't create new ones unless they're a tenant member with edit rights.
Trace shows it all
Every edit and every branch is recorded in the trace. If you need to audit who changed what when, Settings → Audit log has a row for every edit-rerun and branch action with the user, timestamp, and the diff.