# Talking to SAM
## Three ways to reach it [#three-ways-to-reach-it]
* **@-mention it** in any channel it's been invited to
* **DM it**, no invite needed
* **Reply in a thread it's already in.** It decides whether the reply was meant
for it. If you get ๐ and then silence, it judged the message wasn't for it.
@-mention it to be sure.
It reads the thread you're in, and the channel's recent history if you ask it
to. It is not indexing your Slack.
## Sending it files [#sending-it-files]
Attach them to the message. It reads what's in front of it.
| Type | Limit |
| -------------------------- | --------------------------------- |
| Images | 8 per message, 5 MB each |
| CSV, text, code | 50,000 characters |
| `.xlsx`, PDFs, Slack Lists | Not readable. Export to CSV first |
Anything it skips, it names. A file from earlier in the thread still works. Just
refer to it.
## While it's working [#while-its-working]
@SAM define our ICP from the last 90 days of leads: firmographics, the forms
they came through, what they had in common.
Working on it.
A status line appears with a **Stop** button. A stopped turn changes nothing:
writes were already parked behind approval cards, so there's nothing half-done
to unwind. Once the answer has landed the button is gone, and clicking it says
so rather than swapping a delivered answer for "Stopped."
If a question is too big for one go, it offers **Run it in the background**. Say
yes. Background jobs report back in the same thread and are read-only.
## When it wants to change something [#when-it-wants-to-change-something]
Anything that isn't read-only parks behind an **Approve/Cancel** card carrying
the finished change. The person who asked, or any Slack workspace admin, can
approve.
Editing published content edits the draft. Publishing is a second approval.
## Keeping an answer [#keeping-an-answer]
If the answer is a *document* rather than a number (an ICP, a positioning cut, a
research write-up), a **Save in Vault** button appears under it. One click files
it in your Surface Vault as a dated Markdown doc under `slack/`.
**Two segments, not one.** 61% of the last 90 days came from 200-1,000
person B2B SaaS, mostly through Demo Request, and they convert at 3x the
rest. The second cluster is under 50 people, arrives through the pricing
form, and rarely books.
It reads its own Vault before drafting, so saving compounds. Anyone in the
workspace can click it: it only ever creates, never overwrites.
Roughly one answer in five carries ๐ / ๐ and a *saved 5m ยท 30m ยท 2h* row. It's
sampled deliberately, because buttons under **every** answer read as being asked
to rate a conversation.
## Getting better answers [#getting-better-answers]
* **Name the metric.** It defaults to what you literally asked for. Want a rate
and a trend? Say so.
* **Name the form** as it appears in Surface. If nothing matches, it asks which
of five you meant rather than guessing.
* **Give it source material.** Pasted text beats a description of the text.
* **Correct it in the thread.** Corrections are saved to
[memory](/docs/sam/memory), so you don't earn the same one twice.
More: [Prompt library](/docs/sam/prompts).