Edit and republish an assistant
An assistant is never finished. As your class moves through the term, you can open one you built and change how it teaches, what it knows, or the languages it speaks, then publish so your students see the update. Your changes stay private to you until you publish, so you can rework an assistant without disturbing anyone mid-lesson.
This takes a few minutes. You do not need any technical knowledge.
Before you start
You need an assistant you created or are allowed to edit. Decide what you want to change: the way it teaches, the materials it reads, the languages it speaks, or how it gives feedback. If you only want to add files, you can do that from the Material tab and publish. Editing never reaches your students until you publish, so it is safe to open an assistant and look around.
Open your assistant and edit it
Work through these steps in order. Step 3 is optional, so skip it if you already know what you want to change.
1. Open the assistant and click Edit
Open the assistant you want to change and click Edit, marked with the pencil. This opens the same view you used to build it, with your current settings already filled in. If you do not see Edit, you may not have permission to change that assistant, for example because a colleague created it.
2. Make your changes
Move through the tabs and adjust what you need. Overview holds the name and emoji, Behavior sets how it teaches, Material connects collections it reads, Languages sets the languages it speaks, Assignment ties it to a task, and Feedback sets the points it responds to. Change as little or as much as you like.
3. Try it in Preview
Before you publish, test your changes in the Preview panel. Send it the kind of question a student would ask and read the answer. Use Reset to clear the preview and try again. What you see here is your draft, not the live assistant, so students are not affected yet.
4. Publish your changes
When the assistant is ready, click Publish. If something needs attention, Sokra asks you to review the highlighted fields and takes you to the one to fix. A dialog then lets you choose where the assistant lives, your Personal workspace or a space, so you can control who sees it. Confirm with Publish, and your changes go live. Students see the updated assistant the next time they open it.
Tips
- Test in Preview before you publish. It is quicker to catch an odd answer here than to hear about it from a student later.
- Small, frequent edits beat one big rewrite. Adjust one thing, publish, and see how it lands before you change more.
- If you navigate away with unsaved work, Sokra asks whether to leave. Choose Keep editing to go back, or Leave to drop the changes you have not published.
Data & safety
Your edits stay private to you as a draft until you publish, so an assistant your class already uses keeps working unchanged while you rework it. Publishing replaces the live version, and students see the new answers the next time they open it; it does not send a notification or change past conversations. The publish dialog lets you choose where the assistant lives, so you stay in control of who can see it. As with any answer, the assistant can be wrong, so try your changes in Preview before you publish rather than assuming an edit landed exactly as you meant.
Troubleshooting
I do not see an Edit button. You can only edit assistants you are allowed to change. If a colleague created the assistant, ask them to make the change or to give you access.
My students still see the old version. Changes go live only after you publish, and students see them the next time they open the assistant. Open the assistant, make sure you clicked Publish, and ask a student to reopen it rather than refresh an old tab.
Publish will not go through. Sokra checks the assistant before it publishes. If a required field is missing, you see a note to review the highlighted fields and are taken to the one to fix. Complete it, then publish again.
I left and lost my changes. Edits live as a draft until you publish. If you chose to leave without publishing, those changes are gone, so reopen the assistant and make them again, then publish.