Workbuddy 3 Modes Craft Plan Ask Kaihe Aibox

When you first install WorkBuddy, a lot of people get stuck on the very first step — that mode selector in the dialog box: Craft, Plan, Ask. Which one do you click? This article explains all three modes once and for all, and along the way clarifies how they complement independent AI hardware like KAIHE AIBOX.

I've seen too many people treat these three modes as an "advanced option" and just ignore them, using Craft from start to finish. Then when they tackle a complex task, the AI drifts off course, and by the time they realize the direction is wrong, redoing it is more exhausting than starting over. Plainly put, these three modes are not decoration — they are WorkBuddy's "permission switch." Whichever one you click determines whether the AI dares to act and whether it thinks first.

Here's the bottom line: 90% of everyday tasks just need Craft. But the remaining 10% — especially big projects, sensitive operations, and pure consultation — choosing the wrong mode wastes time at best, and at worst the AI turns your files into a mess.

What the Three Modes Actually Are

📖 Glossary

AI Box (also known as Agent Computer / Agent PC), is a dedicated local hardware device that runs AI Agents. Pre-installed with an AI agent management system, plug-and-play, running 24/7. Users can remotely command AI to work via Discord, Slack, Telegram, WhatsApp, and more.

WorkBuddy's three modes essentially give the AI three levels of "autonomy permission."

Craft mode — you say it, I do it, the hands-on executor. This is the highest-permission level. You give it one instruction, and the AI directly understands the need, opens the file, edits it, and saves the result. It won't stop to ask "is this okay?" — it pursues fast results. Writing weekly reports, making PPTs, analyzing Excel, reformatting documents — these everyday tasks are fastest in Craft.

Plan mode — think first, act later, the project manager. In this mode the AI won't act immediately. Instead it breaks your request into a step-by-step plan and lists it out for your confirmation. Once you're satisfied, click confirm and it starts executing. This suits big tasks where you yourself haven't fully figured out the direction — like "help me build a customer management system" or "migrate the company website to a new version."

Ask mode — chat only, never touch, the pure consultant. In this mode the AI has zero file-operation permission; it's just a Q&A bot. You ask it concepts, have it compare options, or review code for problems — it only answers, gives suggestions, gives code snippets, but never touches your files. Use it when you're unsure and want to ask first, or to review a piece of code for pitfalls.

Here's a key point many people confuse: Ask vs. Craft isn't just about "whether it acts" — it's about "whether your data goes wrong." Ask mode has zero operation permission; ask away, and at worst it answers incorrectly, but it won't scramble your files. Craft mode has full read/write permission; if it edits the wrong file, you might not notice until the afternoon.

How to Actually Choose

This is the heart of the article. I'll draw the lines by scenario; just match yourself against them.

Everyday chores, clear instructions — use Craft. "Trim this weekly report to 500 words," "merge these four ledgers into one sheet," "make a Q2 sales report PPT." The clearer the instruction, the steadier Craft is. These tasks cover over 90% of the work — don't hesitate, just use Craft.

Big projects, unclear direction, many files to change — use Plan. This is the easiest place to stumble. Many people build a management system or migrate a website, and to save time they go straight to Craft — then the AI changes twenty files in one go, and some decision in the middle isn't actually what you wanted, so you have to redo everything. Plan mode forces the AI to lay out the plan for you first, and only acts after you confirm. Spending two extra minutes reviewing a plan saves two hours of rework later.

Unsure, comparing options, pure consultation — use Ask. "What approach should I use for this requirement," "does this code have security issues," "option A or option B." Using Craft here is actually dangerous — the AI might directly act on its own understanding and start editing, when all you wanted was a suggestion. Use Ask: safe and hassle-free.

Remember this one-line rule: clear instruction → Craft, complex project → Plan, just want an answer → Ask. You only need to remember this one point.

A Real Crash-and-Burn Case

When I was running content operations, a teammate used WorkBuddy to "rewrite titles for 100 articles in batch." To save time, he went straight to Craft with one instruction: "change all 100 file titles to eye-catching titles with numbers."

The AI did change them, but not the way he wanted — he wanted "add a specific number to the title," while the AI understood "renumber the titles." By the time he opened the folder and saw everything changed, it was irreversible; he had to manually fix them one by one.

The essence of this pitfall: batch operation, irreversible result, and your own expectations not actually clear — if any one of these three applies, use Plan, and let the AI show you a sample of "what the change looks like" first. If he had run Plan once, he'd have caught the misunderstanding in five minutes instead of wasting an afternoon redoing it.

There's an even more subtle trap: Craft mode saves file edits directly, with no "confirm before save" step. So for sensitive files — contracts, financial sheets, officially published content — either use Plan to review the approach first, or use Ask to clarify first. Don't let the AI start editing directly.

WorkBuddy's Boundary Is Exactly KAIHE AIBOX's Starting Point

At this point I have to state an unavoidable fact: WorkBuddy is desktop software — when the computer shuts down, it stops. However smart the three modes are, they all depend on "your computer is on and WorkBuddy is online."

This is exactly complementary to independent AI hardware like KAIHE AIBOX. KAIHE AIBOX is a small box that never shuts down, uses little power, and sits in a corner running 24 hours a day, dedicated to background scheduled automation — grabbing industry headlines every morning at eight and generating a briefing, auto-aggregating data into reports every Friday, backing up files at night on a schedule. These tasks don't need you staring at the computer, and they shouldn't occupy your machine.

So the sensible setup is: use WorkBuddy's Craft mode during the day for desktop-interactive work (writing documents, making sheets, editing PPTs), and let KAIHE AIBOX run background scheduled tasks at night. One is the day shift, the other the night shift. WorkBuddy handles "doing the work well while you're present"; KAIHE AIBOX handles "finishing the work while you're away."

Even more critical is data. WorkBuddy operates on your local files, data stays on your machine — that's its strength; but the moment the computer shuts down, all this automation stops, with no cloud fallback. KAIHE AIBOX likewise stores data locally and privately, but as independent hardware it's online 24/7, exactly filling the "stops when shut down" gap. To understand the real difference between independent AI hardware and desktop software, see Why an AI Box Beats Installing It on Your PC.

Three Modes in One Sentence

Finally, let me compress the conclusion into one sentence for you to paste next to your monitor: clear everyday tasks → Craft; complex projects and big moves → Plan; unsure or just want an answer → Ask.

The cost of choosing the wrong mode isn't "a bit slower" — it's rework, and rework is the most wasteful kind of wasted time, because you've already spent double the effort and have to do it all over again. Next time you open WorkBuddy, don't rush to type — first check whether the mode in the top-right corner is right.

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