Comments

Comments let you discuss a specific part of a doc without changing it. Every comment is attached to the text you selected, replies stay together in a thread, and you can hand any thread to Cleve to answer or fix. Anyone who can edit a doc can comment. People with Viewer access can read comments but can’t add them. See Sharing docs and folders.

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Add a comment

The text you commented on stays highlighted in the doc. Hover over or click the highlight to read the thread and reply in place.

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Drafts

If you click away or press Escape while writing, your draft isn’t lost: the comment card closes but the text stays, so you can pick up where you left off. Closing an empty comment simply discards it. Drafts last while the doc is open; post them before you close the doc. If posting fails, Cleve keeps your draft and shows Retry.

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The comments panel

To see every comment on a doc, click the comments button at the top right of the doc (it shows how many open comments there are), or click ··· → Comments. The panel has two tabs:

• Open shows conversations still in progress.
• Resolved shows finished ones.

Click a comment to expand its thread, see replies, and reply. If the text a comment was attached to has been deleted, the thread shows This comment’s highlight is no longer attached to the doc, with the original selection under View original selection. On a phone, comments open in a sheet at the bottom of the screen.

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Reply, resolve, and reopen

• Reply: expand a thread and type in Reply….
• Resolve: click the check mark on a thread when the discussion is done. It moves to the Resolved tab, and you can click Undo right after if you resolved it by mistake.
• Reopen: find the thread under Resolved and click the reopen arrow.
• Delete: open the thread’s ··· menu and choose Delete thread. This deletes the comment and all its replies and can’t be undone. You can delete threads you started; the doc’s owner can delete any thread.

Threads have a ··· menu with Ask Cleve and, in a floating thread card, Open in sidebar to show the thread in the comments panel.

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Mention people

Type @ in a comment to mention someone. The list shows:

• People who have access to the doc, marked Has access to this doc.
• In a team workspace doc, members of that workspace.

You can only mention people who can see the doc, so nobody is tagged in a conversation they can’t open. You can mention up to 20 people in one comment. Mentions don’t send an email.

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Assign checklist items

In the doc itself (not in a comment), typing @ inside a checklist item shows people under Assign to. Choosing someone assigns that task to them.

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Ask Cleve in a comment

Cleve can answer questions, make changes, and act on feedback right from a comment thread.

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Send to Cleve

Every new comment and reply starts with @Cleve and the Send to Cleve box ticked. Post it as it is and Cleve replies in the thread.

• Untick Send to Cleve to remove @Cleve and post the comment for people only.
• Tick it again to add @Cleve back.
• You can also type @ and choose Cleve (Ask Cleve in this thread) from the list.

While Cleve works, the thread shows Cleve will respond… and then Cleve is working…. Its answer appears as a reply, formatted with Markdown.

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Ask Cleve about an existing thread

To hand a whole conversation to Cleve, open the thread’s ··· menu and choose Ask Cleve. Cleve reads the thread and the text it’s attached to, then addresses the feedback.

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Address all comments

At the top of the Open tab, Address all comments (N) asks Cleve to work through every open thread on the doc. The same button appears in the chat panel’s suggestions when the doc you’re viewing has open comments. While Cleve works, the button shows how many threads it’s still working on.

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What Cleve can do from a comment

From a comment, Cleve works just like it does in chat with edit access turned on:

• It can edit the doc, read your other docs, and use your connected apps.
• It uses the same tools and the same confirmations as chat. Actions are real: if you ask it in a comment to send an email, it sends the email.
• It answers in your time zone, so “tomorrow” and “this afternoon” mean what you expect.
• It uses Auto, and the reply counts towards your usage like any other.

Cleve treats the commented text and the thread as material to work on, not as instructions to follow.

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Review what Cleve changed

When Cleve edits the doc to address a comment and resolves the thread, the thread shows What Cleve changed:

• Expand it to see the changes.
• Click Show to highlight the change in the doc.
• Click Restore to put the whole doc back to how it was just before Cleve made this change.

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Continue in chat

Each thread Cleve has worked on has its own conversation behind it. Click Open in chat in the thread to open that conversation in the chat panel and keep going with more room, attachments, and the full chat tools. The conversation belongs to the comment thread, so people with access to the doc can see it too, and editors can continue it. Manage it from the doc’s comments rather than your chat list.

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If Cleve can’t finish

If something goes wrong, the thread shows Cleve couldn’t finish, with Try again. Check the doc before retrying in case Cleve already made part of the change. Cleve starts replying from your browser. If you close the doc before Cleve has started, it picks up the next time you open the doc. Once it has started, it finishes even if you close the doc.

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Review this doc

To get feedback on a whole doc, click ··· → Review this doc. Cleve opens the chat panel in Edit mode and reviews the doc, leaving its feedback as comments on the specific lines it applies to. It doesn’t change the doc itself. You can then reply to its comments, resolve them, or ask Cleve to address them.

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Limits

A comment can be up to 5,000 characters.

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