Modes and approvals

The mode picker sits in the composer. Shift+Tab cycles through the three modes. The choice is remembered per project; Default is the resting state.

Mode	What it means
Plan	Read-only. Manan proposes and explains — which scenes, which edits, what it would cost — but changes nothing, generates nothing, spends nothing. Switch out of Plan to act.
Default	Script and reference-document edits arrive as suggestion cards you accept or dismiss — even edits you explicitly asked for. Scene and project edits, new documents, and pictures added to a document’s image bank apply directly. Credit spends ask first.
Auto	Edits write directly. Credit-spending tools run without asking, up to a per-turn budget; past the budget, the ordinary approval card appears.

In every mode Manan tells you what actually happened: “I edited the script” only when the edit was applied, “I suggested” when a card was filed. A filed suggestion changes nothing until you accept it — see Suggestions.

Approval cards

Every tool that spends credits — image generation and refinement, animation, voiceover, music, upscaling — is confirmation-gated. When Manan calls one, you see a card with the real credit cost and two choices:

• Allow once — run this call.
• Allow this chat — run it, and pre-approve that tool for the rest of the conversation.

Declining costs nothing: the call is returned to Manan as declined, and it will offer a free alternative when one exists. A card ends the turn; Manan continues once you answer. Cards expire after 10 minutes.

Rendering, scene edits, document edits, linking, and attaching an image you uploaded never need approval — they cost no credits.

The Auto budget

Auto mode runs paid tools without a card while the turn’s estimated total stays within 50 credits. The budget is cumulative per conversation per day (UTC), so a run of Auto turns cannot spend the cap over and over. When the budget is exhausted, or a call cannot be priced up front, Manan falls back to the approval card.

Out of credits

With zero credits Manan will not call a paid tool at all. It still does the free work — reads and edits documents, builds and reorders scenes, and renders — and offers to pick the paid steps back up later. Starting a turn at all requires a non-zero balance; see Usage and limits.