Which symbol should trigger the context menu in Duo Chat?

Everyone can contribute. Help move this issue forward while earning points, leveling up and collecting rewards.

• Close this issue

Overview

@timzallmann raised a question about the inline trigger symbol choice (+ vs @) for the Duo Chat Context Menu redesign.

Current design uses + to trigger the context menu, but the concern is + might be something that could come up in a sentence more often then an @.

Why it's important

Usability concern: + may appear more frequently in natural text than @ which could make it more difficult to write prompts in natural language (e.g. user has to type plus instead of +).

Consistency: There's benefits to maintaining consistent patterns across GitLab environments.

Unknown future patterns: There are still unknowns around how interactions with agents and flows will be triggered and if we want to reserve @ for this use case vs adding context sources.

Job story

As a Code Author writing code and need to ask Duo about specific files, functions, or code blocks, I want to quickly add context using an intuitive trigger symbol, so I can get relevant AI assistance without accidentally triggering the system or breaking my flow.

Potential solutions

There are several paths we can take to resolve this depending on how hard it is to reverse the decision:

Scenario 1: Prioritize speed. Low cost to reverse decision

• Ship with the + pattern as designed
• Conduct UXR research and internal dogfooding post-launch
• Iterate based on user feedback and usage data

Scenario 2: Prioritize speed. Rely on IDE marketplace alignment

• Switch to @ pattern for IDE context addition
• Accept divergence from GitLab's web platform patterns
• Align with existing user mental models from competitor tools

Scenario 3: Prioritize certainty. High cost to reverse behavior later

• Prioritize a design/product/engineering spike to align on comprehensive cross-platform interaction patterns. For example, define a unified approach across IDE and web for:
  • Adding context sources
  • Interacting with Duo
  • Interacting with sub-agents and agent flows
  • Identify likely future actions that could need a dedicated symbol
• Delay implementation until the team aligns on a cross-platform UX

Open questions

• How frequently do users type + in natural conversation vs @?
• Would users be willing to make the trade-off of typing plus if + is used to trigger the menu?
• What's the technical effort to change trigger symbols post-launch?

Constraints:

• We can't see user data in chat responses as per our legal policy