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Work with Ape.

Ape is the agent inside Grapple. It edits the project you have open with the same layers, keys, relations and effects you use. This guide covers briefing it, steering a run, and keeping or undoing what it did.

Ape needs a model first. The model setup guide covers it, and you can type your first message before you've set one up.

Write a brief Ape can act on

Brief Ape as you would an assistant editor or a motion designer. It sees the project's assets, watches footage through contact sheets and transcripts, uses the models you connect and runs Python, so you can name the shot, the person or the moment.

What to make
"A lower third with her name and role", "a vertical version of the cut for social".
Where and when
The composition, the clip and the time: "over the interview, from 0:12".
The exact content
The wording, the names, the colours or the font.
How it moves
How things arrive, hold and leave: "rises into place and settles, holds four seconds, fades out".
What stays
"Don't touch the edit", "keep the grade".

Start with a short, clear job. You'll learn how Ape reads your wording before you hand it something large.

Follow and steer a run

  1. Send the brief. Ape shows its plan and ticks off each step as it goes.
  2. To change direction partway, type a note and send it. It goes to the run in progress, so Ape changes course without starting again.
  3. When Ape needs a decision from you, such as which take to keep, it asks in a question card and waits for your answer.
  4. To end the run early, stop it. What Ape has already done stays, and Undo run can take it back.

Under each answer, a line such as "Worked for 2m 35s, 14 actions" opens into every tool call, each written as a verb and what it touched.

If a run fails, it shows the provider's own message with Retry, Model settings and Copy details, so you can see what went wrong and try again.

Review what Ape changed

  1. A run that changed the project ends with a line such as "Changed 12 items". Choose Before / After to compare the picture.
  2. Open History. The run is one row, titled with Ape's own label for each edit.
  3. Select what Ape made and open it in the Inspector. A Follow path, a Spring, a Grade or a tracker is the same object you'd make, and you change it the same way.

Then give a specific note ("the title sits too close to her face; move it left and start it half a second earlier") or make the change yourself. Both work on the same objects.

Undo a run, or one step of it

Undo run
Takes back everything the run changed, in one step. It's on the run in the Ape tab and in History.
Undo this
Takes back one step or one tool call from the middle of a run and keeps everything else. If later work depends on it, History shows what before anything changes.
Revert composition to here
Undoes later work inside one composition only. Restore project to here returns the whole project to that point.

Work at the same time

You can keep editing while Ape works. Every change goes through the same commands and is recorded in History, where Ape’s runs carry Ape’s mark.

  • Your Ctrl+Z undoes your own latest action, even while Ape is busy. Ape's work, and anyone else's, is never reversed without asking you.
  • If Ape changed a value a moment before you set it, your edit applies, and a notice says so: "Ape changed Amount to 40% a moment ago. Kept yours: 70%." Choose Use Ape's to take its value instead.
  • Edits to different things never conflict.

Tune Ape's work in Controls

With each composition, Ape publishes a few named controls for the decisions that make the piece feel right, grouped in sets such as Entrance or Finish. Each control moves a real property or a real pair of keys, so tuning it is an ordinary edit.

  1. Open the Controls tab beside the Inspector. It shows the controls of the composition you're in and stays put while you select other things.
  2. Hover a control to see what it moves on the Stage and when it acts on the Timeline. Choose Loop this set to replay the set's span while you tune.
  3. To hand it back, choose Ask Ape about this set… and write the direction, such as "snappier, less bounce on the cards". Ape changes the same controls and keeps the values you tuned unless you ask otherwise.

A composition with no controls offers Ask Ape to set up controls for this composition. After a run that published controls, the chat links to them with Open controls. The animation guide covers the Controls panel in full.

Plan on the storyboard

The storyboard in Create is shared with Ape. Write the shots, drop in or draw frames, leave notes and set timing, then ask Ape to build from it. Ape reads and edits the same boards, so you can agree the plan before anything is built. See Create.

Skills

Ape loads guidance for kinds of work, such as motion choreography, scene composition and writing plugins, when the job calls for it. Ask for the kind of work in plain words.

Decide what Ape's commands may do

Ape's commands run in a sandbox limited to the project and Ape's own scratch space, with no network. No command ever reaches your sign-ins, SSH keys or browser profiles. When a command needs more, the Ape page in Settings decides who reviews it:

Auto review
Ape's model reviews the command.
Manual
You review it. The Ape tab shows the command and waits for you.

A rejection is final for that action. Plugins and Python have their own approvals: see plugins and trusting a project.