Getting started
Everything you need for the first hour, and the four habits that make it come out right first time.
Do I have to touch a terminal?
Yes, twice, and only to paste. One line puts the panel in place and another registers Sekondo with Claude Code or with Codex, inside the ChatGPT desktop app. Both come written in your email: you paste each one and press Enter. If something goes wrong, the terminal says so in a single line and the panel stays amber; what to do then is under “When something goes wrong”, further down.
Your first command
Open a document, then open the Sekondo panel and check the light is green. Now write to your assistant — Claude or ChatGPT — the way you would brief someone who just joined the studio: knows the software inside out, knows nothing about your client.
In "Restaurant menu.indd", set every price to two decimals with the euro sign after it, without touching the rest of the text.
If one no longer fits on its line, tell me; do not shrink the type.The panel talks you through each step in plain English as it happens. Nothing is hidden and nothing keeps running after you close the conversation.
Four habits that make it work
1 · Say which document
The most important one, and the one that saves the most grief. With four documents open and no name, it works on the one in front — and if you switch windows meanwhile, the next command can land on the wrong one. Not “the document”: by its name.
2 · Ask it to look before it touches
“Before changing anything, tell me how many text frames there are, in which fonts, and which ones overflow.” Twenty seconds, and you see how the document really is — it almost never is how you think — and you have a before to compare with after.
3 · Big jobs in pieces
A command that touches forty things is a command that, if it fails halfway, leaves the document half done. Four commands of ten get checked as you go. And while an Adobe app is working it does not repaint the screen, so a long command looks frozen when it is not.
4 · Tell it your rules
“Captions always in Montserrat Regular 16, 8 mm from the edge.” Say it once in the conversation and it applies it from then on. What it can read in your own files — the palette, the styles, the grid — it reads on its own. What it cannot decide, it does not invent: it asks before it starts and, if the question comes up mid-job, it leaves you a note and carries on.
Undo, and how not to lose work
One command is one Cmd+Z. Fix 120 prices and the Edit menu reads “Undo Fix 120 prices”: one step to remove it all, one Cmd+Shift+Z to bring it back. Three things to know:
- Read the name before you press. It tells you exactly what you are about to remove.
- It is all or nothing. You cannot undo “a bit” of a command and keep 100 of the 120 prices. If you want part of it, ask for the part.
- The real risk is not Cmd+Z: it is what you do next. Undo, then make any change, and the redo is gone. If that happens, run the same command again: the work is written down, so it comes back in seconds. That is also what saves you when the app crashes.
What it will not do
Some things are deliberately out of reach. Sekondo will not empty your trash, will not run anything that needs an administrator password, and does not save over your file without telling you what it changed. Generative Fill needs a click from you: Sekondo prepares the selection and hands it over.
When something goes wrong
The screen is still and it looks frozen
Adobe apps do not repaint while a script runs. Look at the panel: if the light is blue, it is working. That is why long jobs are best asked for in parts.
The light is amber and will not turn green
The bridge is not running. Restart your assistant session, then press Connect in the panel. If it stays amber, another session may already hold the connection: close it and try again.
The app says it is busy
A dialog is open or a transform is half-finished. Press Escape in the app and repeat the instruction.
The app closed
Open it again. The panel reconnects on its own; the bridge never noticed. If work was lost, run the same command again.
Still stuck?
Write to us from the support page with the app, the version and what the panel said. During the launch programme you write to the people who built it.
On your files. On your computer. All of it editable.
Sekondo does not hand you back a picture: it works in your document, with your layers and your styles.
Every question
What people ask before claiming a seat.
Do my files get uploaded anywhere?
Not to us: Sekondo never stores your files on any server. The bridge runs on your computer and talks to your Adobe app locally.
Let’s be straight about the rest, though: to work on a document your assistant has to read it, so whatever it needs — text, measurements, sometimes a screenshot of a page — travels to the assistant you chose, under the agreement you already have with them. Never the file itself. The difference from Adobe's assistant is that there is no extra middleman, and that you pick the provider.
Does it work with ChatGPT or only with Claude?
Both. We have tested it with Claude Code and with ChatGPT through Codex, the assistant inside its desktop app — not ChatGPT in the browser — each on a different application and at the same time, sharing one bridge. Sekondo is a standard MCP server, so any compatible client should be able to talk to it; the two we promise are the two we have tested.
Do I have to teach it?
Once for each thing, yes. It does not arrive knowing your judgement. It reads what it can from your own files — the palette, the styles, the grid — and applies what you tell it in the conversation. What it cannot decide, it does not invent: it leaves a note and carries on.
Does it replace the designer?
No. It takes the part of the job nobody wants to do. Sekondo is exactly as good as the person giving the orders.
Do I have to sit and watch?
No. Before it starts it checks everything the job needs and, if something is missing, it tells you right then, before touching anything. If it all checks out it starts and finishes: no dialogs to dismiss, no questions halfway through. Brief it and walk away.
How long does it take?
A sekondo. Or nearly: what takes time is your assistant reading and writing. The twelve-page dossier in the video was repaired in minutes, not in an afternoon.
What happens to my work if I cancel?
Nothing. Everything Sekondo makes is a normal Adobe document on your disk — layers, text and all. There is no proprietary format and no lock-in.
Where does it save my files?
Wherever you tell it. Sekondo works in the folder of the document you have open and exports where you ask, with the names your studio already uses. If you do not say, it asks before writing anything.
And when you do not know, it teaches you.
Sekondo answers the question and explains it inside the document, with the file in front of you.