# New Chat from the Home Screen

Touch and hold the Waycar icon and tap New Chat to start a Chat Mode conversation right away, with the keyboard already up.

New Chat starts a fresh Chat Mode conversation in one step from your Home Screen. Waycar opens straight into the chat with the keyboard up, so you can start typing.

## Start a New Chat

1. On the Home Screen, touch and hold the Waycar icon.
2. Tap **New Chat**.
3. Type your first message.

By default, the chat starts where your last chat was: the same Host, Workspace and agent.

## Choose where New Chat starts

1. Open **Settings › Chat Mode**.
2. Under **New Chat**, pick the **Host** and the **Agent**. Once you pick a Host, you can also pick its **Workspace**. Until the Host connects, the Workspace row reads **Connect to change**; a connected Host with none reads **No workspaces yet**.

**Host** and **Agent** can each be **Last Used**, which follows your most recent chat, or a fixed choice. The Agent can be Claude Code, Codex, omp, pi or opencode.

The chat uses the rest of your Chat Mode settings too: the Chat Prompt, each agent's model, and Quick thinking. Line breaks in the Chat Prompt are sent as spaces. See [Chat Mode](https://waycar.dev/help/chat-mode).

## What if it can't start right away?

- If the Workspace you picked is gone, Waycar makes it again in its folder.
- If the Host you picked was removed, New Chat goes back to Last Used.
- Disabled Hosts aren't offered. A choice saved on a Host you later disable reads as **Last Used**, and comes back when you turn the Host on again.
- If your choices can't be used, or the Host isn't ready within 20 seconds, the New Chat sheet opens with **Chat Mode** already on, so you can pick and tap **Start**.
- With no Hosts set up, New Chat opens Waycar.

## Good to know

- A New Chat is a new agent, so it counts as one Launch. See [Waycar Pro and Launches](https://waycar.dev/help/waycar-pro).
- Before your first chat on a Host, run the install command there so it has the latest Waycar plugin.

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Waycar Help › Start and talk to agents: https://waycar.dev/help/new-chat