A calculator you can hand someone
Some decisions want a thing you can move, not a paragraph you read once. This recipe is one ask that ends with a working calculator running in the panel beside your chat — built around your numbers, ready to hand across a desk.
The ask
Build me a calculator for whether it’s worth paying extra on my mortgage. Give me sliders for the inputs I’d argue about — the extra amount each month and the interest rate — and show how the payoff date and total interest move, with the break-even point marked. Here are my actual numbers: paste your remaining balance, your rate, the years you have left, and your current monthly payment.
Every part of that is doing work. The verbs — sliders you move, a readout that moves with them — tell the model you want a working thing, not an essay about amortization. Naming the inputs you would argue about decides which controls exist and which numbers stay fixed. Asking for the break-even point names the one readout that settles the decision, so it arrives as the headline rather than a row in a table. And your real figures make the first version the useful one — a calculator built on placeholders needs a second round before it can tell you anything.
What comes back
A working calculator opens in the panel next to the conversation — move a slider and the numbers answer. If it asks for one click to start, that is the Run control. It runs in an isolated frame: a sealed box that cannot reach your account, your other conversations, or the network. The figures inside it are the ones the model built in — which is why pasting your real numbers into the ask matters.
To change anything — a rate, a label, a whole new input — say so in the thread, and Vresk edits the calculator you are looking at in place. The full picture of how widgets behave is on the live widgets page.
Make it yours
- Swap the decision. The shape works for any choice with numbers behind it — lease or buy, refinance now or wait, hire or contract. Keep the three parts: sliders for what you would argue about, one readout that settles it, and your actual figures pasted in.
- Change the audience. Follow up with “label everything in plain words” before you hand it to someone who does not share your vocabulary. The calculator is edited in place, not rebuilt.
- Push on it. “Add a slider for a one-off lump sum” is a normal follow-up. Every change is a version you can step back from, so experimenting is cheap.