Max — AI Assistant
Max is Align's built-in AI assistant. Ask it how Align works, ask about your projects, have it chart or summarise your data, or have it make changes for you. Max proposes every change, and nothing changes until you confirm it.
Who has Max
Align switches Max on for each workspace. It is not tied to your plan, and your workspace admins cannot switch it on themselves. If you do not see the Max button, Max is not on for your workspace; contact Align support at support@alignsoft.us.
Everyone in a workspace with Max can use it, whatever their role. Max acts as you: it can only see and change what your role lets you see and change in the workspace you are working in. See Team and Roles.
Opening Max
Click the round Max button at the bottom-right of any page (tooltip Ask Max). The chat window opens in that corner. Drag its top edge, left edge or top-left corner to resize it. On a small screen, Max opens as a panel over the page.
The header shows a badge with the project you are in. Max uses that project as context, so "summarise the open bugs" means the open bugs in this project.
- Type in the box at the bottom (Ask me anything about Align…) and press Enter.
- Type / to see shortcuts. Choosing one puts a ready-made request in the box; you can edit it before sending.
| Command | Description shown |
|---|---|
/create-entry | Draft a new feature, bug, or task |
/find | Search entries and projects |
/release-readiness | Score this project's release readiness |
/dependencies | Show the dependency graph and blockers |
/summarize-bugs | Summarize the open bugs in this project |
/file-doc | File an uploaded doc into this project's Files |
/navigate | Navigate to a page in Align |
/help | See what Max can help you with |
Your conversations are kept. When you open Max with an empty chat, Recent conversations lists your recent ones; click one to carry on. New chat starts a fresh conversation.
While Max works, a status line above the box shows the step it is on.
What Max can read
Max reads the same data you can, in the workspace you are in:
- projects, entries, epics, milestones and releases;
- release readiness, the blockers on a release, and the dependency graph;
- your team members;
- costs and the cost approvals waiting on you;
- the GitHub activity linked to an entry, and Sentry issues, where your workspace has connected them;
- SonarQube code quality, where your workspace has connected SonarQube: whether a project's or a release's quality gate is passing, the conditions it fails, and the SonarQube issues linked to an entry. This is for your workspace's staff only; Max does not show it to clients or viewers;
- a search across your entries by meaning, not only by exact words;
- how Align itself works, and where to find any page.
For data-heavy answers, such as comparisons, breakdowns, timelines or dependency maps, Max shows charts, tables and diagrams in a canvas that opens over the page, next to the chat.
Your personal connections
If you are not a client, you can also let Max use your own connections. Click your name at the bottom of the sidebar, open the Integrations tab and click Manage integrations. There you can link your GitHub account and add your own MCP connectors. Max personal interplay sets how much Max may use them:
| Setting | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Full | Max can read your personal views (such as your pull requests) and use your personal MCP connectors. |
| Read-only | Max can show your personal views but never uses your personal MCP connectors. |
| Off | Max uses no personal data. |
Personal connections act only for you. They never appear in shared reports or client exports.
What Max can change
Max can propose these changes, where your role allows them:
- create entries, change an entry's status, and comment on entries;
- create and update epics and milestones;
- update releases;
- estimate, commit, approve or reject an entry's cost;
- file an uploaded document into a project's Files, create an entry with uploads, or attach uploads to an entry (only where Align has turned these on; see Uploading files);
- remove or replace an attachment on an entry.
Max cannot change integrations or credentials.
Confirming a change
Each change appears as a card that says what will change, with a button to confirm it and Cancel. Nothing is saved until you confirm. To change what Max proposed, cancel and ask again.
When one request needs several changes, Max shows them together as a plan: MAX proposes N changes. How you approve them depends on your workspace's autonomy setting (below):
- Changes that can be approved together are listed under Approve together, with a button such as Approve the 3 reversible changes.
- Changes that each need their own confirmation are listed under Each needs its own confirmation. Click Review the remaining N steps to see each as its own card.
After a change that Align can take back, an Undo button appears. Max then says what it reversed, and leaves alone anything someone has edited since.
Autonomy settings
Each workspace has autonomy settings that bound what Max may do in one reply. Only a workspace admin can change them. There is no screen for them in Settings yet.
Autonomy tier
| Tier | Behaviour |
|---|---|
| Assisted (default) | Every change is confirmed on its own. |
| Planned | When Max proposes several changes, the ones Align can reverse and that stay inside Align can be approved with one click: creating entries, changing an entry's status, and creating or updating epics and milestones. |
Under Planned, comments, cost actions, release updates and anything that leaves Align still need their own confirmation, because other people may already have seen them or Align cannot take them back. A plan with more than seven changes that could be approved together is not batched at all: each change is confirmed on its own. Changes proposed by a client are always confirmed one at a time.
Step limits
| Limit | Default | Range | What it bounds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Read steps | 15 | 1–50 | How many lookups Max may make while answering one message |
| Write steps | 5 | 0–20 | How many changes Max may make in one reply |
| Tokens per turn | 0 (off) | 0–10,000,000 | How much AI processing one reply may use |
When Max reaches a limit, it stops and tells you, rather than failing part-way.
The daily brief
The dashboard has a Max daily brief tile, headed Max says: a short written summary of where delivery stands in your workspace. It shows when it was generated and links to Reports (Open in Max).
The brief is written for the whole workspace and refreshed at most every six hours. When a new one is still being written, the tile shows No brief today. Clients have their own dashboard, without the brief.
Uploading files
When Align has turned uploads on, an Attach file button appears beside the message box, and you can drop files anywhere on the chat window (Drop files to attach). If you do not see the button, uploads are off.
- Accepted types:
.txt,.log,.csv,.json,.png,.jpg,.jpeg,.webp,.pdf,.docx. - Each file can be up to 20 MB.
Max reads the contents of .txt, .log, .csv and .json files, and of images up to 8 MB, and can answer questions about them and draft an entry from them. You can upload .pdf and .docx files, and file or attach them, but Max can't read what's in them yet. Where Align has also turned on attachment workflows, Max can file an upload into the current project's Files (/file-doc), create an entry with it, or attach it to an entry. Each of these is a change you confirm first. When attachment workflows are off, the card says so.
Actions in other systems
Where Align has turned on Max External Writes for your workspace, Max can also propose actions in connected systems, for example linking an entry to a task in another tool. These cards are marked External action and always need your confirmation. Some are Dry-run only: Run preview shows what would change and makes no external changes. See External Writes.
Using Align from other AI assistants (MCP)
Align also has an MCP endpoint, so assistants such as Claude or Cursor can read and update Align directly. That is separate from Max and is described in the API section: MCP Integration.
Privacy
- Max only works within the workspace you are in. It cannot see other workspaces.
- Before anything is sent to the AI model, Align removes email addresses, phone numbers, IP addresses, file paths containing user names, and text that looks like a key, token or secret.
- Your conversations are stored so you can return to them.
Tips
- Be specific. "Create a high-priority bug in the Payments project, assigned to Alex" works better than "create an entry".
- Open the project or entry first, so Max picks up its context.
- Ask "take me to…" to jump to any page.