--- title: "Explorer" slug: "product-manual-compass-explorer" updated: 2026-10-29T17:40:50Z published: 2026-10-29T17:40:50Z canonical: "docs.ursahealth.com/product-manual-compass-explorer" --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.ursahealth.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Explorer Explorer is a streamlined entry point for starting AI conversations without first creating a diagnostic. It provides a single textarea on the Compass landing page — type a question and start chatting immediately. ## How It Works Navigate to Compass or click the **Explorer** icon (the first item in the sidebar). The page presents a textarea where you describe what you'd like to investigate. Click **Start Session** to begin. Compass creates a new [session](/v1/docs/product-manual-compass-sessions) and immediately starts the AI conversation — you are taken directly into the session workspace. Each submission creates a separate session. The AI's behavior, available tools, and system prompt are all determined by the selected persona. ## Personas Personas define the AI's behavior for Explorer sessions. The **Personas** tab (under Explorer) lists all available personas in a sortable, searchable table, each with a star icon for adding it to your explorer personas. Once you have added one or more personas, a **Persona** dropdown appears on the Explorer new session page listing them. Selecting a different persona changes which configuration is used when starting a new chat. The first persona you add becomes your **main persona**, marked with a glowing star, and is the dropdown's default. Each additional persona shows a plain filled star. Clicking a filled star makes that persona your main persona; clicking the main persona's star removes it, and your previous main persona takes its place. If you have no explorer personas, a message replaces the dropdown and Explorer falls back to the **Orientation** persona, when the environment has one. Orientation can explain how to find and add explorer personas. ### Creating and Editing Personas Compass Authors (and above) can create new personas by clicking **New Persona** on the Personas tab. The persona editor provides: - **Name** — A unique name for the persona. - **Description** — Optional context about the persona's purpose. - **System Prompt** — Instructions defining the AI's role and focus area. - **Tools** — Which capabilities the AI has access to. Personas also support a **Markdown View** for full-text editing, toggled via the Form/Markdown buttons. Personas do not have sessions, disposition schemas, or dependencies — they define only the AI's prompt and tool configuration. A persona's detail page shows its system prompt and selected tools, and offers the same add/make-main/remove toggle and the persona editor. ## Sessions Click the **Sessions** tab on the Explorer page to see your own sessions and sessions that other users have shared with you (as an editor or viewer) in one table. The first filter switches between **My Sessions** and **Shared with me**. It starts on My Sessions, or on Shared with me for users who can't start sessions. Select both to see both; removing the last selection falls back to My Sessions. You can also filter by **Persona** and **Owner**, search by name, description, persona, or owner, and sort by any column. Click a session to continue the conversation. If you own a session, or are a Compass Author with editor access to it, the session's row has a menu with these options: - **Edit/Share** — expands an edit panel where you can rename the session, update its **description**, and share it by adding **Editors** (Reviewers or above who can continue the conversation) and **Viewers** (any user who can view it). Sharing is available to Compass Authors (and above) only. - **Delete** — deletes the session. You can also reach this list by following the breadcrumb link from any session workspace. ## Setup Explorer sessions always run under a persona, so an administrator should create a persona named **Orientation** to serve as the environment-wide fallback for users who have not added any explorer personas. If that persona does not exist, a user with no explorer personas sees an error asking them to have an administrator create it. ## Access Control - **Compass Authors** (and above) can use Explorer to start conversations, share their sessions, and create or edit personas. - **Reviewers** can use Explorer to start conversations, and can rename and delete their own sessions, but cannot share them or create or edit personas. - **Authenticated users** below Reviewer level cannot start Explorer conversations, but can view sessions shared with them. - **Ursa Health staff** with Architect access or above can grant themselves viewer access to sessions that have not been shared with them. Each such grant is recorded in Compass Grants.