Choose a model and read its usage
3 minute read · Chats & Local Agents
Choose a model for the current conversation after connecting its provider. Defaults help you start the next chat; changing a default does not rewrite the model choices in existing conversations.
- Choose what this task needs
- Read usage without guessing
- Separate three different limits
- Change the model deliberately
- When usage looks stale
Choose what this task needs
Open the model control and use a discovered or supported custom choice. Reasoning effort, service tier and thinking options appear where the model and provider support them. A control available for one provider is not necessarily available for all five.
Read usage without guessing
Conversation context and account allowance are different measurements. Context may be estimated. Codex and Claude can report five-hour and weekly account windows. Google Antigravity reports per-model account quotas and reset times, not conversation token counts in this integration.
Grok Build and Kimi Code show Limits not reported when their protocol supplies no quota window. This does not mean unlimited usage. Expired quota samples are not current balances.
Refresh the usage popover to inspect available values and errors. A provider eligibility or quota error belongs to that provider account; Vortex cannot change it. Vortex cloud storage is separate from your provider’s tokens.
Next: connect Codex, connect Claude Code, Vortex capacity.
Separate three different limits
| Display | What it answers | What it does not answer |
|---|---|---|
| Conversation context | How much of this model's context the current conversation uses; estimates are identified. | Your remaining paid account allowance. |
| Provider quota windows | The usage/reset information supplied by the connected provider. | How many Vortex projects you may retain. |
| Vortex cloud storage | Technical capacity for encrypted history, mail and signals. | A product count cap, included AI tokens or provider eligibility. |
Codex and Claude can report five-hour and weekly account windows. Google Antigravity exposes per-model account quotas and reset times, not conversation token counts in this integration. Grok and Kimi show Limits not reported where their protocol supplies no applicable windows. Never interpret absent information as an unlimited account.
Change the model deliberately
Open the model control in the current composer and select an available model. Review supported reasoning, thinking or service-tier settings where offered. A provider default and a conversation's saved selection are separate: changing a default should not silently rewrite earlier threads.
Before continuing an important run after changing provider settings, confirm the chosen agent and access mode. If a custom model is rejected, use a discovered supported choice and retain the error for diagnosis. Do not assume that a name accepted by one provider is valid for another.
When usage looks stale
Refresh the usage popover and read its update/reset information and errors. A sample collected before a quota reset should not be presented as a current restriction. If the provider returns a rate-limit error without a useful usage report, keep that error as the authority for the attempted run. Planning smaller tasks can reduce unnecessary context, but archiving a Vortex conversation does not reset an external provider's billing window.