Drafting Clauses

Dictumal’s AI chatbot guides you through articulating your values and translating them into enforceable clauses.

The Drafting Page

When you create or open a constitution and click Start Drafting, you enter the drafting page. The chatbot appears on the right side, while your constitution’s clauses are listed on the left.

Chatbot Modes

The chatbot operates in several modes, each designed for a different stage of the constitutional process:

• Value Elicitation — The chatbot asks probing questions to help you discover and articulate your core values.
• Constraint Drafting — Translates values into concrete, enforceable constraints.
• Research — Finds real-world precedents and counterarguments to help you think critically about your clauses.
• Amendment — Proposes changes to existing clauses based on new information or evolving beliefs.

Accepting a Clause

When the chatbot proposes a clause, it will be presented to you in a structured format showing the clause type, natural language text, and an intermediate representation (IR). You can:

1. Accept — Adds the clause directly to your constitution.
2. Refine — Continue the conversation to adjust the clause before accepting.
3. Reject — Decline the clause and move on.

Chat Sessions

Every conversation on the drafting page is saved as a chat session. Sessions are linked to the clauses they produce, which means you can always trace a clause back to the conversation that created it. You can also resume past sessions to continue drafting where you left off.

Duplicate Prevention

Dictumal automatically checks for duplicate clauses. If you try to add a clause whose text matches an existing one, you’ll be notified and the duplicate will not be added.

Next Steps

Once you have some clauses, learn how to manage and organize them →