> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.firstresonance.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Improve a step with ION

> Ask ION Intelligence to rewrite a draft procedure step, then review, accept, or undo the proposal it returns.

Depending on your settings, a draft procedure's steps carry two controls that ask ION
Intelligence to rewrite the step you are editing. ION never writes the step itself. It returns a
**proposal**: what it would change, why it wrote it that way, and the run history behind it. You
decide whether the step takes it.

Proposals are only made on a **draft** procedure, so revise a released procedure before asking. For
more information on revisions, see
[Create and release a procedure](/build-hardware/procedures/create-and-release-a-procedure).

## Ask for a proposal

1. Open a draft procedure's **Steps** tab and select the step you want to improve.
2. Above the step content, click **Improve** to open **Improve this step**.
3. Pick the angle you want, such as **General clarity**, **Add safety warnings**, or **Specify
   tolerances**. Picking a second one replaces the first, and clicking the one you picked clears it.
4. Click **Improve step**. The ION Intelligence companion opens and the ask lands in it as your own
   message. Wait for the answer.

**Conform to AS9100** also sits beside **Improve** as its own control, so a standards rewrite takes
one click. It's the same angle either way. It rewrites against AS9100D 8.5.1, 7.5, and 8.7. ION summarizes each clause in its own words, because the standard's text is licensed and never
quoted.

Asking a second time on the same step continues the same conversation, so the second ask sees the
first proposal. Moving to another step starts a fresh one.

<Note>
  The same controls appear on a draft standard step. There, ION answers in the conversation instead
  of returning a proposal, because proposals are only made on a procedure's own steps. A standard
  step placed in a procedure doesn't show the controls, and ION refuses a proposal for it. Change the
  standard step itself instead.
</Note>

An angle is repeatable: asking again after you have edited the step asks against the step as it
now reads.

## Answer clarifying questions

Before it proposes, ION can ask up to three clarifying questions on one card.

1. For each question, click an offered answer, click **Other…** and type your own, or click
   **Skip**.
2. Click **Submit**. It's available once every question is answered or skipped.

To send the answers you've given and skip the rest, click **Skip unanswered**.

## Read the proposal

The proposal arrives as a card in the conversation, headed **Proposal · current**. It carries the
proposed title and the proposed step content, which is what **Accept** writes into the step. Click
**Details** to expand ION's reasoning, a summary of the changes, any safety callouts and open
questions ION raised, and an **Evidence** list linking the runs, issues, and comments the proposal
rests on.

Two headings mean the proposal is worth less than it looks:

| Heading | What it means |
| - | - |
| **Proposal · no run history** | The step has never been run, so there are no issues, comments, or measurements behind the proposal. |
| **No longer applies** | The step changed after ION read it, so the proposal cannot be accepted. Click **Ask again** to ask against the step as it now reads. |

<Note>
  Execution history follows a step into later revisions of the same procedure, so a step revised
  from a released version is grounded in what happened on that version's runs. Procedures revised
  before this shipped have no link back to the steps they were copied from, so their steps are
  grounded only in their own runs.
</Note>

ION declines, and says why, when it cannot support a revision. For example, the procedure is not a draft, the supporting records could not be read, or a claim could not be tied back to a record.

## Accept or dismiss a proposal

* **Accept** writes the proposed title and content into the step, and the card offers **Undo**.
* **Dismiss** leaves the step unchanged.

To change ION's wording, accept the proposal and then edit the step.

**Undo** returns the step to what it said before and reopens the proposal, so it can be accepted
again. **Undo** is no longer offered once the step has been edited, the proposal has been removed
from the list, or what the proposal replaced is no longer recorded. A later accept on the same step
leaves that last case behind. In place of **Undo**, the card says which of these happened.

<Note>
  A proposal whose content already matches the step offers no **Accept**, because accepting it would
  change nothing. The card says so and offers **Ask again** instead.
</Note>

Accepting a proposal doesn't settle the step's other pending proposals. Each is measured against the
step as it now reads, so one that doesn't touch the same wording stays acceptable, and you can take
two improvements to one step in sequence. Where two would rewrite the same wording, the second
carries the reason it can't be applied and offers no **Accept**.

## Follow-up questions

An answer can also come back with up to three grounded follow-up questions under the proposal, drawn
from the same evidence. Clicking one asks it about the same step. They go **Out of date** together
with the proposal once the step changes, rather than disappearing.


## Related topics

- [Overview](/automate-with-ion/ion-intelligence.md)
- [Manufacturing Engineering](/getting-started/role-guides/manufacturing-engineering.md)
- [Run a step](/build-hardware/runs-and-execution/step-execution.md)
- [ION basics](/getting-started/ion-basics.md)
- [Step field types](/build-hardware/procedures/step-field-types.md)


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