Request a new feature for ChatGPT
Make ChatGPT a true long-term co-author: project workspaces, continuity and versioning
I use ChatGPT as a long-term co-author on multi-month policy and technical writing projects (multiple reports, annexes, slide decks, letters, etc.). The core limitation is that every chat still behaves like an isolated conversation, rather than part of a single project with stable rules and drafts.
A few changes could make ChatGPT much more usable for serious, ongoing work.
**1. Project workspaces with persistent rules**
Problem: I have to keep re-stating the same constraints in every chat: house style, spelling, tone, section spine, paper size, fonts, plus custom domain rules.
Request: Create project workspaces with a structured “project profile” that can include:
* Style settings: spelling (for example, UK vs US), sentence length preferences, tone, “executive summary first” etc.
* Formatting settings: default paper size, font, heading hierarchy, reference style.
* Custom Domain constraints.
With an explicit toggle like: “Apply these rules to all outputs in this workspace.”
**2. Cross-chat project index and retrieval**
Problem: Real projects branch into multiple chats: separate threads for annexes, alternative drafts, letters, slide versions, etc. It is hard to see at a glance which draft of a section is “current”.
Request:
* Allow users to tag chats and files into a named project.
* Provide a project index showing key artefacts and last-modified times (for example, “Section 4 – updated 3 days ago”).
* Let the model reference them explicitly via prompts such as:
“Use the latest version of Section 4 from this project as the base and tighten paragraph 3.”
This would avoid the repeated “please scan this chat for the latest version” .
**3. Version-aware document round-tripping**
Problem: ChatGPT generates a document, I download and edit it locally, then re-upload and ask for targeted changes. The system often treats this as a brand-new file, without any sense of the previous version, and sometimes rewrites more than requested.
Request:
* When a user uploads a document that likely originated from ChatGPT, offer “link this to the previous version”.
* Internally, track version lineage so the system can:
* show a simple “changes since last ChatGPT version” diff, and
* reason about what has changed since it last touched the file.
* Provide a “surgical edit” mode:
* I specify the scope (for example, “only update the box in Section 3.2” or “only rewrite bullets under Heading 4.1”),
* the model guarantees all other sections remain untouched, including styles and references.
**Why this matters**
These changes would move ChatGPT from “very smart single-session assistant” to a credible long-term co-author for users who are actually producing complex, versioned work over months: policy reports, legal documents, academic outputs, technical documentation, etc.
Right now a lot of the friction is not “intelligence” but lack of stable project context and version awareness. Fixing that would unlock a huge amount of value for heavy, professional users.
