Frequently asked questions

No. You will create a free account with at least one AI provider (Anthropic, OpenAI, or Google), generate an API key, and paste it into Settings. The whole setup takes about two minutes. After that, you talk to the panel in natural language.

Two separate things. Sidekick itself is a paid panel – you buy a license once from sidekick-ae.com and activate it on up to two machines. Then your AI provider bills you per use for the actual generation. See Licensing & activation for the license side.

That part is up to your provider, but generating expressions and scripts is cheap – typically pennies a day for everyday use. Most providers ask you to add a few dollars in credits to get started.

Locally, on your machine, in the panel's localStorage. They are never sent to us. They are lightly obfuscated but not encrypted, so treat the panel like any other app you have signed into.

No. The panel calls the AI providers directly over HTTPS, so you need to be online for it to generate code. Once you have a generated expression or saved script, running and applying happens locally and works offline. (Your license also keeps working offline for 14 days – see Licensing & activation.) A local-model option is on the wishlist.

Yes. Sidekick is a paid panel. Buy a license from sidekick-ae.com, and your key arrives by email. On first launch the panel asks for that key, you paste it in, and you are activated. Walkthrough in Licensing & activation.

Two. One license covers two machines – a tower and a laptop, say. Settings shows how many seats you have used (like 1/2) and a Deactivate this machine button. Hit a third machine and Sidekick asks you to deactivate one of the other two first.

Open Settings > Deactivate this machine on the old computer to free the seat, then activate on the new one. Reinstalling on the same machine does not use up a seat.

Yes, for 14 days after activation. The panel re-checks quietly in the background whenever you are online, which resets the window. Stay offline longer than that and it will ask you to reconnect and re-enter your key. You need to be online to generate code anyway.

They are different. The license key (from your purchase email) activates the panel on the Activate Sidekick screen. The API key (from Anthropic, OpenAI, or Google) goes into Settings and is what talks to the AI. Don't mix them up.

Expression writes an expression onto the property you have selected. Script generates a self-contained .jsx — run once, save to your Toolbar, or save to AE's Scripts folder. Question just answers, no code applied. See Getting started for examples.

No. Everything comes out of Script mode; your prompt decides the size. A small one-shot action ("rename all selected layers") is worth keeping – click Save to Toolbar and it becomes a one-click button (the Toolbar labels these scriptlets). A bigger job – batch rendering, auditing a whole project – you save with Save as Script (.jsx) and run from File > Scripts > Run Script File….

Click a layer, a property, or several properties in the timeline. The panel reads your AE selection automatically and shows it as a selection summary right under the mode selector. The AI uses that selection as context when generating code.

Click + Load selection in the chat header. That pins your current AE selection so you can keep iterating on the prompt without losing focus. Click the ✕ to unpin when you are done.

Yes. Cmd or Ctrl-click multiple properties in the timeline and ask something like wiggle all selected properties subtly. The Apply button shows a checklist of everything targeted so you can toggle individual properties off before applying.

Each property currently lands in its own undo group, so undo requires one press per property. A batched-undo fix is on the roadmap.

One-prompt-one-answer flows are great in the main tabs. Open the Script Editor when you need to refine the AI's output (multiple iterations, line-by-line tweaks), debug a script that's already broken, or hand-write code with autocomplete and an AI on call. See Script Editor for the full tour.

Click the </> button next to the three mode tabs (Question / Expression / Script) at the top of the panel. The Play icon next to it opens the smaller Quick Run pad.

Hit the Copy button on the chat response, switch to the Script Editor with the </> button, and paste. Both views stay mounted in the panel, so the chat is still right there as you work. The editor remembers its buffer across panel reloads.

Drag-select any chunk of code in the editor and the menu pops above the selection. Ask sends a question about the selection to chat. Edit requests a rewrite as an inline diff with Accept and Revert. Explain drops a plain-English walkthrough into chat. The selected lines stay visible the whole time.

A pending AI Edit on that line. Click the dot to re-open the preview, or use the Revert / Accept buttons on the inline diff. The dot disappears once you accept or revert.

Yes. Paste the .jsx into the Script Editor, hit Run to surface the error, then highlight the failing line and use Ask to get the AI's read on what went wrong. Iterate with Edit until it's fixed.

The editor synthesizes a handful of common AE scripting conventions — comp, layer, prop, item, layers, project, selectedLayers, key — so autocomplete works on the bare identifier. These are not real ExtendScript globals: if you paste the code into AE's native File > Scripts runner, you still need the canonical var comp = app.project.activeItem; declarations upstream.

The Play icon next to the Script Editor button opens a small scratchpad. Paste any .jsx, hit Run, see output. No need to commit it to the Toolbar. If a snippet turns out to be a keeper, the pad has a Save-As that promotes it into a saved Toolbar script.

When the AI generates an expression that depends on a control (a slider, color picker, angle, checkbox, etc.), it offers an + Add Slider (or similar) button in the chat. Click those first, they create the controls on your layer. Then click Apply to push the expression that references them.

Read the AI's instructions printed below the code box. The most common cause is a missing control: the expression expects a Slider you have not added yet, or it references a layer name that does not exist in your comp. Add the missing piece and try again.

Make sure you have a property selected (like Position or Scale), not just a layer name. Apply needs a target property to write the expression onto.

On disk, inside your AE Scripts folder. Both Sidekick and the Toolbar read that file, so anything you save in one panel shows up in the other within about two seconds.

Hover the row in the Toolbar panel. Edit and delete buttons appear.

The row flashes red with a brief tooltip. The ⚡ Open Helper button at the bottom of the Toolbar also turns red. Click it to jump back to the chat, where the full error is shown in a banner.

Yes. In the Toolbar's bottom row, click { } Quick run to paste and execute raw .jsx code without saving it.

No, this is normal. AI models cold-start, so the first call may take a few extra seconds. Follow-up prompts are snappy.

Yes. There is a model dropdown next to the Send button. Pick a different model for any single prompt without touching your Settings default.

Use AE's native panel × button at the top of the panel, or right-click the panel tab and choose Close Panel. The Toolbar's "Open Helper" button can open the chat but cannot close it.

The panel sends a structured summary of your current selection and your prompt to the AI provider. It does not upload your .aep file, footage, or renders.

Keys live in CEP localStorage for the panel. They are lightly obfuscated, not encrypted. Don't share screenshots that show the Settings panel with key fields visible, and don't paste keys into untrusted websites or chat apps.

Open Settings, paste the new key over the old one (or clear the field and paste). Revoked keys will start failing on the next call. Sidekick will surface the provider's error message.

Send us:

• Your prompt (copy and paste it)
• The mode you were in (Question / Expression / Script) or whether you were in the Script Editor / Quick Run
• What you had selected when you submitted
• What you expected vs. what happened
• Which AI provider and model you were using
• A screenshot if possible

If AE crashed entirely, also include the last thing you clicked before the crash. The more concrete the repro, the faster we can fix it. Email it all to hello@sidekick-ae.com.

Very. It ships regular updates, and feature requests and bug reports directly shape what lands next. If something breaks or you want a workflow smoothed out, tell us – that feedback is how the roadmap gets set.