# How a turn runs

> What happens after you send Willo a message, sending more while it works, stopping it, leaving the page, and what a turn limit means.

Last updated: October 16, 2026

Source: https://www.willo.ai/docs/chat/how-a-turn-runs

Each message you send starts a **turn**: Willo reads what you asked, works through the steps, and ends with a reply. A small question takes seconds. A redesign or a coding session can take several minutes.

## While Willo works

The chat shows each step as it happens: the files it reads and edits, the checks it runs, the documents it writes. Documents appear as cards you can open. When a step needs your yes, an approval card appears and that request waits for you. See [What stops for your approval](https://www.willo.ai/docs/chat/what-stops-for-approval).

## Sending more while it works

You can keep typing. The box says **Message Willo — it runs after the current reply**, and the send button becomes **Queue message**. Queued messages wait above the box (**Up next**), and each runs in order once the current reply finishes.

Until a queued message starts, you can **Edit** or **Cancel** it. Everyone on the business shares one chat, so a teammate's queued messages appear in the same line. You can cancel your own; an admin can cancel anyone's.

## Stopping

While Willo is working, a **Stop** button appears next to the send button. Stopping ends the turn where it is. Changes it already made to the site stay, and you can undo them like any other change. Stopping a full site build asks first: the work done so far is kept and charged for what it used.

You can always stop your own turn. Stopping a teammate's needs an admin.

## Leaving the page

Closing the tab or refreshing doesn't stop anything. The turn keeps running on Willo's side, and the chat shows the result when you come back. If you switch to another tab, the browser tab's title shows **Working…**, **Needs approval** or **Done**.

If nobody has the chat open and a turn makes no progress at all for 12 minutes, it is stopped, saving what it did and saying why. A turn left running also has an overall limit of about an hour.

## Long turns and the turn limit

A single turn has a ceiling on how many steps it can take, so a request that keeps growing doesn't run forever. When Willo reaches it, it stops, says where it got to, and shows **Paused at turn limit** with a **Continue** button. Press it, or reply "continue", and it picks up from there. If Willo stopped because it was repeating the same steps without making progress, the card says **Paused — needs direction**: press **Continue**, or tell it what to do differently.

Breaking a large job into a few requests avoids most of this.

## What a turn costs

One turn is one charge, at the end. Reading and asking are free. A turn that produces something is charged for the work it did, not per step, and a long, involved turn costs more than a short one. See [How credits work](https://www.willo.ai/docs/plans/how-credits-work).

## Attaching files

Use **Attach a file**, drag a file onto the chat, or paste it:

| Kind | What Willo does with it | Limit |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Images (PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP; iPhone photos are converted) | Looks at them, and can place them on the site | 5 MB each, after the browser shrinks them |
| PDF | Reads it | 25 MB to upload; read up to 16 MB per message |
| Text and code files | Reads them as reference, up to 200,000 characters | 2 MB |
| CSV | Loads it into a table in your backend, after showing you the column mapping and a dry run | 2 MB |
| Video (MP4, WebM, MOV) | Stores it so it can go on the site; doesn't watch it | 50 MB |

Up to 10 files per message. Zip files and folders aren't accepted. An attached code file is read as a reference; it isn't installed into your site. See [Your code](https://www.willo.ai/docs/site/your-code#bringing-existing-code-into-willo).

Related: [Chat threads](https://www.willo.ai/docs/chat/chat-threads), [When Willo's chat isn't responding](https://www.willo.ai/docs/troubleshooting/chat-not-responding).