Penny is a chat bubble that answers "how do I…" questions about LearnCoding, using only LearnCoding's own written guides, the same guides you can browse at Docs. Inside a lesson, it can also answer questions about the lesson you're currently reading. It's a separate thing from the Help popup (the "?" button in the top bar): that one is a curated summary of your role you can browse; the assistant is for asking one specific question and getting one specific answer, with follow-ups.
The first time you open her with nothing in the conversation, Penny introduces herself and offers a few example questions, click one to ask it straight away.
You can say hello, too. Penny answers "hi", "thanks", "bye" and "what can you do?" politely, and offers the same example questions when that helps you get started.
An administrator turns the assistant on for your school. If it hasn't been turned on, you won't see the bubble.
A round chat icon floats in the bottom-right corner of the screen on every page you're signed into. Click it to open the conversation panel; click it again (or the ×) to close it. If you opened the Help popup instead, look for an Ask a question button in its footer; it closes the popup and opens the assistant for you.
Want more room? Click the expand button (two diagonal arrows) in the panel's header to make Penny's window much larger; click it again to shrink it back. Penny remembers your choice the next time you open her in this browser.
Type your question and press Enter (or the send button). The assistant searches LearnCoding's written guides for your role and answers from what it finds there, naming which guide page it used. If your question mentions a guide topic (badges, quizzes, your course dashboard, and so on), it's a good candidate for this; it's meant for questions about using the platform, not about programming in general.
Follow-up questions work in the same conversation: "what about the second step?" is understood using what you already asked.
Open the assistant while you're inside a lesson and it can also answer questions about that lesson's own content, the panel header shows the lesson's name when this is active. It answers using the language, spoken language, or other options you have currently selected in the lesson, not every version of the content that exists, so if you switch to a different programming language partway through, ask again and the answer follows your new selection.
Penny also knows which topic you have open, so you can say "what does this topic talk about?" or "explain this section" without naming it. Move to another topic and your next question follows you there.
Your instructor may turn lesson questions off, in which case the assistant still answers platform how-to questions, it just can't see the lesson content. Some courses have AI turned off entirely by their instructor, in which case lesson questions never include that course's content, no matter what.
Opening a different lesson starts a fresh conversation, the assistant doesn't carry a lesson conversation over to a lesson it wasn't about.
Penny can see the quizzes on the lesson you're reading, so you can ask her about them: what a question is actually asking, which idea it's testing, where in the lesson it's explained, or how to approach a coding exercise you're stuck on. For a coding question she can also see the starter code you were given and any hint your instructor wrote.
You don't have to say which quiz. "Help me with the current quiz" means the quiz you have on screen: if a topic has several, scroll so the one you mean is in view before you ask.
She cannot tell you the answers, and not because she's been told not to; she has never been given them. Correct MCQ options, the hidden unit tests, and instructors' reference solutions are removed before anything reaches her, exactly as they are removed before the quiz reaches your browser. So "which option is right?" will get you an offer to work it out together, because that is genuinely all she can do. Working it out together is usually faster anyway.
The assistant only answers from what it's actually been given: LearnCoding's written guides, and, when allowed, the lesson you're reading. If your question isn't covered by either, it says so plainly, suggests rephrasing, offers a few example questions, and points you to the full Docs section, rather than guessing. It won't give you a complete solution to a graded exercise; for a question about an exercise, expect it to guide you rather than hand you the answer.
The trash-can icon in the panel header clears the current conversation and starts over (the introduction and its example questions come back). This only clears what's shown to you; it doesn't affect anything else on your account.
Don't have an API key, or not sure what one costs? Click How to get a free API key in Penny's "you need your own key" notice, or How to get a key (free options) next to the key box in her settings. Either opens a short guide covering which of the providers your school has enabled give keys away free, what those free allowances look like, where to sign up, and what paying instead would involve. The same guide is on your Profile under AI keys, as How to get an API key.
Click the gear icon in the panel header to open Penny's settings, without leaving the page you're on. There you can:
The pane also tells you whose key is currently being used: your own, or your institution's shared one. You can never see the shared key (it is encrypted and never sent to your browser) but until you save your own, your questions are spending it.
If your administrator requires students to use their own key, the pane says so instead, naming the provider and model you selected ("Add your Google Gemini API key to use ..."), and the key field is marked required. There is no Use the default button for you, because the default is your administrator's shared key, which you cannot use. Penny also shows this notice when you open her, with an Add your API key button, so you know before asking anything. Once you save a key the notice goes away.
Your choice comes first. Whatever you set here is what Penny uses, your key ahead of your school's shared key, and your model ahead of the administrator's default. What your administrator has configured is the fallback, used only where you haven't chosen. Use the default hands the choice back to them again (your saved key is kept), and Remove key deletes your key but keeps your provider and model choice.
Everything here is optional. Without any of it, Penny simply uses whatever your school has made available. Your Profile page has the fuller key manager, test a key, or remove one for a provider your administrator has since switched off, and the panel links to it.
Your question (and, inside a lesson, the lesson content relevant to your question) is sent to whichever AI provider your school has configured, or your own provider if you've saved a personal key, in order to generate an answer. A saved key is stored encrypted and only you can see that you have one configured, test it, or remove it; nobody else, including administrators, can view or use it.