Connecting Orca to ChatGPT dots and other persistent assistants: what works, and what are the trade-offs?

[SGA2025]

Hey folks,

Has anyone tried wiring Orca up to ChatGPT dots, or similar persistent assistants and chatbots from other AI providers? I'm curious what works today and what the real trade-offs are.

I'd like to keep local files and project work in Orca, while an external assistant handles ongoing research, planning, or review. Ideally, they could hand off tasks and results without me constantly copying context between apps.

OpenAI's announcement and setup guide cover dots in ChatGPT and optional local computer access. Orca supports CLI agents and browser controls. I haven't tested an end-to-end connection between them.

What's actually supported?

Can you use dots through Orca's built-in browser? Is there a documented API, MCP, or CLI route for any of these services? Can an external assistant create or steer tasks that Orca can track?

I'd love to understand which approaches are officially supported, which are workable experiments, and which aren't available yet. How much changes between opening a chatbot in a browser tab and integrating it into Orca's agent workflow?

Where does this help, and where does it get messy?

Have you seen real wins from persistent research, cross-model review, or keeping context across sessions?

On the downside, I'm wondering about context drift, conflicting instructions, and stale file versions. Who owns a task when both systems can delegate work? What happens to approvals, cancellation, retries, and duplicate actions?

Other things I'd want to understand:

• How brittle is browser automation around login, streaming responses, and UI changes?
• How do you scope local file access and track what gets uploaded or retained?
• How do subscription limits, API costs, and delegated-task usage stack up?
• Can progress, logs, and results show up in Orca, or do you end up watching two separate dashboards?

How would you set it up?

Would you use the external assistant as a research/review partner, let it coordinate Orca agents, or have Orca drive it? What would make you pick one setup over another?

If you've tried this, please share the Orca version, service, connection method, and what worked or broke. If direct integration doesn't exist yet, what would be the smallest useful version to build?

Thanks! Interested in both maintainer guidance and hands-on experience.