When a sensitivity analysis method is called with no model
  (i.e. argument model = NULL), it generates an incomplete object
  x that stores the design of experiments (field X),
  allowing the user to launch "by hand" the corresponding
  simulations. The method tell allows to pass these simulation
  results to the  incomplete object x, thereafter estimating the
  sensitivity measures.
  
The extract method is useful if in a first step the Shapley effects 
  have been computed and thus sensitivity indices for all possible subsets 
  are available. The resulting sobolshap_knn object can be 
  post-treated by extract to get first-order and total Sobol indices 
  very easily.
When the method is iterative, the data to simulate are not stored in
  the sensitivity analysis object x, but generated at each
  iteration with the ask method; see for example
  sb.