docsconceptsconversation grid

Conversation grid

When friends, teammates, or family share an agent, each person talks to it privately.

Each person has their own cell

Each person can have multiple private conversations with an agent, one per channel they have access to. You can visualize this as a grid: for the same agent, one row per person and one column per channel, or [agent, person, channel]. Each cell can hold a conversation.

one agent, held fixed

agentdefault · alice

alice

what's first on my list today?

to alice

Finish the slide review before your 11am with marketing. You flagged it as the blocker last night.

agentdefault · bob

bob

what's first on my list today?

to bob

The PR you opened last night has two review comments from Priya waiting on you.

📖 JARGON

Is this group chat? No. A group chat puts everyone in one room with one shared transcript. Here, each person has their own private conversation, and the agent is the only one who sees across them. To share anything between them, you use the moves below.

Moving between cells

A conversation cell is able to push messages into a different cell: another person or channel, when the configuration allows for it.

To another person

The agent sends a message into another person's cell on the same channel. Good for handoffs, status broadcasts, and asking the right person. Pushing messages between users is enabled or disabled per channel.

down a column: same channel, another person

agentdefault · alice

alice

Looks good, ship it.

to alice

Approved. I'll let Bob know he's clear to push.

agentdefault · bob

to bob · moments later

Heads up, Alice just approved the launch copy. You're clear to push when ready.

bob

on it

To another channel

The agent can also send a message into the user's conversation on a different channel. In order for this to succeed, the user must have access to the target channel.

across a row: same person, another channel

To another person on another channel

These moves combine. The agent can reach another person on another channel, provided both user and recipient have access to the target channel.

diagonal: another person and another channel, in one move

Meeting on shared ground

Conversations that need to track the same changing state, like a decision log, a shared backlog, or an event stream, meet on an append-only file. Each writes to it and watches it, and a new row wakes whoever is watching. The file is the meeting point: conversations that never talk directly still coordinate through what's written there.

agentdefault · alice

alice

Add "review the migration plan" to the team backlog, flag the GDPR section.

to alice

Added. Anyone watching the backlog will pick it up on their next wake.

agentdefault · bob

to bob · backlog updated

Alice just added "review the migration plan" to the backlog. She flagged the GDPR section. Want me to pull that doc and prep a summary?

bob

yes please

Across agents

Agents can also work with each other, two ways.

Ask a peer

One agent can ask another a question and get an answer back. The two agents talk directly (no person is in between), so a generalist can consult a specialist and use the reply in its own conversation. The question goes out; the answer comes back on a later turn. This is the main way agents work together.

the question opens a cell on the peer, and the answer returns to your own conversation

Hand off a person

One agent can also hand a person off to another agent: same person, different agent. The second agent picks up the conversation and replies to them directly.

one person, held fixed: handing them to a peer agent

A handoff only lands if the person has access to the target channel.