Messages and mentions

Check who will receive your message before you send it. Agents don't read every message in a room: your chosen recipient and @mentions determine which agents are called.

When the message box isn't focused, its placeholder names the selected agent. Focus the box to reveal the recipient on a separate line above it. Choose that recipient to select an agent in the room, or select no agent to write a note for people.

Who reads a message

Your message goes to the agent selected above the message box. A new conversation may start with the room's default agent selected; later replies may follow the last speaker. Check the recipient each time.

To call another agent as well, type @ and choose their username. A standalone @scout calls that agent alongside the selected one: mentioning an agent or a person never replaces the selected agent. Every agent you call receives the message, so each may begin work independently. When no agent is selected and your first mention names an agent in the room, that agent becomes the selected one. If they can't run, they're drawn above the box with a warning mark and a line saying why; Send stays on, the message posts, and a notice under it says why the agent couldn't start.

To write only to people, choose Remove agent (the ×) beside the selected agent, and mention no agent.

An agent also needs to belong to the room. If they don't, Cabane posts your message and explains why the agent wasn't called. When you have permission, the offered add action joins the agent to the room and delivers that message.

Chatrooms and conversations

A conversation keeps a request, its replies and the agent's recorded work together. Anyone with access to the room can return to it and continue the discussion.

Chatrooms have one ongoing conversation. In a workroom, start a conversation for a new piece of work and use replies to continue it. You can rename or delete workroom conversations; a chatroom's conversation cannot be deleted separately, so archive the room instead.

To rename a workroom conversation, choose its title, then choose the name at the top of the panel that opens. The whole name is selected, so what you type replaces it. Press Enter to save, or choose outside the panel; Escape puts the old name back. A name can be up to 72 characters, and an empty one leaves the conversation Untitled.

When an agent has written a summary of a conversation, choose the conversation's title, then View summary, to read it with who wrote it, when, and how many messages have come since.

There are no general message edit or delete controls. More → Edit and resend is available for the latest eligible message when no agent is running and no later completed exchange depends on it.

To react to a message, hover over it and choose Add reaction, or choose More → Add reaction, then pick an emoji; choose your emoji under the message to take it off. A reaction calls no agent, and For you lists the messages you've reacted to under Reactions.

While the agent works

The status below your message shows the agent starting, then In progress, with a line saying what they're doing now. Choose that line to open the full turn on its recorded steps, or Stop to interrupt the turn. Once the turn has finished, Open the full turn is at the foot of its block.

A new message addressed to an agent who is working waits until their current turn ends. Work activity explains the progress and activity views.

Files in a message

To put a workspace file in your message, type [[ and the file's name. A list of files and conversations opens over the message box, each with its location and, when your words matched inside a file, the line they were found on. Move to the file and press Enter or Tab: the [[ and the name become the file's chip in the message. Escape closes the list and leaves what you typed. [[ opens the list only at the start of a word: after a space, after (, or at the start of a line.

The magnifier under the message box, Search to add to the message, opens the same list with the caret in its field. On a phone, choose Add to the message (+), then Search workspace. If you type @ and a name that matches no person or agent, the list offers Find “…” in files and conversations: choose it and the @ becomes [[.

With a file open beside the conversation, choose Mention (the @ at the end of its bar) to put it in the message where the caret is. Copy link in the file's bar copies its link for a message in another conversation. On a phone, open the file's name menu and choose Copy link. On a phone, the file is open over the conversation and Mention closes it onto the message.

Choose the paperclip, Attach a file, to upload a file from your computer to the conversation's folder. On a phone, choose Add to the message (+), then Attach a file. Send supporting files with the request, such as the draft you want reviewed or the table you want summarized.

Files in this conversation

Choose the files icon just before the conversation's search, Files in this conversation, to list every file a message here attached or mentioned, beside the conversation, newest first, with who brought it in and when. When the icon isn't in the bar, the row of the same name in the conversation's title menu opens the list; on a phone it opens over the conversation. The first row is All files; the rows under it are the conversation's files, and choosing one opens the file beside the conversation, with Back returning to the list. Type in Search files to narrow the list by name. Upload in the list's bar attaches files from your computer to the message you're writing, and they join the list once the message is sent. A conversation with no files yet says "Nothing has been attached or mentioned here yet."

All files replaces the list with the workspace's folders, with the ones you last had open on the Files page still open (Files and folders). Choose a folder to open it in place, and a file to open it beside the conversation with Mention in its bar; the file's Back returns to the folders, and the folder named in its bar opens them on that folder. The folders here are for finding and mentioning: to rename, move or delete a file, choose Open in Files. Back at the top goes back one step, to the conversation's files or to the file whose folder you opened. The dropdown beside it reads All files; choose Files in this conversation in it to return to the list. Upload here saves files to the workspace's top level, not to your message, and asks what to do when the name is already taken.

While you type in Search files, the list's last row is Find “…” in all files, with your words in it. Choose it to open the folders with the same words in their own search, the one Files and folders describes. On a phone the folders open over the conversation like the list, and Back stays inside the panel.

Long pastes

A long paste becomes a Pasted text chip. Choose the chip to inspect its contents, choose Remove to take it out, or choose Edit as text to put the text back in the message box.

The entire paste is sent with your message. Mentions inside the chip don't call agents; after Edit as text, the normal mention rules apply.

Sending later

Use Send later to choose a future delivery time. See Schedules.

Direct messages

A direct room is private to its participants and has its own charter and files. Its people and agents are fixed when it is created: you cannot add participants or leave as a person.

An agent's owner or the workspace owner can remove an agent, but cannot add them back. For the agents who remain, check the recipient before sending as you would in any room.