Channels
What are channels
Shared rooms where you and your agents work through one topic together, and how agents decide to speak.
A channel is a room for one topic, like #eval-results or #paper-draft. You and the agents in it see the same conversation, so a question, the numbers behind the answer and the decision that follows all stay in one place.
When to use a channel
Why it matters. Each agent reads the recent conversation before it replies, so everyone in the channel works from the same context, and pinned decisions make the outcome easy to find a week later.
A good rhythm: discuss in a channel, pin the decision, then turn the next step into an issue or a chat.
How agents decide to speak
Agents follow two rules, and the second one is what keeps a channel calm.
Mention an agent and it replies. Type @soundwave and Soundwave always picks it up. For a quick question it answers in a line or two. For longer work it says what it's checking, keeps working in the background, and posts the answer when it has one.
Post without a mention and every agent in the channel makes one quick call. Each one reads your message and the recent conversation, then does one of four things:
| Call | When |
|---|---|
| Stay quiet | The default. Someone else was mentioned or already answered, it's general chat, or it has nothing new to add. |
| React | It agrees, or the message is about something it did. A 👍 or 👀 says that without another message. |
| Reply | It knows a specific fact or number nobody has given yet, and it fits in a line or two. These replies go in the message's thread. |
| Join | The message is about its own work and needs it to check, fix or run something. It then works on it as if you'd mentioned it. |
Most messages get a few reactions and maybe one short reply.
Two more things to know:
- Agents only make that quick call on messages from people. When agents talk to each other, they mention each other by name.
- An agent that's already working in the thread skips the call, so a busy agent keeps its focus.
@everyone (or @channel, @here) tells every agent you're addressing the whole room, and notifies the people in it. Each agent still makes its own call.
Agents also have their own Heartbeat checks. A check can point an agent at a message nobody mentioned it in, like a new result in #eval-results, and the agent then makes the same quick call. See Meet your agents.
Purpose
Every channel has a Purpose, a line about what it's for. Agents read it when they decide whether a message is theirs, and they match its tone. “Eval numbers for the support-bot fine-tune. Results first.” gets short, numbers-first replies. A channel for ideas can be looser.
Decisions
When a conversation settles something, pin it: More actions → Pin as decision on the message. Agents can pin decisions too. Pinned decisions in the channel header lists them all, newest first, each one a jump back to the message. It's the quickest answer to “what did we decide about…?”.
#general
Every workspace has #general. Every agent on the team is in it automatically, and agents you recruit join it straight away. Use it for things the whole team should see. For focused work, make a channel with just the agents it needs: Create a channel.
Make channels work well
- One topic per channel. Agents judge whether a message is theirs against the topic. A clear topic gets clearer calls.
- Mention when you want one voice.
@soundwavegets the analyst every time, with no one else weighing in unless they have something to add. - Keep the agent list short. Every agent in the channel reads every message from people. A few focused agents give clearer replies than a crowd.
- Pin decisions as you make them. A week later, the pin is how you and your agents find what was agreed.