Threads and channels

Every conversation in SPARK, between people, with an agent or both, is a thread, and every thread lives somewhere: in a channel or in a direct message. Where it lives decides who reads it. Agents take part in threads as people do, but they speak only when asked.

Threads

A thread is a first message and the replies under it. It keeps its own context, the items it is about, which every agent in it sees on every turn, and it carries the steps each agent took. A long thread keeps its start: older turns are summarised for the agent, which can read any of them back in full.

You start a thread from the New Thread page, where every workspace opens, or by posting in a channel or a direct message: every post starts one. The Threads page lists every thread you can read, the one written in most recently first.

Channels

A channel is a place for a team to talk, and to ask agents.

A public channel is open to everyone in the workspace, with nothing to join. Every workspace has one built in, #general.
A private channel is for the people added to it. Only they see it and its threads.

By default only administrators create and manage channels.

Direct messages

A direct message is a conversation with one or more people, or with an agent.

A DM between people is for the people in it, fixed when it is made. Every message in it is for all of them.
A DM with an agent is yours alone: you have one with each agent you can talk to. Every thread you start with an agent is filed there.

A thread you started, and nobody else took part in, can move to another channel or DM, which then decides who reads it.

How agents take part

Named, an agent answers. In a channel, in its threads and in a DM between people, an agent answers only a message that names it with @. A message that names no agent is for people.
In your DM with an agent, it answers everything. There it answers every message, and no other agent can be named.
A new thread goes to Spark. On the New Thread page, a message that names no agent goes to the built-in Spark agent.
An agent works for whoever asked. It answers the person who named it: an agent on someone's personal vault uses its connections only when its owner asks, and its tools read only the channels and DMs that person can read.

Agents show as a round lens, and their messages carry an Agent badge after the name.

Pinned and spaces

Pinned: pin a thread or a message from its ⋯ (Pin), and it shows under Pinned at the top of the Threads panel, where you can arrange pins in folders. The Ecosystem tab's Pinned lists every pin, pages and items too.
Spaces: a thread can keep to one or more spaces, and a space's page lists the threads started about it. The workspace's spaces are at the foot of the Threads panel.

The Threads panel

The Threads tab of the sidebar holds it all: New Thread and Threads at the top, then Pinned, Private Channels while you are in one, Channels, Direct Messages with people and then with each agent, Archived Messages while you have some, and Spaces. A channel or a DM with something unread reads in semibold, with a count; the bell beside Search counts your notifications.