Chat overview

Chat is where your team talks in real time. Channels for topics, direct messages for people, threads to keep tangents tidy — and because it’s part of Knobs, every message can become a task, a calendar event, or a jumping-off point for the built-in @Web research bot.

The Chat screen

• Sidebar (left): your Channels and Direct messages. An unread dot means new activity; a numbered pill means you were mentioned or DM’d.
• Timeline (center): the conversation, newest at the bottom, with a composer underneath.
• Right pane: opens when you view a thread or a channel’s pinned messages.

Everything updates live — new messages, edits, reactions, and typing indicators appear as they happen, and presence dots show who’s online.

Where conversations live

Space	What it’s for
Public channels	Open topics — anyone in the workspace can join and read
Private channels	Invite-only groups — visible only to members
Direct messages	1:1 or small-group conversations
Threads	Replies attached to a specific message, keeping the channel readable

Learn more in Channels, Direct messages, and Threads.

What a message can do

Chat messages are more than text — see Messaging for the full tour:

• Mentions: @user, @channel, @here, and @Web (the research bot).
• Reactions, edits, deletes, and pins.
• Attachments from your computer, stored in Drive.
• Slash commands like /web and /event.
• One-click Add to Tasks and Add to Calendar on any message.

Ask the web from chat

@Web is a built-in bot that researches the live web and answers in-channel with cited sources. Mention it in a message (@Web what changed in the EU AI Act this year?) or use /web for a private answer only you can see. See Messaging.

Deep links

Every channel has a URL (/chat/<channel>), and links can point at a specific thread or message — paste a chat link in a doc or task and it lands the reader exactly where the conversation happened.