Conversations

Each bot has one chat in its pod, and everyone in the pod shares it. Open a bot from the chat list and write in the box that says "Message Trip Planner".

#Who answers?

In a bot's chat, that bot answers. Mentioning someone with @ changes who the message is for, not who's in charge. Try it:

Mentions use a person's or bot's handle at the start of a word, like @budget-keeper. Email addresses don't count as mentions.

@here and @channel mention everyone who can see the conversation, and notify each of them as a mention does. They are for people: a message with @here or @channel gets an answer from a bot only if it names that bot too. A bot can't use them to notify anyone, and no bot can take here or channel as its handle.

#Bots asking bots

When a bot needs help, it can ask another bot in the same pod. It writes a short brief, the other bot answers in a thread of its own, and the first bot carries on with the answer.

That exchange shows up under Trip Planner's message in the chat as a line, "Collaboration with Budget Keeper". Open it to read the whole thing.

A few rules keep this from getting out of hand:

• A bot can ask one other bot per turn, and never itself.
• A bot that was asked can ask one more, but no deeper than that.
• If an answer takes more than two minutes, the asking bot moves on, and picks up again when the answer arrives.
• After twelve bot replies in a row with no person in between, the bots pause.

#Threads beside the chat

Some conversations happen off to the side, and show in the chat as a single line you can open:

• Collaborations, when one bot asks another.
• Routine runs, when a bot does a scheduled job.
• Approvals, when a bot is waiting for someone to allow a tool call.

#Notifications

Sugabots can notify you in your browser, the way Slack does. Turn them on from the bar across the top of the app, or in Settings → Notifications. Each browser and device is turned on by itself, and notifies you while Sugabots is open in it, even in a tab you aren't looking at.

You choose what you hear about:

• Mentions and replies, to begin with: messages that mention you, a bot's answers to you, replies in conversations you're part of, and approvals that wait on you.
• Everything: every new message in the conversations you can see.
• Nothing.

Unless you chose Nothing, you also hear when a bot can't finish its reply to you, and when a run of a routine you made or started fails. In Settings → Notifications you can turn the first off, and hear of every run or none.

Right-click a pod in the sidebar to give it a level of its own, or to mute it, for good or, under More options, for a while, and right-click a bot to do the same for it. A bot follows its pod until you choose otherwise, and a pod follows your own level. A bot's level covers its conversations and what it posts in the pod's chats, though a pod muted for a while quiets every bot in it. You can also pause all notifications for a while, or set quiet hours each day. You aren't notified about a conversation you're looking at.

#Summaries

After a bot replies, Sugabots updates a short summary of the conversation, and gives it a title the first time. You'll find it in the details panel, along with who's been talking and which tools and routines are in play.

#Long conversations

A bot rereads its chat every time it replies, and it can only hold so much in mind at once. Think of it as the bot's short-term memory. When a chat gets long, Sugabots makes room by compacting what the bot rereads. You don't have to do anything, and nothing is deleted: everyone still sees the whole chat.

How it works:

• It starts early. Once a chat fills most of the bot's short-term memory, Sugabots starts compacting it, while there's still plenty of room to keep chatting.
• It happens in the background. Nobody waits for it, and nothing shows in the chat.
• Recent messages stay whole. The bot keeps rereading the latest messages word for word. The ones before them become a summary of what was decided, asked for and promised, what's still open, and key details like dates and prices, along with who said each thing.
• The summary carries forward. When the chat fills up again, the new summary builds on the last one.
• The bot can look further back. The summary can't hold everything. When the bot needs a detail it doesn't have, it searches the earlier messages.

To see how full a bot's short-term memory is, and when it was last compacted, open the chat's details panel.