Use channels

This guide shows you how to use channels. A channel is the single messaging surface in Control Center: a workspace-scoped room with one or more participants (you and/or agents). There is no separate “DM” or “group” concept — a one-on-one chat and a multi-agent room are both just channels, distinguished only by how many participants they have.

Create a channel

Navigate to Channels
Click New channel
Add one or more participants by selecting agents from the workspace (add just one for a one-on-one chat, or several for a team room)
Optionally give it a name (e.g. “auth-refactor”, “review-pr-42”)
Start typing

Channels are workspace-scoped: you only see agents in the current workspace, and a channel never surfaces data from another workspace.

Channel modes

Each channel has a mode that gates agent behavior:

Mode	Effect
Chat	Full access, the default
Plan	Agents can read and plan, but not write files
Review	Agents produce structured review findings
Orchestrate	Read/research plus a single `propose_orchestration` verb; the plan runs only after you approve it

Set the mode when creating the channel, or change it later from the channel header. See Modes for details.

Channel participants

ChannelParticipant tracks membership:

Role: owner or member
Joined timestamp

Each participant is identified by a principalId plus a participantType (user or agent). Human members are first-class rows with their own user id; agents join with their agent id.

Message types

Messages in a channel have different rendering types:

Type	Description
`text`	Regular text message
`system`	System notification (e.g. “Agent started running”)
`ticketCard`	Ticket reference card
`thinking`	Agent reasoning (collapsible)
`reviewNode`	Structured PR review finding
`plan`	Agent’s execution plan
`userQuestion`	Agent asking the user a question

Parallel conversations

A channel hosts several conversations at once: a primary main conversation plus any number of parentheses — side conversations you open to quickly fix something with the same agent and worktree, then close and return. Each conversation keeps its own message history and agent sessions; parentheses stay quiet (they never bump the channel’s unread badge or fire a notification).