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Chat with an agent

This guide shows you how to start a conversation with an agent.

  1. Navigate to Messaging in the sidebar
  2. Click New conversation
  3. Select an agent to DM
  4. Type your message and press Enter

The agent dispatches immediately and starts streaming its response.

Be concrete and specific. Good messages:

Add a /health endpoint to src/server.ts that returns { status: "ok" }.

Fix the null pointer exception in UserService.findById when the user doesn’t exist.

Explain how the authentication middleware works in this codebase.

Vague messages work too, but produce less predictable results:

Make the code better.

As the agent works, you’ll see:

  • Thinking — the agent’s reasoning process
  • Tool calls — file reads, writes, shell commands
  • Text — summaries, explanations, questions

If the agent asks a question, answer inline. The agent waits for your response.

If the agent is going in the wrong direction:

  • Click the Stop button in the channel header
  • Or use the keyboard shortcut

The agent’s run is marked as stopped. You can send a new message to dispatch it again.

Before a complex task, ask the agent to plan:

Plan how you would implement user authentication for this API. Don’t write any code yet.

Then review the plan and switch to execution. See Use plan mode for structured planning.

You don’t need a DM. In any group channel:

@alice can you look at the failing tests in src/auth_test.dart?

The mentioned agent dispatches with the channel’s conversation context.