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Version: 0.9.19

Chat

Chat is where you talk to your agents and swarms, see their work, and explore the results. This page covers starting a conversation, the two execution modes, pinning a specialist, attachments, and the rich panels that show an agent's thinking, sources, and files.

Starting a conversation​

From the Chat area (or the chat icon in the dock), start a new conversation by choosing who to talk to. AlphaAgent shows your active agents and swarms together in one searchable list, each tagged by type. Pick one and the conversation opens.

Your recent conversations appear in the sidebar so you can jump back into them. See Getting started.

[Screenshot: Choose an agent or swarm to start chatting]

Execution modes​

A toggle in the composer chooses how the agent works on your message:

  • Express — direct execution for the fastest turnaround. No planning step and no knowledge-graph traversal. Best for straightforward questions and quick tasks.
  • Deep Traversal — best for complex requests. The agent first builds a step-by-step plan, shows it to you, and waits for you to confirm before running. It can draw on a wired Knowledge Graph and runs up to 4 sequential steps.

How Deep Traversal works​

  1. You send your request in Deep Traversal mode.
  2. The agent responds with a plan, presented as a message.
  3. You review it and click Proceed to run it (or refine your request and re-plan).
  4. The agent executes the plan, streaming its progress.

[Screenshot: Deep Traversal plan awaiting confirmation]

If a request is too big for a chat plan, the agent explains that chat plans support up to four sequential steps and points you to Workflows for longer or parallel work. You can also convert a Deep Traversal plan into a draft workflow directly from the plan message — a handy way to turn a one-off plan into something repeatable.

Pinning a specialist with /direct​

When chatting with a swarm in Express mode, you can send a single message straight to a specific specialist instead of letting the supervisor route it. Type /direct on the last line of the composer; a picker opens (type to filter), and the specialist you choose handles that message. The pin applies to that one send. (/direct isn't available in Deep Traversal.)

Attachments​

Click the paperclip to attach files to a message. Supported types are PDF documents and images (JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP), within these limits:

KindMax countMax size each
Documents54.5 MB
Images203.75 MB

Attachments are only supported in Express mode. If you switch a message with attachments to Deep Traversal, the attachments are removed and a note explains why.

Composing and sending​

  • Press Enter to send; Shift+Enter inserts a new line.
  • While a response is generating, the composer is locked until the run finishes. Navigating away during a run is guarded — see Getting started.

Inspecting the configuration​

An info affordance opens the Configuration Inspector, which shows the Agent Map or Swarm Map for the configuration this conversation is pinned to — in read-only form, so you can see exactly which version, Knowledge Graph, and connectors are in play.

If the agent's active configuration changes after your conversation started, Studio shows an informational config drift note describing what changed. It never blocks your messages; if you'd prefer to use the new configuration, you can start a fresh conversation from the prompt.

What an agent shows you​

Replies render with full formatting — Markdown, math, and syntax-highlighted code — and can include inline charts and grids built from datasets the agent produced.

Each message can also expand into panels that reveal how the answer was produced:

  • Thoughts — the agent's reasoning behind the response.
  • Thought Map — for Knowledge Graph retrieval, an interactive map of the path the agent traversed through the graph, with a replay that re-reveals the steps in order.
  • Citations — the documents the answer drew on.
  • Web Sources — any web pages consulted.
  • Workspace — files the agent created during the run.

[Screenshot: Expanded message panels — Thoughts, Thought Map, Citations, Workspace]

Thought Map​

When an agent retrieves from a Knowledge Graph, the Thought Map visualizes that retrieval as a graph you can rotate and explore, color-coded by level of detail. Use replay to step through how the agent moved through the graph to build its answer.

Workspace viewer​

When a run produces files, the Workspace panel shows them in a file tree with sizes and download links, including the location of the workspace. While the run is active the view updates live and stays visible briefly after the run completes so you can see the final files. See Code interpreter and datasets.

Capacity notices​

If the AI service is temporarily rate-limited mid-conversation, a notice appears inline in the chat explaining the slowdown, separate from the global status banner.