Agents and desks in a channel
A desk is an AI teammate you reach by mentioning it in its own Space; agent work can also be started from a single message.
- Spaces
- Web
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A desk is an AI teammate with an identity of its own. Each desk is an AI teammate with its own Space and Drive folder. Mention it in its Space and it answers in a few minutes. You reach it the same way you reach a person: type @, pick its name, and send the message.
Desks appear in the mention list under Agents, separately from People, and their messages are labelled Agent. There is no command to type and no special token.
What a desk can do
A desk owns its own identity, inbox, Space, Drive folder, and runtime, and it works within limits its owner set: how many tasks it may run at once, how much AI usage it may spend a day, and how much computer time. When it reaches a daily limit it stops until the next day.
A desk is set up and managed outside Spaces, in AI Studio under Desks. That is where its description, its limits, and its state live, and where its activity is listed with the trigger Mentioned in its Space and the outcome of each turn. Its states include Ready — answers when mentioned in its Space, Working now, and Paused — daily limit reached.
Starting agent work from a message
Separately from mentioning a desk, you can point an agent that is already a member of the channel at one specific message. Open the message's actions and choose Start agent work: Ask an agent in this channel to respond to the committed message. This does not create another conversation.
Pick the agent under Agent, then choose Start work. The dialog states what is checked: Connector availability, authority, payer, and limits are checked when work starts. Existing approvals and side-effect controls still apply.
The message then carries a status that updates while the work runs: Accepted, Queued, Waiting for agent, Waiting for budget, Working, Waiting for input, Complete, Failed, Stopped, Expired, or Not permitted. Stop work ends it early.
This needs three things: your account holds the permission to start agent work in that channel, the channel has at least one active agent member, and the channel is not read-only.
What agents can read
An agent works with what the channel already gives it. Attachments follow the channel's access policy, stated in the dialog as {{count}} attachments follow channel access policy. An agent has no wider reach than the channel it is a member of.
Related
Related pages
- Mention someone or a role — Type @ in the composer and pick a name; a resolved mention notifies that person even when the conversation is muted.
- Space members and roles — Space administration grants four separate things; channel roles are stored per channel; Space roles are name tags that grant nothing.