Threads, groups, and collaboration

Bots and threads

A bot is a durable agent identity. A thread is one conversation with that bot and has its own transcript, provider session, approvals, costs, and running state. It runs on the bot's model unless you pick another model in that thread. Optional folders organize related threads without duplicating the bot's memory or skills.

Use separate threads when you want fresh context or independent work without duplicating the bot. Messages sent to a busy thread are queued, and supported providers can be steered while they work. Other threads can continue independently. See Bots, folders, and threads for limits and shared-resource behavior.

Reactions

Point at a bot's message (or press and hold it on a touch screen) and choose the smiley to react with 👍, 👎, ❤️, 😂, 🎉 or 👀. Everyone in that conversation or group sees the reaction under the message, with who chose it. Each person has one reaction per message: picking another replaces yours, and choosing yours again takes it away.

A 👍 or 👎 on a bot's message is your answer to it. When a bot asks "Shall I send it?", a 👍 means yes and the bot carries on by itself; a 👎 means no. In a group, the answer goes to the bot that wrote the message. If the bot is still working, your answer waits for it, and taking the reaction back before the bot gets to it takes the answer back too. The bot hears each change of answer once: putting back a 👍 it already has does not repeat it.

On an open approval card, a 👍 allows and a 👎 denies, the same as tapping the card. That decision stays made even if you take the reaction back.

The other reactions never start any work: the bot reads them with your next message.

Token usage

Hover over the usage chip in a bot's chat header to see the totals and the latest message's usage. Input and output are separate:

• Uncached input is input the provider did not report as served from its prompt cache.
• Cached input is input the provider reported as served from its prompt cache.
• Output is the generated token count reported by the provider.

Uncached input plus cached input equals total input. If the provider does not report a cache split, the tooltip shows total input and output instead. A missing cache count is not treated as zero.

The compact chip shows cost when the provider reports it. Otherwise, it shows uncached input when known, or total input. Generated output is listed separately in the tooltip and is not added to either input figure.

Groups

Groups bring several bots into one conversation. Each participant keeps its own provider state. Group timeouts prevent a participant from blocking the whole group indefinitely. Existing channels and their thread histories remain intact; the new label does not change turn-taking or delegation.

When a bot sends the same request to several group members, the group shows one shared message addressed to those members. Each member runs with its own model and permissions and can reply in that conversation. Different assignments remain separate.

Group token usage

After a group participant finishes a turn, the group header shows the current thread's reported cost, or input tokens when no cost is reported. Hover over the compact badge for uncached input, cached input, and output, plus the latest participant's turn. Switching threads switches these figures too; other group threads and private chats are excluded.

The figures come from the existing usage ledger and survive restarting the app. A missing cache figure is shown as an unknown split, not zero cached input. If some turns omit cost, the dollar amount sums only reported costs.

Departments

The sidebar groups bots into departments, such as "Product A" or "SEO/SEA". Bots outside any department are in General.

Departments are folders, not walls. Every bot can talk to every other bot, in any department, with nothing to set up: ask your Support bot to "check with @Bolt" and it asks Bolt, even when Bolt is in Dev or reports to someone else. Bots can also be in a group chat together whatever their departments.

What a department does decide is who is in charge. A Chief of Staff looks after its own department (and any others you put it in charge of under Permissions → Also in charge of): it hears about its bots' problems, can retry their work and can suggest changes to how they're set up. Talking to a bot never gives another bot that kind of say over it.

A bot talks to fewer bots only if it was set up with a list of the bots it may talk to, for example from a template. Its Permissions page then says so, with Let it talk to every bot to open it up again. An archived bot can't be reached, and on a shared workspace a bot only works with bots the same people can see.

Renaming a department

Right-click a named department heading in the sidebar and choose Rename department, or use the department's menu on the Team map. Enter the new name and save. Bots (including archived bots), group chats, shared instructions, and an assigned desktop stay together. Existing management access to a populated department follows its new name; an existing department's name cannot be used to merge departments. Finish active work before renaming.

Deleting a department

To delete a department, right-click its name in the sidebar and choose Delete department, or use its Manage menu in Team map. The confirmation explains that bots (including archived bots) and group chats move to General with their conversations intact. The department's shared instructions are removed; General's instructions stay unchanged. Stop active work and unassign any desktop first. If moving the department's Chief would conflict with General's Chief, move or change one of those Chiefs before deleting the department.

Department membership

Every named department keeps an Add bots button in the sidebar. Once it has members, the button reads Add or remove bots. The dialog lists current members as checked alongside other available bots. Check a bot to move it into the department; uncheck one to move it to General, then save. Conversations stay with the bots. A move that would put two Chiefs of Staff in the same department is refused.

Choose New bot inside this dialog to make a bot in that department at once. It appears checked in the membership list, and your other unsaved checkbox edits stay as they were.

Who a bot reports to (teams)

On a team's Cloud, every bot reports to one person: whoever created it, unless someone chose another. That person gets the bot's questions, approvals, failures and routine results in their inbox (below). Everyone can still chat with every shared bot. In your own private chat with a bot, what it asks always comes to you there.

• The face at the end of a bot's row in the sidebar shows who it reports to. Admins, and the person it reports to, can click it to pick someone else.
• Right-click a department and choose Set owner for all bots… to change every bot in it at once. When they all report to one person, the department shows "→ Name".
• A question or approval in a shared chat says who it is asking.
• Each person can have their own Chief of Staff: a crowned bot that reports to them. It is in charge of the bots that report to that person, and your chat with it is your inbox. Like every bot, it can still talk to any other bot, and any bot can talk to it.
• In your private chat, a bot can ask any other bot for you. That bot's work stays private to you too, and nothing from your private chat is posted into a group chat.
• The Team map's Who reports to whom shows each person with their Chief and their bots. Drag a bot onto a person to change who it reports to, or open it from a department's menu with See who reports to whom.

Your inbox (teams)

On a team's Cloud, everything for you arrives in one place: your chat with your own Chief of Staff, or with your own MengBot if you have no Chief. Nothing to set up. Each line says who it is from and where it came from, with a link back when you can open that conversation, and you get one notification for it, on your computer and your phone.

• A bot's "Tell Ben that…" (the message_person tool), from any bot or chat.
• @Ben written by a teammate anywhere, or by a bot in a chat Ben can see.
• Questions and approvals for you (from the bots that report to you), with the same Approve and Deny buttons as in the chat they came from. Answering here answers there.
• Work handed between bots that waits on you, failures, and your routines' results.

Answering is replying. Use Reply on a line, give it a 👍 or 👎, or just tell your Chief ("tell Cleo Friday works"). The answer goes back where the line came from: to the bot that asked, which carries on, or to the teammate's own inbox. Only your answer goes, nothing else from your chat.

Everyone has an Inbox. It is the row at the top of the sidebar, with no team and no account too: questions and approvals your bots wait on, what they sent you, and routine reports, each labelled with who it is from. Answer there and the bot carries on. Each place keeps its own, so the dot on a place in the rail tells you where something waits.

Your inbox at a glance. In your chat with your Chief, one card keeps what needs you in view: how many things need you and how many are just for your information, the newest few with their answer buttons right there, and Open inbox. The whole inbox opens on the right, in three tabs: Needs you (questions and approvals), For your info (reports, mentions and messages) and Done. Click a line to read it in full and answer or reply; mark news done when you need nothing more from it. On a phone it opens as a sheet.

What waits on you is counted. Your own row under People shows how many questions and approvals wait on you in your inbox, and the same number is added to the count on the app's icon and in the browser tab. It drops as soon as you settle one, wherever you do it: in your inbox, in the chat it came from, or on your phone. A message you answer in the chat it came from leaves Needs you too.

Your assistant answers simple facts for you. When a teammate asks something your shared facts answer, your Chief answers by itself and says it was "Ben's assistant". It only knows when you are busy (from your own Google Calendar, when you connected it: times only, never what the meetings are), the shared notes of your bots, and how their work stands. It never decides, approves, promises or agrees to anything for you, never sends anything outside the team, and never reads your private chats or About you: those questions wait for you. You see every question and every answer it gave in your inbox, and replying corrects it.

People in the sidebar. The team's people are listed with their pictures, and they are in the @ list next to the bots. Click yourself to open your inbox; click a teammate to start a message with @their name in the chat you have open. Everyone in the team sees each teammate's name and picture; your About you and everything else stay private.

Someone who has left the team can't be reached, and the bot says so. One conversation can pass at most 10 messages an hour.

Off a team, nothing changes: the @ list shows bots, and @you still means you.

Delegation

Bots can hand work to other bots, in any department. Delegated runs carry explicit status back into the parent conversation, including completion, failure, and cancellation: you see a "Sent to Bolt" line where the work went out, and the answer when it comes back. A bot does not need to be in a group chat to get work from one: work for a bot that isn't in the chat goes to that bot directly, in a thread of its own, and the chat shows "Sent to Bolt directly: it isn't in this room." Nobody is added to the chat, so nobody new reads it.

Creating a specialist with a chosen model

A Chief also adds a specialist on its own when a job needs one: an ongoing area of work, a different skill set, or work to run in parallel. The bot is created at once, the Chief tells you in one line, and the change has an Undo. When what you want matches a ready-made team in the library, the Chief reads its roles with list_team_library and creates them the same way.

A Chief of Staff can create a specialist in its own department with create_bot. On a team, the new specialist reports to the Chief's own person. Ask for a particular engine, model and reasoning effort if you want to choose them. The Chief can look up exact available choices with list_team_setup and pass modelSelection with instanceId, model, and optionally effort or a supported variant (not both).

When no model selection is supplied, the new bot uses the workspace's default model selection, including its reasoning effort; it does not copy the Chief's model. An invalid explicit choice is rejected rather than silently replaced. The new bot starts with connected apps disabled and at Full access, like any new bot, and existing bots keep their models. Combined team changes still use the reviewed team-setup flow.

Rewind and branches

Editing an earlier message creates a new conversation path. MengBot avoids resuming stale provider sessions after a rewind, so the next turn follows the visible branch rather than hidden abandoned state.

Memory and working folders

Bot memory is visible and editable. A bot may also have a dedicated working folder; groups can use a shared working folder. Cloud workspaces use a stable default so generated files remain discoverable across threads. A sidebar folder is only organization, not a working directory or a permission boundary.