Documentation

Chatting with Agents

Learn how to communicate effectively with your Kindship agent using the chat interface.

The chat interface is where you work with your agent. Understanding the difference between conversational chat, system-directed work, and async user messaging helps you get better results and accomplish more together.

The Chat Interface

When you open your agent's workspace, you'll see the chat interface. It's straightforward:

  • Message input — Type your messages here
  • Conversation history — See past messages and responses
  • Context indicators — See what your agent is referencing
  • Inbox-aware workspace surfaces — See when an agent is waiting for your action

Standard Chat vs System Chat

Kindship offers two closely related chat surfaces:

  • Standard chat is best for planning, discussion, brainstorming, and review
  • System Chat is best for directing active work and watching execution unfold in the activity stream

If you want to talk through an idea, use standard chat. If you want to push the agent into action and track the result live, use System Chat.

Async User Messaging

Not every agent message now arrives as a normal chat turn or a blocking execution prompt.

  • User messaging is the async channel agents use for questions, approvals, choices, and reports that should stay visible outside a normal chat turn
  • Inbox views help you respond without losing the rest of the workspace
  • The originating thread still matters, because Kindship increasingly keeps those asks tied to the conversation they came from
  • Reports are informational by default, so they should not feel like another confirmation queue unless the agent is explicitly asking for a decision

See Reports And Asks for the fuller triage model.

Sending Messages

Just type naturally. You don't need special commands or syntax. Your agent understands:

  • Questions
  • Instructions
  • Requests
  • Ideas and brainstorming
  • Feedback and corrections

Response Time

Your agent typically responds within seconds. Complex requests that require more thinking may take slightly longer.

System Chat may feel different because messages can appear optimistically while the underlying work starts, and active work can also be interrupted when needed.

User messaging feels different again: an agent may send you an ask, keep working elsewhere, and pick up your response later during a heartbeat or the next relevant thread.

Effective Communication

Be Clear and Specific

Compare these two requests:

Less effective: "Help me with my project."

More effective: "Help me create a timeline for launching my podcast. I want to publish the first episode in 6 weeks and I need to choose equipment, record 3 episodes, and set up distribution."

The more context and specificity you provide, the more useful the response.

Give Context

Your agent remembers past conversations, but it helps to provide context when:

  • Starting a new topic
  • Connecting to something from long ago
  • Introducing new information

Example: "Remember the marketing plan we discussed last month? I've decided to focus on the social media approach instead of paid ads."

Ask Follow-up Questions

Don't accept the first response if it doesn't fully address your needs:

  • "Can you elaborate on point 2?"
  • "What are the downsides of this approach?"
  • "Give me a concrete example."
  • "How would this work in my specific situation?"

Provide Feedback

Let your agent know what's working:

  • "This is exactly what I needed."
  • "This is too detailed — give me a summary instead."
  • "I like this approach, but the timeline is unrealistic."

Your agent learns from feedback and adjusts accordingly.

Types of Conversations

Planning Conversations

When you want to organize work:

"Let's plan out the next quarter. My main priorities are growing revenue 20%, hiring two engineers, and launching the mobile app."

Your agent will help break this down into objectives, projects, and tasks.

Operational Conversations

When you want the agent to actively do work instead of only discussing it, use System Chat:

"Review the current roadmap and suggest the next three actions."

"Inspect the latest run and tell me where it got stuck."

"Stop what you're doing and switch to the deployment issue."

This mode is especially useful when you want progress and execution feedback in the same place.

Replying To Agent Asks

When an agent needs something specific from you, reply in the surface that best fits the moment:

  • In the agent Inbox tab when you are already inside that agent's workspace
  • In /home/inbox when you want to triage asks across multiple agents
  • In Telegram when the message arrived there with buttons or reply instructions

Kinds of asks you may see include:

  • Questions — Free-text answers
  • Choices — Pick from provided options
  • Approvals — Approve or decline

Reports may also appear in the same overall messaging system, but they are not meant to demand a reply. Treat a report as "read this if useful"; treat questions, choices, and approvals as the items that need action.

Reports should be short enough to scan. If the agent is sending long iterative logs, ask it to summarize the useful change, the current blocker if any, and the next action only.

Problem-Solving Conversations

When you're stuck on something:

"I'm having trouble deciding between two vendors for our payment processing. Can you help me think through the decision?"

Your agent will ask about your criteria, compare options, and help you weigh trade-offs.

Brainstorming Conversations

When you want to generate ideas:

"I need creative ideas for our company retreat. We have 30 people, a $5,000 budget, and it should be within 2 hours of the office."

Your agent will generate options and help you evaluate them.

Check-in Conversations

When you want to review progress:

"Let's review where we are on the product launch. What's done, what's pending, and what are the blockers?"

Your agent will reference your planning structure and provide a status update.

Advanced Tips

Use "Let's" for Collaboration

Starting with "Let's" signals you want to work together:

  • "Let's figure out our pricing strategy."
  • "Let's review the project plan."
  • "Let's brainstorm some alternatives."

Ask for Multiple Options

Get more perspective by asking for alternatives:

  • "Give me three different approaches to this."
  • "What are the pros and cons of each option?"
  • "What would you recommend, and why?"

Request Specific Formats

Tell your agent how you want information presented:

  • "Give me this as bullet points."
  • "Create a table comparing these options."
  • "Walk me through this step by step."
  • "Summarize this in two sentences."

Think Out Loud

Share your reasoning to get better feedback:

"I'm thinking we should delay the launch by two weeks because we're behind on testing. But I'm worried about missing the holiday window. What do you think?"

This gives your agent context to provide more relevant advice.

Conversation Management

Long Conversations

Your agent maintains context throughout long conversations. If a conversation gets very long, your agent might summarize earlier parts to stay focused.

Starting Fresh

If you want to discuss something completely unrelated, you can simply change topics. Your agent will shift context while still remembering the earlier conversation.

If a system-chat run is headed in the wrong direction, interrupt it directly instead of trying to steer around the mistake with follow-up messages.

If an async ask belongs to an earlier thread, follow the deep link from the inbox into that thread instead of answering in a disconnected place. The more the answer lives near the originating conversation, the easier it is for both you and the agent to recover context later.

Referencing Past Conversations

You can reference previous discussions:

"Remember when we talked about the marketing budget? I have an update..."

Your agent will recall the relevant context.

Troubleshooting

My agent seems to have forgotten something

Try being more specific about what you're referencing. Give dates, project names, or other identifying details.

I answered in the inbox and want to see what happens next

Open the linked thread or the Plan tab for that agent. User messaging is designed to feed back into the agent's ongoing work, not live forever as a separate detached prompt.

I see a report but no reply control

That is expected for informational updates. Reports are designed to keep you aware without adding another task to your queue.

Telegram updates feel repetitive

Treat Telegram as an attention channel. Ask the agent to lead with the substance of the update, keep routine reports short, and reserve buttons or explicit reply prompts for asks that truly need action.

Responses are off-topic

Redirect clearly: "That's not quite what I meant. Let me clarify..." and restate your question.

I want shorter/longer responses

Tell your agent directly. It will adjust its communication style.

Next Steps