THE FIELD GUIDE · 5 min read
Agents and chat
Create AI team members, configure models and tools, and collaborate through venture chat.
Agents are your venture's AI teammates; use chat to ask questions, provide context, and follow their work.
You can
- Configure teammates, models, tools, and operating state.
- Switch conversations without losing unsent drafts.
- Queue messages or continue eligible ended conversations.
- Open resource requests and design reviews from chat.
- Attach supported files without sharing secrets.
Manage your AI team
Agents have a role, instructions, model, department, tools, and operating state. Venture agents serve one venture; organization-level agents are managed separately.
| Action | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Generate a team | Use venture context for initial teammates |
| Create manually | Add a specific role |
| Edit | Change name, role, instructions, department, model, or tools |
| Activate or pause | Control operating state |
| Inspect | Review details and activity |
| Remove | Delete when authorized |
Changes affect future work and leave completed run history intact. Organization-level controls can require a different role from venture controls.
Choose models and tool access
Model choices depend on organization AI settings and provider credentials. An unavailable model or credential can stop work even when the agent remains active.
Review Settings, then retry eligible work after fixing access.
Tool access depends on venture/run context, department, role, capabilities, guardrails, and approved resources. Naming a tool in instructions does not grant it.
Grant only tools needed for the role. See Agent tool access (MCP) and Compute, tokens, and model selection.
Work with a teammate in chat
Chat saves conversations and can stream replies using venture knowledge and agent context. Use it for questions, analysis, and guided actions; pipelines provide structured multi-step work.
Chat is for your AI team rather than human-to-human messaging.
Switch conversations
- Open a teammate from the chat rail.
- Use open-conversation controls to switch teammates.
- Choose New chat at the top of the conversation menu for a new thread.
One conversation is shown at a time. Other teammates can continue replying in the background, and each thread keeps its own draft.
Older history stays readable. Only the five most recent conversations per teammate can reopen after ending; older active sessions continue until they end.
Manage queued messages
Follow-ups during an active reply join that turn so the teammate can consider them. Messages waiting for a turn can queue.
| Queue state | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Waiting | Messages send in order; the next is marked |
| Response stopped or error | Waiting messages pause |
| Paused queue | Resume when ready or remove individual messages |
| Page reload | Waiting messages survive; chat checks saved history before continuing |
Continue an ended conversation
Send a message in an eligible ended conversation to continue automatically. Opening history alone does not restart it.
If reconnection fails, use Retry connection; the unsent message stays available. Chat restores saved history after interruptions, so wait for recovery when delivery is uncertain.
Tool activity appears in an expandable summary per turn. Navigation buttons link to supported pages you can access without granting extra permissions.
Open a resource request
Authorized leadership chats can request approved resource access. Credentials are supplied programmatically; see Resources and Security Officer.
- Use Open on the resource request card to visit its Inbox request.
- Connect the resource, enter it securely, or decline with a reason when authorized.
Never paste secrets into chat. Escalation cards can be answered in place, while work cards show progress followed by results or decisions when available.
Workspace-file links open a read-only viewer. Opening a file does not edit it.
Review a design
- Choose Review design for a pending decision or View designs for results.
- Inspect mocks, captured states, and critique in the dialog.
- Use the available approval or change-request controls.
See Developer workflow for design sign-off and implementation.
Attach files to a message
Use the attachment picker, drag files into the composer, or paste from the clipboard. Files can be sent with or without message text and removed before sending.
Wait for uploads to finish. Rejected files show an error.
| Limit | Amount |
|---|---|
| Files per message | Ten |
| Each file | 25 MB |
| Message total | 50 MB |
| Supported content | Handling |
|---|---|
| Raster images, PDF, Office, ZIP, text, source code, CSV, JSON, XML, YAML, SVG, HTML | Checked for supported content, not only extension |
| ZIP | Not extracted |
| SVG and HTML | Not executed by attachment delivery |
Files remain with the saved conversation and are readable by the handling teammate. Keep passwords and keys in Credentials instead.
Support-request attachments have different limits. See Contact support.
Troubleshoot chat and agent access
| If you see… | Why | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Active teammate cannot work | Model, credential, or tool access can be unavailable | Inspect Settings and the reported error |
| Older conversation cannot reopen | Only recent ended sessions are eligible | Read its history and start a new chat |
| Waiting messages stop | Response stopped or encountered an error | Resume the queue when ready |
| Delivery uncertain | Connection is recovering | Wait for saved history before retrying |
| File rejected | Content or message limits were not met | Check supported types and limits |