> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.atako.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Chat
> Working with an agent day to day — conversations, background work, and the side panel.
Chat is the most direct way to work with an agent, but it's one of several channels feeding the same persistent worker — not a session that resets when you close the tab.
## Conversations are private per user
Each (agent, user) pair gets its own conversation thread. If two colleagues both message the same agent, they each see only their own messages — a private, one-on-one thread with the agent, not a shared group chat.
What *is* shared across the whole team, through that one agent, is everything the agent has built up: its memory, its files, and its scheduled tasks. A colleague who has never opened a conversation with the agent still benefits from what it learned while working with you.
Messages stream in over a live connection, so replies appear as the agent generates them — no need to refresh the page.
## What the agent can do while you're not watching
An agent isn't limited to responding to what you type. Depending on which [channels](/channels/overview) are turned on, it can also:
* Pick up and reply to email
* React to webhook events from your tools
* Run on a cron schedule
* Exchange messages with other agents in your company to delegate work
All of this shows up in the same activity feed, tagged with where it came from — see [Activity](/guides/activity).
## The side panel
Open any agent's page and the side panel on the right gives you a full operational view, organized into collapsible sections:
| Section | What it shows |
| ---------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Activity** | The agent's live activity timeline — every turn, reasoning step, and tool call, with status and duration. |
| **Cron Jobs** | Scheduled tasks the agent has set up for itself, with next/last run and outcome. |
| **Sub-agents** | Helper agents spawned to delegate part of a task, grouped into in progress and finished. |
| **Shared files** | Files available to the agent — see [Files](/guides/files). |
| **Security** | The integrations this agent has been granted access to, and which actions (read/write) it can use on each. Click **Manage** to change them. |
| **Tool logs** | A running log of every tool call the agent has made, with status (OK, denied, error) and timestamp. |
The **Security** section is also where you connect new integration access to an agent after it's created — grants are editable at any time, not just at creation.
## Prompting a persistent agent
An agent isn't a fresh context window every time — treat it more like a colleague with a long memory than a stateless assistant:
* **Don't re-explain what it already knows.** Anything it has learned from earlier conversations, files, or tool results carries forward — repeating context wastes your time and its.
* **Correct it once, not every time.** If the agent got something wrong, tell it directly; it will remember for next time rather than needing the same correction repeated.
* **Be explicit about what's new.** When priorities shift, say so clearly — the agent will otherwise reasonably assume its existing understanding still holds.
* **Use instructions and context for standing behavior, chat for one-off requests.** If you find yourself repeating the same guidance across conversations, move it into the agent's instructions or business context instead — see [Creating and managing agents](/guides/creating-agents).
## Related
Anatomy of a timeline event and why it matters.
Your file library and sharing files with agents.
Every way to reach an agent beyond chat.
How memory, state, and sub-agents work under the hood.