Guide
Collaboration and chat
Chat is where your team talks in real time, right next to the work. You get channels for a topic, a team, or a project, direct messages for one person or a small group, and threads that keep a focused reply chain out of the main conversation. This guide covers what Chat is, how to use it, and how to reach it from the API.
What Chat is
Real-time messaging, built into Atlas.
Open Chat from the sidebar, or press Cmd-K and type "chat". Messages arrive the instant they are sent. You can react with emoji, mention people, attach files, pin what matters, and search across everything you have access to. Chat lives next to your tasks and projects, so a conversation and the work it is about are never more than a click apart.
Channels and direct messages
Two kinds of conversation, each with its own privacy rules.
A channel is a named space that the people you invite can join, and it is the right home for a topic, a team, or a project. A channel can be public, so anyone in your workspace can find and join it, or private, so only an invited list can see it. A private channel does not appear in search or in any list for people who are not members.
A direct message is a private conversation between you and one or more specific people, and it is only ever visible to those people. Start one with the New message button at the top of the channel rail on the left.
Threads, reactions, and mentions
Keep busy channels readable, and pull the right people in.
When a conversation gets busy, reply in a thread to keep a focused back-and-forth out of the main flow. Hover any message to react with an emoji, start a thread, pin it, or save it for later.
Type @ to mention a teammate so they get notified. A read receipt lets you see who has caught up, so you know a message landed without having to ask. You can also turn any message into a task: the new task keeps a link back to the original message, so the context travels with the work.
Sharing files
Drag files in, preview them inline, and know they are safe.
To share a file, drag it onto the conversation, paste an image straight from your clipboard, or use the attachment button in the composer. Images and PDFs preview right in the message, so people do not have to download a file just to see what it is.
Every attachment is scanned before it is shared. If a file fails the scan, it is quarantined and never delivered, and you are told, so nothing fails silently. If your connection drops mid-upload, Chat holds the file and finishes sending once you are back online.
Search, pins, and saved items
Find any message, and keep the ones that matter.
Search looks across every channel and direct message you have access to, and never across ones you do not. Search by the words in a message, then open any result to jump straight to it in context. Pin a message to keep it at the top of a channel for everyone, or save one to a private list only you can see.
Staying connected
Chat heals itself when your network drops.
When your connection wobbles, Chat notices right away and shows a reconnecting indicator, so you are never left guessing. Whatever you were reading stays on screen. When the connection comes back, Chat quietly fills in the messages you missed so you do not have to refresh the page, and a message you sent stays queued and is delivered as soon as you are back online.
Privacy and admin controls
Who can read what, and what your admin can set.
You only see conversations you are part of
Your admin can set a retention window and a legal hold. Under a legal hold, messages are preserved even when a retention window would otherwise remove them. Where your organization policy allows it, an admin with a compliance role can export conversations for legal reasons, and every such access is written to the audit log.
Editing or deleting a message keeps an audit trail. A deleted message leaves a small tombstone marker so the record of the conversation stays honest. Leaving a channel removes it from your list but does not delete its history for the members who remain.
For developers
Reach chat from the REST API and from AI agents.
Chat is a first-class part of the Atlas API. Endpoints live under /v1/chat in the Collaboration tag group and are guarded by two scopes: chat:read to read channels, members, and message history, and chat:write to post and manage messages. AI agents can drive the same surface through the Model Context Protocol (MCP) tools.