Agent messaging
Agent messaging lets people just talk to an agent, from Slack, Telegram, Microsoft Teams, email, or your own software.
Agent messaging is the plain version of using an agent: somebody sends it a message and it answers. Then they ask a follow-up and it still knows what they were talking about.
Use it when the next message decides what happens. A technician mid-call asking "what's the warranty on this serial number?" and then "and what did we quote them last year?" is a conversation. There's no process to define; they just need answers.
A routine is the other shape: the same request on a schedule or when an event arrives. Both use the same assistants, but every routine occurrence gets a separate run conversation. Pick plain messaging when you can't predict the next question.
What it looks like in practice
Northwind IT keeps Scout in #service-desk. Somebody types @Scout what's Ridgeline's escalation path? and gets an answer in the thread. Somebody else
asks it to summarize a long ticket before picking it up.
Nobody built a job for either of those. They just asked.
Where the conversation can happen
| Where | Good for |
|---|---|
| The Mobius app | Trying an agent out, and internal use |
| Slack, Telegram, or Microsoft Teams | Your team, where they already are |
| An address people outside your team can write to | |
| Your own software | A chat window in a client portal or a technician tool |
Same agent, different doorway. Every conversation is a session, but who can read it follows who can see the chat. A shared chat such as a Slack channel or a Teams group chat belongs to the chat: read it there, because nobody opens it in Mobius. What the agent remembers there stays there too. See Privacy in chat apps.
What happens to a message
- Someone sends a message from the app, Slack, Telegram, Teams, email, or your software.
- Mobius works out which agent it's for and which conversation it belongs to.
- It finds the existing session, or starts a new one.
- The agent takes its turn and its reply is written into the transcript.
- The reply goes back to wherever the message came from.
Step four and step five are separate on purpose. Slack can be down and the agent's answer still exists in Mobius. If a reply never showed up in a conversation you can open in Mobius, check the session first: if the answer is there, it's a delivery problem, not an agent problem.
Try it in the app first
Open Build > Agents, pick your agent, and click Chat. Give it a real task from your actual work, not a test question.
Chat conversations are real sessions, so you can come back to one later and carry on. Start a new chat when the subject changes and old context would just get in the way.
Do this before connecting a channel. It's much easier to fix instructions in a window nobody else is watching.
Connect a chat app
An organization admin connects Slack, Microsoft Teams, Telegram, or Linear under Build > Integrations. The last step of connecting asks Which agent answers here? Pick one and save. You can also skip it and choose later.
One agent answers in each Slack workspace, Teams organization, Telegram bot, or Linear workspace. Everyone there can message it directly, and in channels and group chats people @mention it.
A chat app reaches everyone in it, so the agent must be shared with everyone in your organization. Only agents shared with everyone are listed. If the agent you want is missing, it is private or shared with a few people: share it with everyone from its page first, then choose it.
In Teams, people message the agent in a 1:1 chat or @mention it. See talk to your assistant in Teams.
A Telegram bot is different: anyone on Telegram can find it. So for Telegram you also list who can message it, by Telegram user ID.
To change who answers, open the chat app's account under Build > Integrations and click Change under Who answers. The agent's page also shows where it answers, under Messaging, with a Change link.
Only organization owners and admins choose who answers.
Reading conversations
Click Sessions on the agent to see every conversation, from every doorway. Open one to read the transcript, see which tools the agent used, and follow it back to Slack, Telegram, Microsoft Teams, a job, or your software.
Recent delivery failures show up in the agent's Messaging section.
An email address for an agent
An agent can have its own email address, provisioned from its Messaging
section. Mail sent there reaches the agent, and email.received can start a
job.
This is how you point a support@ alias at Mobius, and it's the easiest way to
get real work flowing in without touching your PSA.
Warning: Anyone can email an address. Treat the sender, subject, body, and attachments as untrusted. Keep the assistant's actions narrow. Mobius does not automatically ask a person before an integration action or an ordinary channel reply. Put any required review in the assistant's instructions and test it before forwarding a public support address.
Behind your own software
If you build a portal or an internal tool, you can put the same agent behind a chat window in it. Your backend picks a stable key for each conversation, sends the user's message, and reads or streams the reply.
Nothing about Slack or Telegram is involved, and you don't have to duplicate any configuration.
Request formats, duplicate handling, and reconnection behavior are in Agent invocation. Lower-level control is in Sessions and turns.
FAQ
Should this be a conversation or a routine?
If you already know the request and only the timing changes, ask for a routine. If the person's next message determines what happens, keep it a conversation.
When you're unsure, start with a conversation. It's easier to notice a pattern in real questions and put it on a schedule later than to schedule work you haven't seen yet.
Can a conversation turn into a routine?
Yes. Ask for it in the conversation and the assistant can propose a personal scheduled routine for you to approve. Each occurrence then gets its own run conversation. Use Routines > New routine when you need business custody, responsible people, followers, an event trigger, or explicit account setup.
Next
- Understand what a conversation remembers: agent sessions.
- Connect a provider from the integration catalog.
- Put a chat window in your own software with Agent invocation.
- Operate it from the terminal with the CLI command reference.