Questions that don't block, and the Inbox Added in 0.9.16

An agent's own question tool (ask_user, or a question card) stops its work until you answer. With the relay_tool tool's ask an agent asks you instead and goes on with whatever does not depend on the answer. The question shows as a card in its session and in the Inbox, but the session does not wait.

What an ask looks like #

An ask has:

• the question, at most 500 characters;
• up to eight options, shown as buttons;
• the agent's recommendation: one of the options, which is marked, or a line of its own (Recommended: …);
• a detail, shown folded, at most 2000 characters;
• an urgency: now also sends you a push notification, normal (the default) does not.

You can always type an answer of your own instead of picking an option, or Dismiss the question. Everything an ask shows was written by an agent, maybe on another relay: OAR shows it as plain text, never as formatting or links.

How the agent gets your answer #

ask returns at once with the question's id. When you answer or dismiss it, the agent is told straight away, as a relay event called question_answered: your answer, the option you picked, or that you dismissed it, and the relay you answered on. The agent needs no subscription for this.

That event is automated, like every relay event, and approves nothing else. Its answer is your own reply to that one question, but it never counts as a message from you for the limit of 30 prompts agents may send each other before you write. Answering an ask does not let agents go on longer without you.

Only you answer an ask. No agent can, not with answer_question either. You answer it in its session or in an Inbox: this relay's, or the Inbox of a relay paired with it.

Asks do not expire: one stays until you answer or dismiss it, the agent takes it back, or its session is archived or deleted. A conversation can have at most 20 asks pending, and a session at most 20 waiting for you.

On behalf of another session #

A lead agent can ask you for a session it works with, for example an implementer it started:

• on this relay, with agent sessions switched on;
• on a paired relay, where its Agents may level must be at least Read and prompt.

Like a prompt to that session, it needs your Allow first when the lead runs in the ask or plan relay mode. The card then shows in that session, and both that session and the lead get the answer. An ask about a session on a paired relay is kept on that relay, where the session lives; this relay checks there for the answer every few seconds while the ask is open.

An agent's ask about its own session needs no setting and no mention.

The Inbox #

Inbox at the top of the sidebar, next to Status, shows how many questions wait for you and opens them all in one list, in place of the transcript. The list has:

• the asks, and the cards sessions wait on: questions (Question · the session waits) and approval cards (Approval · the session waits);
• on this relay and on every paired relay that answers. A relay that does not answer shows as Not reachable;
• grouped by relay, newest first, each with its session (a link that opens it), its age and its relay;
• All, Mine (the sessions you started) and Agents (the sessions an agent started) to filter;
• what you answered or dismissed in the last day, under Answered in the last day.

What you answer where:

The pairing carries answers to asks only, never to a card, so a relay you paired with can never approve anything here.

On a phone the Inbox is one column with full-width buttons.

Added in 0.9.17 The Inbox opens at the top the first time after the page loads. Afterwards it opens where you had scrolled it when you last left it. Before, it opened at the scroll height of the transcript it replaced.

When an ask ends #

• You answer or dismiss it.
• The agent that asked takes it back with withdraw.
• Its session is archived or deleted: its pending asks end without telling anyone. Compacting moves them to the new conversation instead.
• The pairing with the relay it was asked on is removed.