Chat

Chat puts the conversation in the same place as the work, and it is free on every plan. Channels, direct messages and threads live next to your tasks, so a decision made in a message can become a task or a call without leaving the thread.

Chat is not gated. A workspace on the Free plan gets all of it.

Channels and direct messages

The chat rail has three groups:

Workspace channels are open to everyone in the workspace.
Project channels belong to a project and follow project membership.
Direct messages are one to one.

Every channel has a name and an optional topic, both shown in the header. Search covers message bodies and returns the matching snippet, not just a list of hits.

Threads

Replying to a message opens a thread in a side panel rather than adding to the channel. The parent message keeps a reply count, so a long discussion stays in one row instead of pushing the rest of the channel off screen.

Task chips

Type a task identifier and it becomes a live chip:

Type #ATL-4 and the run collapses into a chip as soon as you finish the digits.
Type # on its own to open a picker that fuzzy-searches recent tasks by title or identifier.
Paste a bare ATL-4 or an in-app task URL and it converts on paste.

The chip is not styled text. Hovering shows the task name, current state, priority and the first few assignees; clicking opens the task. The same chip works in task descriptions, task comments, wiki pages and board nodes, so an identifier means the same thing everywhere.

Slash commands

Two commands reach out of the message and into the work graph:

Command	What it does
`/task`	Turns the message into a real task in the project, with the message body as the description.
`/huddle`	Starts a huddle in this channel. Anyone in the channel can join from the header.

Reactions, pins and attachments

Reactions: any emoji, grouped with a count, click to add or remove yours.
Pins: pin the messages that matter (a sprint goal, a decision) and read them back from the pin panel in the header.
Attachments: drag a file onto the composer or use the paperclip. Links to public pages unfurl into a preview card.

Unread and notifications

Unread is tracked with a monotonic sequence number per channel rather than a timestamp, so the new-messages divider lands in the same place on every device and does not drift when messages arrive out of order. The rail shows a per channel badge, and the workspace nav shows the total.

Per-channel notification preferences let you mute a busy channel without leaving it.

Keyboard

Keys	Action
`Alt` + `Up` / `Down`	Previous or next channel
`Alt` + `Shift` + `Up` / `Down`	Previous or next channel with unread messages

Huddles for the calls that start from a channel.
Task autolinks for the chip behaviour in every other editor surface.