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AgentsWorking Across Workstreams

Working Across Workstreams

A conversation with your agent is usually one continuous thread. But sometimes a piece of work keeps coming back — “weekly research roundup,” “track this long-running project” — and the agent doesn’t want to tangle that into the main conversation. Instead, it opens a Workstream: a separate lane for that specific area of work. This page explains when a Workstream appears, what it looks like, and how it’s different from the main conversation.

When does one appear?

A Workstream isn’t something you create from a screen — the agent decides to open one on its own. If it judges that a task is multi-step and likely to come back again, it opens a new Workstream for it. If a similar Workstream already exists, the agent hands the new task to that one instead of creating a duplicate. One-off errands — a single search, a quick calculation — are handled right in place, with no Workstream involved.

If you ask the agent to “keep this as its own thing,” it decides whether the request warrants a Workstream and opens one accordingly.

What does it look like?

  • A card in the main conversation — when a new Workstream opens, a 🌿-marked card appears in the main conversation timeline. It shows the Workstream’s name, recent progress, and plan completion (e.g. 3/5). Tapping it opens that Workstream.
  • Opening the full list — once at least one Workstream has ever existed, there’s a way in from the chat screen. On mobile, it’s an icon button near the top: a badge shows the number of open Workstreams, and a red dot appears if one needs your response. Tap it to open a list that slides in from the side. On desktop, a small tab sits at the boundary between your agent list and the chat — hover over it to reveal the same list sliding out.
  • The Workstream list — the top entry takes you back to the main conversation. Below it, every Workstream is listed with its name, a one-line status summary, plan completion, remaining task count, the model it’s using, running cost, and when it was last active.
  • A “running” indicator — while another Workstream keeps working in the background, a small pill appears above the chat composer telling you it’s running. Tap it to jump straight there.
  • Your message might wait its turn — the agent only ever runs one conversation at a time. If another Workstream is waiting on an approval or an answer, sending a message where you are won’t get processed until that’s resolved. When this happens, a small notice appears above the composer, and tapping “Respond now” jumps you straight to the Workstream that’s waiting.
  • A response-needed alert — if a Workstream you aren’t currently looking at needs an approval or an answer, a small card appears on screen so you can approve, deny, or answer without leaving where you are. Dismissing it just closes the alert — you can still find that Workstream in the list later.

How is it different from the main conversation?

  • The main conversation is always open and never closes. A Workstream closes itself once the agent decides that piece of work is done — or you can close it yourself from the list.
  • A closed Workstream doesn’t disappear — it moves to a “Closed” section at the bottom of the list. If related work comes up again, the agent reopens that same Workstream and picks up where it left off, carrying forward everything it had already learned. A Workstream that’s simply gone quiet for a while is cleaned up automatically the same way and lands in that same “Closed” section — the conversation itself is preserved either way.
  • Approvals and questions raised inside a Workstream resolve automatically faster than ones in the main conversation. The one exception is a question that requires you to take the screen yourself (signing in, verifying an account, and similar steps) — for those, the agent waits until you actually open that Workstream. See Handling Approvals for the details.

Do you get notified when it finishes?

If work you handed to a Workstream finishes — or runs into something it needs to tell you about — while you’re not looking at that screen, you get a notification. Tapping it skips the list and takes you straight to that Workstream. See Notifications for the full rundown of notification types and settings.

How this relates to your automatic-work allowance

Autonomous progress inside a Workstream draws from the same daily automatic-work allowance as any other autonomous run. Once today’s allowance is used up, the Workstream list shows a “Background work resting” notice, and scheduled/background runs pause until they resume on their own within 24 hours. Messages you send directly are never affected by this pause.

Advanced

This section isn’t needed for everyday use. It’s here for when you want to know how Workstreams are created and cleaned up under the hood.

How Workstreams are created and revived

The agent has separate tools for opening a new Workstream, handing a task to an existing one, and marking a Workstream’s work complete. It decides on its own when to use each one — there’s no setting for you to toggle. Completing a Workstream also closes any child Workstream nested under it.

Nesting and concurrency limits

  • Nesting: a Workstream can open one further Workstream beneath it (two levels below the main conversation, total). A Workstream at that second level cannot open another one — it’s told to route the task through the current Workstream instead.
  • Concurrency: an agent can keep at most 20 Workstreams open at once. Once that cap is exceeded, the oldest idle Workstreams with no open tasks are automatically archived. A Workstream with an open task, an active schedule, or an unfinished child Workstream is never archived this way.
  • Repeat-dispatch guard: to stop Heartbeat from repeatedly re-triggering the same Workstream, there’s a minimum 24-hour gap between Heartbeat dispatches to it. Direct requests from you aren’t subject to this gap.

Dormancy, archiving, and deletion timeline

A Workstream with no recent activity is cleaned up in stages:

  • After 7 days with nothing to do, it’s automatically archived (moved to cold storage).
  • A Workstream that finished or failed is archived the same way after 24 hours.
  • Archiving is non-destructive — the conversation is preserved, and a related request instantly reactivates it right where it left off.
  • Once a Workstream has been archived for 90 more days, its conversation is permanently deleted and can no longer be recovered.

Approval and question wait-time caps

As covered in Handling Approvals — How long the agent waits, approvals raised inside a Workstream are capped at 10 minutes and questions at 15 minutes — even when a schedule or heartbeat multiplier would otherwise extend it further. This cap doesn’t apply to the main conversation. The one exception is a question where the agent hands screen control over to you, which keeps its original wait time. These numbers may be tuned as the feature stabilizes.

Cost

Usage inside a Workstream is billed in credits and counts toward the agent’s daily automatic-work allowance like any other autonomous run. You can see it broken out by trigger on the agent page’s Logs subpage.

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