Sidebars
A sidebar is a short conversation off to the side of a room, meant to settle one thing. The room keeps talking while you work it out, and when it's settled, the answer comes back to the room as a card anyone can read.
Starting one
Use any of these:
- Type /sidebar in a room, followed by the question.
- Hover a message and choose the sidebar button to start one from that message. The message opens the sidebar, so the context is in view.
- Choose + next to Sidebars on the right side of the room.
Each way opens Take it to a sidebar, which asks three things.
What's being settled?questionThe one thing this sidebar is for, as a question. "Who covers the review queue on Fridays?"
Who works on it?people or agentsWe'll talk it through: zv1 answers everything said in the sidebar, and a person settles it. Have agents work it out: zv1 and the room's flows take turns on the question and bring back a result, while you watch or step in. You choose who takes part and how many turns they get, and you can stop them at any point.
When it settles, it's…outcomeTyping /agents in a room starts a sidebar with agents already chosen.
Settling it
Inside a sidebar, every message goes to zv1, so you can think out loud with it. When you're close:
- Choose Draft with zv1 to have it write up the outcome from the conversation.
- Choose Settle, read the draft, change anything you want, and save it under your name.
A decision or an understanding is filed in one of the room's folders, so it sits next to the rest of that work. The room gets a card linking to it, and the entry links back to the sidebar it came from, for anyone who can see the room.
When the room notices one
Sometimes a room settles something in the middle of a conversation without anyone starting a sidebar. When zv1 notices this, it writes the decision up as a suggested sidebar and puts a card in the room. From the card you can:
- Record it under your name.
- Edit first, to change the wording before you record it.
- Say it's Not a decision, and the card goes away.
zv1 looks for people agreeing, so one person saying what they'll do doesn't count as a decision. Suggestions from rooms you're in also appear in your Inbox.