The Inbox and asks

An ask is a question that needs a person’s answer. An agent opens it on an issue or on a project document. It can offer options to pick from, allow more than one pick, and carry an urgency: Blocking, High, Medium, or Low.

The Inbox is where you find and answer them, and it holds your threads as well: a thread you wrote in that somebody has written in since, and a message you sent an agent that it has answered. One list, one bar over it, one place to look.

The two columns

From a window 1280 px wide or wider, the Inbox page is two columns. The left column lists everything waiting for you, each as a short row: what kind of row it is, what it is about, when it was last written in, and the issue or document it belongs to. The right column holds the row you selected, whole.

Drag the line between the two columns to change how wide each one is. It is also a slider: give it the keyboard focus and the arrow keys move it one step at a time, and double-click it to put it back where it started. Dispatch keeps the width you leave it at, in this browser.

What the right column shows follows the row:

• A question an agent wrote as a decision block opens as its own document, at the section the block sits in. Skip to the answer brings the block itself into view.
• A request to approve a document opens as that document’s latest version, with Approve and Request changes at the head of the column.
• A question anchored on a quote, and a question on no document, open as the card described in Answering an ask.
• A thread opens whole — every message in it, and the box to reply at the end. A thread anchored in a document opens inside that document, under the text it is anchored to.

The Inbox selects its first row when it opens. Click a row to select it, or press j or k. The arrow keys do the same while the focus is in the list. The selected row is in the page’s address as ?item=<id>, so a link or a reload keeps your place. A question the agent withdraws, or that somebody answers elsewhere, leaves the list at once, and the next row is selected.

Three things stay in the column until you select another row: a question you had typed an answer into, which is shown closed with your text to copy; a question whose answer you sent and the server has not decided yet; and a thread you have just read, which is drawn as read where it stands rather than disappearing under you.

Below 1280 px, and in the Inbox drawer at any width, there is no second column. Each row holds its own card: a question with its controls, a thread with its messages, Open, Mark read and Dismiss.

How the list is ordered and grouped

The Inbox opens newest first, grouped by priority: one band per priority, P0 at the top, rows whose issue has no priority last, and everything you snoozed in a folded Later band at the end.

A band draws 50 rows. Where it holds more, Show more under it draws the next 50.

View, at the right end of the bar, changes all of that:

• Sort by: Newest first, the default, or Priority, Urgency, Type, Project, or Assignee. Whichever you pick, rows that match on it are newest first within it.
• Group by: the same five fields, plus Waiting on and None. None is one list with no headings. A band is drawn only when it holds a row, and a snoozed ask is in Later whatever you group by.
• Show: Inbox, the default, or Dismissed, the threads you have taken out of the Inbox. A thread stays in the Inbox, read or not, until you dismiss it.
• Thread order: whether a thread’s replies read Oldest first, the default, or Newest first. This choice is yours everywhere: it sets the order of every thread in Dispatch, not only the ones in the Inbox.

The sort, the grouping and the Show switch are part of the page’s address, so a link carries the view you are looking at. The thread order, the column width and the bands you folded are kept for your browser instead.

Waiting on

Group by → Waiting on bands the list by whose turn it is:

• Waiting on you holds the asks where it is a person’s turn, and every thread, since a thread is waiting for you to read it.
• Waiting on agents holds the asks where an agent owes the next reply. Your own Ask back puts an ask here, and so does an agent’s progress note.

The split follows whose turn it is, not who wrote last. Where a row holds its own card, the row shows a chip such as Planner replied when an agent wrote last and the turn is still yours. Each card also says Waiting on you or Waiting on <agent> on its status line.

Filter

Filter, at the left of the bar, narrows the list by the same five fields: Priority, Urgency, Type, Project and Assignee. Each opens a list you can search, and every value in it carries how many rows it holds, counted inside what the other four fields have already narrowed — so a value that reads 3 has three rows behind it, and picking it never empties the list.

Type is the field that tells the kinds apart: Question, Decision, Approval, Reply and Agent message.

Each value you pick becomes a chip under the bar. Remove one with its ×, or all of them with Clear filters. The filters are in the address as well, so a narrowed list is a link.

The banner at the top, for example Blocked on you: 2 items, oldest 6h, counts the open asks that wait on you and that you have not snoozed, and every credential request waiting on you, whatever the filter below it is set to.

A credential request is an agent asking you to let it use a secret, or a machine asking to start agent sessions as you. Pending ones are listed under Credential requests, above the list. A Secret request links to its page on the Secrets Broker, where you approve or deny it, signed in to the broker (approve a request); Dispatch itself decides no secret request. A Machine login links to Dispatch’s machine-login page, where you type the code the machine shows and approve or deny it (log a machine in). They count toward the sidebar’s Inbox number and the banner like an ask that waits on you. The Inbox says Nothing needs you only when your own list holds no ask and no credential request; with the filter on someone else it says Nothing matches this filter, and with the filter cleared, Nothing needs anyone. An open Inbox picks up a new request, or one that is no longer pending, within moments on its own - no reload needed.

The list does not move under a moving pointer. If the Inbox refreshes while your pointer travels across it, the rows stay put until the pointer rests, leaves the list, or you click.

Whose asks you see

Every ask waits on one person: whoever it was handed to, else the assignee of its issue, else the project’s default assignee. Every project names a default assignee, so every ask reaches somebody. The Assignee field inside Filter picks whose asks the Inbox holds. Its button reads Assignee · you while it is on you, and the list it opens offers Unassigned and everyone who has signed in to Dispatch. Pick as many people as you like; the button then names the one you picked, or how many.

• The Inbox opens on your own asks every visit: the asks waiting on you. Dispatch remembers nothing between visits.
• Unassigned holds the asks Dispatch names no person for, and there are none of those while every project names a default assignee, so it shows an empty list.
• Clear the filter to see every open ask.

The Assign to me button is on an ask Dispatch names no person for, so no ask carries it while every project names a default assignee. Choosing it makes the issue yours, so the ask is in your own list, and your counts, from then on. An ask on a project document belongs to no issue and never has one.

Every open ask carries Asked of, a badge naming the person it waits on and a picker that hands it to somebody else. The badge names a person on every ask: an ask nobody was handed shows the issue’s assignee, and one on an issue nobody holds, or on a project document, shows the project’s default assignee. It is on the card wherever the question is drawn: the Inbox, the issue page and a document’s margin. Hand a question on and it leaves your list and joins theirs, wherever its issue goes after that; hand it back to the issue’s assignee and it follows the issue again. Under the badge the card says who handed it on and when.

The filter is part of the page’s address: one ?assignee= value per person, each a login or the word unassigned, so a link carries the list you are looking at. ?assignee=everyone is the cleared filter, and an address with no assignee is your own asks.

Beside the filter is a Search asks box. Type into it and the list keeps the asks that hold every word you typed, wherever each word sits: in the issue key, in the issue’s title, in the question itself, or in who asked it — a person’s login, and for an agent the session it wrote from, the title that session started under and the person who runs it. An ask on a project document, which belongs to no issue, matches the document’s name too. Capitals make no difference. The f key puts the focus in the box from anywhere on the page, and Escape there puts it back on the selected row, or on the first row when no row is selected.

The box narrows the list the Inbox already holds, as the Assignee filter does: nothing is asked of the server again, so the sections, their counts and the keys that walk the list all follow what you typed. An ask the text hides drops out of the count of ticked asks and out of the snooze that acts on them, and keeps its tick for when it comes back. The credential requests above the list and the Blocked on you summary are not narrowed. When no ask holds every word, the list reads Nothing matches this text.

The text is part of the address too, as ?q=, so a link carries what you searched for as well as whose asks you were looking at.

While the filter names anybody but you alone, the Waiting on you band reads Waiting on a person instead, since those asks wait on whoever holds them.

The banner, a project’s Blocked on you pill and the Agents page’s Needs you pill mean one thing wherever they appear: the open asks whose turn is a person’s, that wait on you and that you have not snoozed. The banner adds the credential requests waiting on you, and so does the sidebar’s Inbox number, which adds your unread threads on top of both; a project’s pill counts no credential request, because a request belongs to no project. None of them follows the filter, so a widened filter lists more asks than the number beside the Inbox.

The Agents page links each agent’s asks too. Its Needs you pill opens the Inbox filtered to that agent’s asks waiting on you, under an Asks from <agent> waiting on you · clear chip. Choose the chip to remove the filter, or the ↗ beside it to open the agent’s live view.

Later and snooze

You can put off an ask instead of answering it now. Every ask has a Snooze control with four choices, at the head of the right column, or on the ask’s own row where there is no second column:

Choice	Comes back
Later today	In three hours, but never after the end of your day.
Tomorrow	At 09:00 tomorrow, in your own time zone.
Next week	At 09:00 next Monday, in your own time zone.
Until I clear it	Only when you end the snooze.

A snoozed ask moves into the folded Later band, which is there whatever you group the list by. Open the band to see when each ask comes back and to end a snooze early. A snooze outranks whose turn it is: an agent replying to a snoozed ask does not bring it back, and it does not count toward the sidebar’s Inbox number or the banner. A thread cannot be snoozed: it is read or it is not.

To snooze several asks at once, tick each row’s checkbox, or press x on the row the right column is showing (on the focused row where there is no second column). A bar appears above the list reading 3 selected, with the same four choices and Clear. If the server refuses some of them, the bar says how many and why, and those rows stay ticked. Press Escape with no row focused to drop every tick.

Replies and agent messages

Two kinds of row in the Inbox are threads rather than questions:

• A Reply row is a thread you wrote in — an ask, a comment thread, a message thread on an issue — that somebody else has written in since you last read it.
• An Agent message row is a one-off message you sent an agent session that the session has answered.

A thread row shows what the thread is about, who it belongs to, and when it was last written in, with a dot while it holds something you have not read. Open the row and the thread is drawn whole: every message, each one you have not read marked New, and the box to reply at the end. A reply you write here goes exactly where one written on the thread’s own page goes.

Reading a thread marks it read. The row stays where it is, drawn as read: a thread stays in your Inbox, read or not, until you dismiss it, the way an email stays in its inbox until it is archived. Where you would rather not read them one at a time, Mark all read, in the bar between Filter and View, marks every thread the list is showing. It asks nothing first: every row is redrawn as read and every count drops at once, and if the server refuses the press the marks come back and the bar says Nothing was marked read. A filtered list marks only what it is showing, and a thread somebody wrote in after the list was read stays unread.

Dismiss is what takes a thread out of the Inbox. It is on the row itself — while your pointer is on the row, and always on the row you are reading — in the right column’s head, and on the card where there is no second column. The key e dismisses the row you are on, and with rows selected the bar above them dismisses all of them at once. A question has no Dismiss: you answer or snooze an ask instead.

What you dismissed is behind View → Show → Dismissed, newest dismissal first, where the same control reads Move to Inbox and one press puts the thread back. Somebody else writing in a thread you dismissed brings it back to the Inbox, unread, on its own; a reply you send from the Dismissed view leaves the thread where it is.

The Type filter has a value for each kind, so Reply narrows the list to those threads alone, which is also what the address /replies opens.

Where there is no second column each thread row is a card, with Open, which goes to the thread’s own page, Mark read and Dismiss.

Answering an ask

An ask card holds the question and the answer. The Inbox draws it in the right column for a question anchored on a quote and a question on no document, in the document itself for a decision block, and in the ask’s own row where there is no second column.

1. Read the question. The line under it names who asked, when, and the ask’s dispatch:// reference, which you can copy.
2. Pick an option. When the ask allows more than one, the options are checkboxes. To answer in your own words, pick Other and type your answer; Other needs text.
3. Add a note if you want. You can type context beside any option.
4. Choose Answer, or press Ctrl+Enter (⌘Enter on a Mac). Enter alone starts a new line.

The ask leaves the Inbox once your answer is saved. Its question, options, and your answer stay on the issue’s Conversation tab.

If the agent edits the question while you are answering, the card loads the new wording, keeps your text, and clears your pick. Pick again so your answer matches the question you read. If someone answered or closed the ask before you, the card says so and offers no retry.

Changing your answer

An answer you gave stays yours to change. Its card shows Change answer, to you and nobody else. Choose it and the form opens with your current pick and note filled in; change them and choose Save answer, or Cancel to keep the answer you had. Approvals have no Change answer: record a new review on the document instead.

The agent that asked receives the new answer as it received the first, with the answer it replaces. Every earlier answer stays on the ask: the card reads Changed <time> and Show 1 earlier answer lists the earlier ones, oldest first. In a document decision, the decision block is rewritten with the new answer.

If someone changed the answer after you opened the card, Dispatch keeps theirs and shows it, so you can decide again from the current answer.

Answered by you

Answered by you, beside the Inbox heading, opens a page of every answer you gave and every reply you wrote on an ask, newest first. Each row shows when, the issue or document, the question, and your answer or reply. Open takes you to the ask: an ask on a document opens that document with the ask selected, and any other opens its turn in the issue’s Conversation. An answer that is no longer the ask’s current one reads Changed since. Your current answers have Change answer, which opens the ask’s card under the row; after you save, the new answer heads the list and the card stays open with both answers.

Ask back

When you cannot answer yet, type what you need to know and choose Ask back. Your question is posted as a reply on the ask. The ask stays open and waits on the agent until it replies.

If you type a question and choose Answer with no option picked, Dispatch checks first. It offers Ask back instead and Answer with it anyway.

Reply thread

An ask’s replies read in the order you chose in View → Thread order: Oldest first, the default, or Newest first. That order is the same for every thread in Dispatch — the Inbox, the margin, a document’s decision block, the Conversation tab — and the reply box sits next to the newest message, so it is under the root in Newest first and at the end in Oldest first.

The root and the two newest replies always show. Older ones fold behind Show N earlier replies, and Show fewer replies folds them back; a reply you have not read never folds. After an ask is answered, write a follow-up in Reply; in the Conversation tab and in document decisions, choose Write a reply first. A reply you are still typing survives if its card remounts elsewhere, such as switching margin tabs away and back.

Approvals

An agent can ask you to approve a document at a specific version.

In the right column the Inbox opens the document’s latest version, with Approve and Request changes at the head of the column. Where you approved the document before, every block that changed since the version you approved is marked, and Next change moves the column to the next one.

Where there is no second column the request is a card. The card reads Approval requested, and its question is Approve <document> (version N)?, followed by the agent’s summary of what that version proposes. The column and the card both offer two fixed choices and no Other row:

• Approve approves that version.
• Request changes needs a reason, which goes back to the agent.

The card also names the document and the version it asks about as a link (everywhere except the document’s own margin, where you’re already on it): opening the ask from the Inbox, the drawer, or its dispatch://.../ask/<id> reference takes you to that document with the approve controls in view, instead of the issue’s Conversation turn. If the document has moved past the version the request named, the link still opens the current document, and the card keeps saying which version the request was for.

When you approved the document before, the card says so under the question: Approved at version N on <date> by <who>. with a Show diff control. Pressing it shows what changed between the version you approved and the one you are asked to approve, with every decision block left out of both, since the answers in those blocks are your own. A first request, on a document nobody has approved, shows neither.

Answering the request is the same review as the Approve and Request changes buttons on the document itself. Documents covers approval states and what a later version does to an approval.

How an ask reaches its agents

Under the answer form, a folded Reaches N line lists every agent session that receives this ask’s answer and replies. Open it to see two groups:

• Followers. The session that opened the ask, every session that replied to it, and any session someone added. Each follower receives the answer, edits, resolution, and every reply directly. Unfollow removes one, after you confirm.
• Via issue subscription (or via document subscription). Sessions subscribed to everything on the issue or document. Unsubscribe stops delivery to one, after you confirm. A session subscribed through a wider topic shows that topic and has no control.

Each row shows the session as Dispatch shows every agent: its name, which opens its live view, and its running mark. A session that reads unresponsive — past its registration window, inside the gone horizon — still receives: the answer is stored for it and arrives when it answers again, so do not unfollow it as ended. The list updates as sessions follow and leave.

Opening the Inbox as a drawer

You don’t have to leave a page to answer an ask. The i key opens the Inbox as a drawer over whatever page you’re on, and so does a header button, which differs by screen width:

• On a phone or a narrow window, the sidebar collapses into a top header whose Inbox badge (or Inbox N, once something is waiting) opens the drawer instead of navigating.
• On a wide screen, the sidebar’s Inbox link still navigates to the Inbox page and keeps its own count; a separate Peek button beside it, with no count of its own, opens the drawer instead.

The drawer holds no second column at any width: every row is a card, as it is on the narrow Inbox page. The actions are the same: answer, ask back, snooze, read a thread or open a row without losing your place. The page underneath keeps its state, a half-typed message included, so a reply you were drafting is still there when you close the drawer.

The drawer carries the same Filter and View, with choices of its own. It opens on your own work, and what you pick there changes the drawer alone: the address of the page underneath never moves. The Search asks box is the drawer’s own in the same way: the drawer keeps what you type there, and it narrows the drawer alone. The two settings that are yours rather than the list’s — the thread order and the bands you folded — are shared with the page, since they belong to your browser.

Escape closes the drawer before it closes anything else behind it, and returns focus to the button that opened it. Clicking outside the drawer closes it too. The button isn’t offered on the Inbox page itself, since the page already shows everything the drawer would.

On a phone

The Inbox works the same on a phone: the same bar, the same bands, and each row a card with its own controls — a question with its options, Assign to me and Snooze, a thread with its messages, Open and Mark read.

The keyboard shortcuts page lists the Inbox’s keys.