Chat
Chat is the conversational front door to ACE. Ask a question, describe a bug, or request a feature in plain language, and ACE answers in the same thread. Every conversation is scoped to the current project, so ACE already knows that project's code, and its infrastructure too if you have connected it.
What is Chat for?
Use Chat when you want to talk to ACE directly instead of working a card. For questions and explanations, ACE just answers. For real work like a fix or a new feature, ACE can turn the conversation into a tracked card and hand it off. Chat lives under its own Assistant section in the left sidebar, at /chat, and it needs an active project. With none selected, you see a "No project yet" screen with a Create a project button instead.
Where to find it
- Open Chat: left sidebar → Assistant → Chat, or go straight to
/chat. - Jump in from elsewhere: a Discuss in chat button on a pull request, an incident, a deployment, or a scheduled check opens a conversation already tied to that item. See Context from other pages.
In this section
- Managing conversations: the conversation list, starting a new chat, pinning, hiding and showing, deleting, and the states that disable the composer.
- Composing and messages: the message box and image attachments, starter prompts, how replies stream in, and the kinds of messages in a thread.
- Context from other pages: the Discuss in chat button and the attachment chip it brings with it.
- Action required and work handoff: the inline cards ACE uses when it needs a decision, and how a chat request becomes tracked work.
Who can use Chat?
Chat has one permission, set per project per member in Settings → Workspace → People & access: Use project chat (chat:access). It controls whether you see Chat in the sidebar at all, and whether you can read that project's conversations.
There is no separate "read-only chat" permission. If you have Use project chat, you can normally both read and send. The composer only goes read-only when the project itself is not in a normal, editable state, for example while it is provisioning, archived, or being deleted. Chat then shows a banner: "Read only — chat history remains available, but new turns require an active project."
Deleting a conversation permanently needs an extra permission check per conversation. Some members with chat access can hide and restore conversations but will not see Delete permanently on every conversation's menu.