Side Chats

A side chat lets you ask a question about a task without interrupting the agent. A throwaway copy of the agent's own session answers in a side panel, with the conversation so far as context, including a turn in progress. Neither your question nor the answer is added to the task's conversation, files or history.

Use it for questions such as “Why did the agent choose this approach?” or “Which checks has it finished so far?”

Open a Side Chat

On the task page, use any of these entry points:

• Press Ctrl/Cmd+; to open or close the panel. The shortcut works while typing in a field, but not while a task dialog is open.
• On desktops and tablets, click the Side chat tab on the right edge of the page.
• On phones (screens 767px wide or narrower), tap the Side chat button next to the microphone in the reply bar.
• Click the Side chat button in the Conversation panel header.
• Type /btw <question> in the follow-up box and submit it. For example: /btw What is the agent checking now? A bare /btw opens the panel without asking a question.

If you ask Ask CoderFlow where side chat is, it points at the Side chat tab.

The task page sends a /btw question to the side panel, never to the agent, even while the agent is working or Reply to all is selected. If side chat is unavailable, the question is not sent. CoderFlow's HTTP API also rejects follow-up submissions and queued follow-up edits that begin with the /btw command; mentioning it later in ordinary follow-up text is allowed.

In the panel, type a question and press Enter or click Send. Use Shift+Enter for a new line; on a touch keyboard, Enter adds a new line and Send sends. Questions can be up to 8,000 characters.

You can also dictate a question, as in Ask CoderFlow: click the microphone button in the question box, or press Ctrl+M while the box has focus. Check the words, then send them; Esc discards them without closing the panel. The microphone appears when your browser supports speech recognition or an administrator has added an OpenAI API key account.

Dock the Panel

The panel opens over the right edge of the page. To keep the whole task in view while you ask, click Dock side by side in the panel header. The panel then sits beside the page, which narrows to make room for it. Click the button again to lay the panel over the page instead.

• Your choice is remembered in this browser and applies whenever the panel opens.
• If the window is too narrow to dock, the panel opens over the page until there is room. The button is unavailable and says why.
• While the Conversation or Files panel is docked open, the side chat opens over it. It docks again once that panel is closed.
• Maximize fills the page with the panel. Restore it to dock it again.
• With Ask CoderFlow docked on the same side, the side chat opens beside it.
• On phones the panel always fills the screen.

What the Answer Can Tell You

Side chats answer from the conversation only. They cannot use tools, read additional files, change files or run commands. If the conversation does not contain the answer, the side chat may not know it.

During a turn, the agent may still be waiting for a tool or test result. A side answer can explain what has happened so far, but cannot report results the agent has not produced yet. Each answer is labelled Side answer, with its agent and model, to distinguish it from the working agent's own messages.

Work with Answers

Action	What it does
Copy	Copies the answer to your clipboard.
Use as follow-up	Appends the answer to any existing follow-up draft and focuses the box. It does not send anything; review or edit the draft before submitting it to the agent.
Stop	The Send button becomes Stop while an answer runs. It stops the current side answer and keeps any text received so far, marked as stopped. The task's agent keeps working.
New side chat (+)	Stops any running side answer, removes this task's side-chat history from the tab and empties the question box.

Asking a new question replaces a running side answer. Closing the panel also stops the answer for the task in view; Esc closes it when focus is in the panel. If an answer fails or times out, use Retry when offered.

History and Privacy

Side-chat history is kept per task in your browser tab's session storage. It survives a reload in that tab, but is not saved on the CoderFlow server or shared as part of the task. Use New side chat to remove it. In a task group, the panel follows the variant you select, with separate history for each task.

Each new question sends the newest completed side exchanges as context: up to 20 exchanges, further limited to 24,000 text characters by the server. Stopped or failed answers are not included. The question and this recent history are processed through the task's agent account to produce an answer.

Requirements and Availability

Side chats support Claude, Codex, Grok and Gemini/Antigravity. They are not available for Kimi or Bob. You need access to the task and the tasks:execute permission. Permission to send follow-ups (tasks:change) is not enough on its own. The entry buttons appear only when the task supports side chats and you have execute permission.

Side chats are unavailable for Portal tasks, IBM i import tasks, interactive terminal tasks, objectives, judge/review tasks, deploy tasks, test tasks and documentation-publishing tasks. Ordinary tasks created from templates and resubmitted tasks remain eligible.

The task container must be running, with the agent's session ready. A completed task can still answer side questions while those conditions hold.

Situation	What to do
Container stopped	Use Start container in the panel, then ask again. A paused or restarting container cannot run side questions either.
Container removed	Continue the task in a new container before asking.
“The agent is starting. Try again in a moment.”	The agent's session is not ready yet, which can happen at the start of a turn. Wait briefly, then use Retry.
A rewind is prepared	Continue the agent from the rewind point before asking another side question.
A fork's conversation is still being prepared	Wait until the fork's first turn has started, then retry.
Another operation is using the task's state	Wait for the operation, such as starting a follow-up, pulling changes, taking a fork snapshot, approving changes or container cleanup, to finish, then retry.

Codex tasks using a custom model provider cannot run side chats yet. Grok may ask you to retry shortly while its credentials refresh.

Usage

Side chats run on the task's own agent account and count toward that account's usage limits. Each side question uses the provider to generate a separate answer.